On Wed, 8 Jun 2005 08:42:32 +0800, Robert Delfs <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>Oy vey, where to start.

Oi, I know where to end ... skipping over to

>Nicht wahr.  Actually MANY words (characters) in Chinese are
>"assembled" from a collection of other characters.  A case in
>point is LING (two pieces of WOOD side by side).  If you put
>another piece of wood on top of LING, you get "forest" or
>"jungle".

I forgot to mention that two pieces of wood side by side is the
character for my last name, LING, meaning a forest, actually.
Stack another piece of wood, you get a big forest or jungle.

>
>WRONG WRONG WRONG.

> But the word for forest lin (not ling)

That's interesting!  :-)  Did you know that Ling, Lin, Lim, Lam,
Lum, and a few other spellings are the same "forest" character
in Chinese?  MY Last name had been Lam (in Hong Kong) until I
got my passport which changed into my dad's spelling of LING.


> which is composed of a reduplicated tree (not "piece of
> wood") radical already existed long before anybody made
> up the character.

BWhahahahaha!  Robert, I don't suppose you knew that I am a
native Chinese, educated in Hong Kong until high school
graduation, having studied Chinese literature through the
LEVEL of a post-doctorate in the Chinese Language as a
Language of study in the USA -- which of course is not
saying much, but certainly knows a piece of wood from a
forest, especially when that's my NAME.   :-))

Even Babelfish knows that character (a crucifix cross with
two legs sticking out) is the character for "wood"!


>>Being a famous cook book author yourself, you should know that there
>>is a fine line (in Cantonese) between going into a restaurant and
>>order a dish with "gai see" (shredded chicken) and "gai see"
>>(chicken shit).  But most Chinese waiters are astute enough to
>>decipher by context (unless you look really weird) that chicken
>>shit is NOT what you had in mind.
>
>>They also know that you "ma" (mother) is probably not a "ma" (horse)
>>or some other "ma"s.
>
>Those words are pronounced with completely different tones - and sound
>as different to any Chinese as they would to you if they had different
>vowels or consonants.  They only "seem" identical to a Western ear, or
>if spelled phonetically using a Western phonetic representation system
>that is insensitive to and cannot express tonal differences.

That's partly true, but don't think for a minute that the intonations
(which is the MOST difficult thing for 'ferners to learn) is as
clear and obvious as you made it seem.

I went to a New York restaurant in Chinatown to order some roast
pork, and I wanted it "lean" (pronounced "sou" as in "south").
But the waiter laughed when it came out with a SLIGHT tinge of
"ts" instead of "s", and it would have meant "stinky" instead of
"lean".

>(And tone
>does not mean just tone - the length of the vowel is probably the most
>important discriminant, which is why Chinese can easily understand
>their own language (and distinguish between mothers and horses) when it
>is whispered over the telephone, with all tonal information removed.

It's more CONTEXT than tone.  You can easily infer you mother is
riding a horse rather than the horse riding your mother even if
you don't get the intonation perfectly.
>

I think that's enough lesson on Chinese and LING.   :-)

FeeeshLING, which is not a little fish, but Feeesh standing
next to two pieces of Chinese wood!