Andrew Higgins, a Minnow (Pop: 3 Million) Defies a Whale (Pop: 1.4 Billion); Lithuania angered by Chinese phones. New York Times, Oct 1, 2021, at page A4.
Quote:
"officials in Lithuania * * * discovered that a popular Chinese-made handset sold in the Baltic nation had a hidden though dormant feature: a censorship registry of 449 terms banned by the Chinese Communist Party. Lithuania's government swiftly advised officials using the phones to dump them, enraging China — and not for the first time.
"Lithuania's military has no tanks or fighter jets
"Lithuania [] does little trade with China * * * China has little leverage over it. * * * Other European countries declaring fealty to democratic values have rarely acted on them in their relations with China.
"In 1990, Lithuania was the first Soviet republic to declare its independence from Moscow — a cause led by the foreign minister's [Gabrielius Landsbergis's] grandfather, Vytautas Landsbergis.
"The hidden registry found by the center allows for the detection and censorship of phrases like 'student movement,' 'Taiwan independence,' and 'dictatorship.' The blacklist, which updates automatically to reflect the Communist Party’s evolving concerns, lies dormant in phones exported to Europe but, according to the cyber center, the disabled censorship tool can be activated with the flick of a switch in China. * * * The maker of the Chinese phones in question, Xiaomi, says its devices 'do not censor communications.'
Note:
(a) The surname Higgins has three origin, per Dictionary of American Family Names, by Oxford Univ Press:
(i) "Irish: Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó hUiginn 'descendant of Uiginn,' a byname meaning 'viking' (from Old Norse [noun masculine] víkingr [viling]).
(ii) "Irish: variant of Hagan"
(iii) English child of a person with "the medieval personal name Higgin, a pet form of Hick," which in turn is a pet form of Richard. "The substitution of H- as the initial resulted from the inability of the English to cope with the velar Norman R-."
, whose "Did You Know" section states in full: "Velar is ultimately derived from Latin velum (meaning 'curtain' or 'veil'), which was itself adopted into English by way of New Latin as a word for the soft palate (the fold at the back of the hard palate-palate, by the way, refers to the roof of the mouth-that partially separates the mouth from the pharynx). Velar is used by phonologists to refer to the position of the tongue in relation to the soft palate when making certain sounds [such as k]. Other terms for what phonologists refer to as 'places of articulation' are palatal (tongue against the roof of the mouth) [eg, y in yes], dental (tongue against the upper teeth) [θ and ð in IPA, and alveolar (tongue against the inner surface of the gums of the upper front teeth) [n, t, d, n, s, z, l (letter L): in the order of and per wikipedia in (iii)(A) below]."
(ii) palate (n; from Latin [noun neuter] palatum [all definitions of palate in English immediately below]):
"1: the roof of the mouth separating the mouth from the nasal cavity
2a: a usually intellectual taste or liking <too ornate for my palate> <… I heard a little too much preaching … and lost my palate for it. — George Eliot>
b: the sense of taste <serves Korean food adapted for the American palate>" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/palate consis of hard palate (of bone) and soft palate (tissue)
Anatomically, a palate consists of both hard palate (of bone) in front (toward lips) and soft palate (tissue) in the back.
(iii)
(A) English phonology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology
(section 1.1 Consonants: table)
(B) Kevin Russell (in 2021 professor, Department of Linguistics, Univ of Manitoba), Describing consonants. In Articulation. University of Manitoba. Sept 8, 2009 https://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~kr ... ing-consonants.html
(showing tongue positions except for consonant j)
• The consonant j in IPA is y in American notations. See voiced palatal approximant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_palatal_approximant
("The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨j⟩. * * * in the Americanist phonetic notation it is ⟨y⟩")
• IPA symbol: [j] https://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~kr ... lish-symbols/j.html
([examples:]yes, yellow, cute (IPA:[kjut] The IPA [j] symbol represents the y sound, just like the letter j usually does in German [eg, male given name Jens and Jan]. (The IPA symbol [y] does not represent this sound. It represents a non-English vowel sound -- pronounced with your lips rounded -- as in French [noun feminine; from Latin noun feminine lūna moon] lune [lyn] 'moon.') ")
• Jens (given name) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jens_(given_name)
, where j is pronounced the same as that in yes.
• Jan (name) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_(name)
(in German, it is a male given name, where j is pronounced as y in yes. "In English, it is a shortened form of the first names Janice, January [as in actress January Jones] or Janet, with corresponding pronunciation [where j is pronounced as dʒ in IPA]")
(C) International Phonetic Alphabet 国际音标/ 万国音标 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet
(was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century)
(iv) English adjective alveolar has a corresponding noun
alveolus (n; Latin, diminutive of [Latin noun masculine] alveus cavity [plural: alveī]; due to its Latin origin, English plural (same as Latin plural): alveoli):
"1: a small cavity or pit: such as
a: a socket in the jaw for a tooth
b: a small air-containing compartment of the lungs in which the bronchioles terminate and from which respiratory gases are exchanged with the pulmonary capillaries" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alveolus
It is definition 1a that fits the bill.
• pulmonary alveolus https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulmonary_alveolus
(also known as an air sac)
is where, during breathing, oxygen enters, and carbon dioxide leaves, blood passing through capillaries.
(c) "Despite its puny size, Lithuania looms surprisingly large in Chinese calculations, said Wu Qiang, a political analyst in Beijing, partly because of its role as a transit corridor for trains carrying goods from China to Europe."
(i) 吴强 (1970- ; 德国杜伊斯堡大学政治系（东亚所）政治学博士, 2008, 中国人民大学贸易经济系经济学学士 1992; 清华大学政治学系讲师 2009-2015)
(ii)
(A) 渝新欧铁路 itself does not pass through Lithuania, but through Belarus (a nation on the eastern and southern border of Lithuania). Enlarge and view map in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus
(B) However, somehow 中国邮政号 has its destination at Lithuania capital, via 渝新欧铁路. See
李勇 and 赵宇飞, 中欧班列成'一带一路'上'新邮差.' 参考消息, Nov 23, 2020
m.xinhuanet.com/cq/2020-11/23/c_1126775188.htm
(photo caption: "4月3日，中欧班列（渝新欧）'中国邮政号'首发专列在重庆团结村站等待发车（无人机照片）")
was held on Feb 24, 1990 with run-off elections on Mar 4, 7, 8 and 10, 1990 (to decide on inconclusive elections, usually one where no candidate receives a majority or 50% of the votes) to elect the 141 members of the Supreme Soviet. The pro-independence Sąjūdis (Lithuanian noun for "movement") movement refused to become a political party and endorsed non-partisan candidates or candidates of various other political parties based on their personal merits. In the first session (starting Mar 10, 1990) of the newly elected Lithuanian Supreme Soviet, on Mar 11, the Supreme Soviet elected Vytautas Landsbergis (1932- ; PhD in, and professor, of music before entering politics in 1988 by co-founding Sąjūdis), leader (and co-founder) of Sąjūdis, as its chairman. On the same day the Soviet changed its name to the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania, re-adopted interwar coat of arms, and passed the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania (124 votes in favor, 6 abstentions, none opposed).
(e) Xiaomi's "Mi 10T 5G" phone software, is implicated in this scandal. The software is the platform of various languages in smartphones of 小米.