On Wed, 8 Jun 2005 15:03:33 +0800, Robert Delfs <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>On Tue, 7 Jun 2005 21:58:03 -0400, Reef Fish wrote:
>
>>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.   :-))
>
>Then you're a speaker of Cantonese.

When I was in Hong Kong.

>When I say "Chinese" of course I
>mean standard putonghua, based on Beijing dialect of Mandarin.

I spoke Mandarin when I was in Nanking (now Nanjing), and also
the dialects of Schezwan (now spelled Sitzwan or something)
and Shanghai.  I can still speak Mandarin as much as I can
speak Cantonese -- neither very much.  :-)

But in my world travel, I found Cantonese was spoken or
understood by those in foreign countries, over the "official
mandarin",  by a ratio of at least 10 to 1.

But the WRITTEN piece of WOOD in my name LING is the same, no
matter what the spoken dialect is.


As far
>as I'm concerned, the so-called dialects of Chinese are separate
>(though related) languages, in the same sense that we regard Spanish,
>French, Portuguese and Italian to be separate  but related languages.

Wrong AGAIN.  Remember what I said about the linguists in their
lexicographic reconstruction of the evolution of languages via
numerical taxonomy and evolutionary trees?  A dialect, while
they SOUND completely differently (as you noted), they are NOT
considered different languages.

India has over 300 different languages -- that are NOT mere
dialects.  That's why the Indian Parliament use English as its
official language -- the Indian English of course.  :-)


>And of course, there are many names as well as other words that are
>cognate among all the Romance languages, mean the same thing, but are
>pronounced differently, and thus spelled differently using the western
>phonetic system.

Cognates and false cognates are hosses of different colors from
what we speak about intonation, dialects and languages.  There are
many cognates as well as false cognates between English and French.


>We wouldn't accept an argument from a Spaniard that the correct
>pronunciation of "I" (je) in French in "yo".   The closest English
>spelling to the Chinese word for forest is "lin", not "ling", which
>happens to be the closest approximation in English spelling to the word
>for forest in another language - Cantonese.

Totally wrong!  Lin and Ling are both English renditions of the
Chinese character "forest" in Mandarin.  Lim (as in Poe) is in still
another dialect.  Lam and Lum are the Cantonese versions of
the same written character.  There are others pronunciations of
the same word in other dialects.

>
>If Western Europe used Chinese characters, all their words for "I",
>"fish", and "forest" could also be written with the same characters,
>much as all Europeans have adopted universal non-phonetic traffic signs
>and universal symbols for "bathroom", "no smoking", etc., each of which
>is "pronounced" differently by speakers of different languages.  So
>what?

"no comprede", "je ne comprond pas", "ich verstehe nicht", ...
"ah dun unnerstand yo jive dude."

>
>>Even Babelfish knows that character (a crucifix cross with
>>two legs sticking out) is the character for "wood"!
>
>The mu (wood) radical can mean "wood" when used as a character that is
>part of a compound word

BS!  It stands alone very well when you want to talk about a piece
of wood!

> (such as mutou "wood" in Mandarin),

the "tou" meaning "head" is rather unnecesary, especially when you
use "wood" as an adjective, as in "wooden".


but when
>used as an isolated character representing a complete word itself, it
>means tree,  though it is only used (as far as I know)

Nope.  And you don't know far enough.>

>as an isolated
>character in classical Chinese, the standard Chinese for "tree" of
>course being "shu"..

True.  But LING (two pieces of wood side by side is a forest).
Just don't call me Forest Gum.   Forest Lum or Ling or Lam ok.


>The graph for the mu radical, whether used as an
>radical element as in the character LIN (forest), or as an isolated
>character in classical Chinese, doesn't - and has never - meant "a
>piece of wood".

True, but "wood" nevertheless.  "a piece of" would have to be
qualified by additional Chinese characters for "a piece of".


Robert, while it is a credit to you that you seem to know more
about the Chinese language than most 'ferners, your lectures on
Chinese and its usage just ain't cuttin' no mustard or musturd.


>The tones are clear and obvious to any native speaker of any Chinese
>language, which is all that counts.  And are much more difficult in the
>Cantonese, the language you grew up speaking, than in Mandarin, the one
>I learned NOT at my mother's knee.

I grew up speaking Mandarin.  THEN I switched to Cantonese.  The
WRITTEN language is the same.  That's why your theory about the
Chinese characters surround my family name LING is all wet.

>
>And when I say language, as I mentioned above, I mean Cantonese,
>Shanghainese, Fukkienese, and Mandarin as different languages (in the
>same sense that Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian are different but
>related languages).

You're repeating yourself.  I used to speak 3 of those four dialects,
of the same language.

Multi-dialectal Forest Lum, aka Lo Yu.