Alyssa Kessler, Sue Kim, Katie Kyne, Hana Saito

Professor Kennedy
Linguistics 70
Brad McDonnell, M 5-6

Asian is not a Language

In media, “Asian” is often portrayed as one language despite the distinctive features

found in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Although many people in the United States compile and

construct a pan-Asian language, there are differences in the phonetics, phonological structures,

syntactical structures, lexical structures, and the discourse. Folk linguistic attitudes are that

Asians are either unwilling to learn how to speak English, or are unable to. Margaret Cho, a

Korean- American, promotes the ideology that “Asian” is a language in her stand-up act, “I’m

the One that I Want”.

Many people in the United States do not take Asians seriously due to the perception that

Asians are incompetent because of their struggles to achieve Standard English. Margaret Cho

characterizes phonetic features of a variety of Asian languages, and simplifies these

characteristics into one pan-Asian language. In her performance, she makes many phonetic

generalizations; for example, she says, “YOUR EYE IS TOO BIG!!” in a guttural,

pharyngeanlized voice that typifies Asians to all have an aggressive and guttural tone. In reality,

Japanese speakers do not have this tone of voice. Cho also imitates a very stereotypical phonetic
sound of Asian women, the soft and delicate falsetto voice. Many folk linguists believe this

stereotype to apply to all Asian women, but in reality, Japanese and Chinese women rarely use

this tone to speak in. Another folk linguistic belief of Asians is that they all speak in a high-

pitched tone. In one of Cho’s stand-up acts, she says when she wants to pretend she doesn’t

speak English, she replies, “I don’t know!” in an extremely high-pitched voice. Japanese people

are not known to speak in this sort of tone, although it is generalized to the entire Asian

population. Along with phonetic differences in Asian-English vernacular, there are an abundance

of differences that continue to distinguish them.

Phonology is a category in which many Asians are generalized and beleaguered for.

Sudden rising and falling intonation is highlighted when Asians speak English varieties. Cho

exemplifies this stereotype in the utterance of, “What is your membership number?” in the tone

of, high; low high; high low; high; high low. The Japanese language does not have the sudden

fall and rise of the intonation. Alveolarization is a feature in Japanese and Korean languages,

which causes “everything” to sound like “everysing”. This phonological process is not present in

the Chinese language. Many Asian English speakers are often accused of turning “l” into “w”.

For example, Cho turns “tall” into “taw”. Chinese people often struggle to make this distinction,

but Korean and Japanese speakers do not have an issue with this feature.
 Syntactical structure is highly important to Standard English speakers, and the

discrepancies are often highlighted when Asian English speakers talk. Tense neutralization is a

crucial process that is highly valued by standard English speakers. Many English speaking Asian

are accused of tense neutralization; in Cho’s stand-up act, she imitates an Asian who doesn’t

speak standard English by saying, “I grow up on the rice paddy; I come to America”. English

speaking Chinese do not usually make this mistake. An absence of copula is another noticeable

feature of the pan-Asian language. Although English speaking Japanese and Chinese people do

not struggle with this process, some Koreans do, as Cho imitates, “You too tall; you gay”.

Another prominent feature in the pan-Asian language, is the absence of articles. Although folk

linguists generalize this aspect of language to the entire English speaking Asian population,

Japanese English speakers do not have an issue with this. For example, Cho states, “Because that

is very good way to lose weight. I want eggroll”. A simple negation with “no” is a highlighted

feature of English speaking Asians. Cho makes the statement, “I am no chicken”. Koreans tend

to have an issue with this process, while Chinese and Japanese English speakers tend to avoid

doing this.

Lastly, discourse features of Asian-English vernacular are picked on and highlighted by

folk linguists. Non-contractions are a feature that is commonly highlighted when Asians speak

English varieties. For example, Cho states, “What do you mean I am fucking cock? I am not a
rooster. I am no chicken”. Folk linguists often describe non-contractions as a typical attribute of

the pan-Asian language, when in actuality both Japanese and Korean speakers tend to avoid non-

contractions. Abrupt topic changes are a noticeable trait that is often generalized to the entire

Asian population, but Japanese English speakers do not do this. There are many differences in

Korean, Japanese, and Chinese, which all translate to differences in those populations speaking

English as a second language.

The form of our message comes in a poster and a website. We decided to choose these

mediums for several reasons. The poster is fantastic for delivering information right on the spot

to a wide variety of audience; it will be seen whether people are interested in our issue or not.

We have also developed a website (http://asian_is_not_a_language.lifeyo.com/Home/) so that

those who were interested could spend more time looking at the information we are presenting.

A website is an efficient and effective method in spreading our message. It will give people the

opportunity to thoroughly check out the research behind our claim that “Asian is not a Language”

and it will allow others to easily share the information by simply sending a url link to others. Our

poster is an important visual cue in our presentation; it allows others to immediately see some

concrete information, rather than just hearing it. Our slogan “Asian is not a Language” is

incredibly important for our message because it’s bold and straight to the point. We want our

slogan to be representative of our information and easy to understand at a glance, which it is.
We use linguistic data to back up our claims; the most important data for our project is “Beyond

Yellow English” an explanation done by Angela Reyes and Adrienne Lo, and published by the

Oxford University Press. We discussed the negative attitudes associated with the pan-Asian

language and the stereotypes associated with these attitudes. Asians speaking English as their

second language are often generalized as making the same mistakes while speaking English,

which we have proved, is completely false. Many Asians are not taken seriously because they do

not comply with Standard English, but the reasons behind this are not understood. Asian

languages are complex and have completely different structures and processes than English;

these processes and different structures are then applied to English, and stereotypes and negative

attitudes arise.

The goal of our message is simple: to educate the people of the United States about the

falseness of this pan-Asian language, and to reveal the truth behind the complexities and

variances between Chinese-English vernacular, Japanese-English vernacular, and Korean-

English vernacular. I expect that readers and viewers will learn quite a bit from our project;

although many people may not hold negative stereotypes about Asian-English speakers, those

same people may not fully understand the differences in each vernacular, and the reasons behind

why Asian-English speakers do not speak Standard English. The alternative attitude presented is

that Asian-English speakers should be better treated and taken more seriously since the reasoning
behind the negative stereotypes is convoluted. Also, now that the differences in Asian-English

vernacular (for Korean, Chinese, and Japanese) have been explained, the argument that they’re

“all the same” is adequately disproven. We have sufficiently responded to and refuted the folk

linguistic attitude in which we are discussing. The so-called “logic” behind the folk linguistic

beliefs that Asians all speak the same language has thoroughly been discredited.

We have broken down the features of mock Asian presented in Margaret Cho’s standup

comedy performance “I am the one I want” and provided evidences that three commonly

encountered East Asian languages in the United States, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese are

unique and separate languages. The folk linguistic belief states that all Asians speak alike. There

is also a linguistic ideology that Asians do not speak English well. Such belief is conveyed

widely in the media today in the form of mock Asian. Any mock language is hurtful to the

speaker of language being mocked and harmful to the society. However, mock Asian is

unconventionally harmful. Mock Asian assumes that all Asian languages are the same,

potentially discrediting Asian people’s identity. Undeniably, some speakers of East Asian

languages have difficulty mastering English as their second language. Learner’s language shall

not be mocked to begin with. But above all else, mock Asian is based on a wrong concept. Asian

is not a language. The society has to be informed to remove the existing folk linguistic belief that

all Asians speak in the same way.