On Thu, 9 Jun 2005 09:47:19 +0800, Robert Delfs <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>On Wed, 8 Jun 2005 20:05:06 -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
Robert, after several rounds of our conversation ABOUT the
Chinese language, all I can definitively conclude is that you
ain't Chinese, you don't know Chinese as a language, and you
are not a linguist.
I'll make it short.
>
>>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.
>
>True in the US,
I was speaking of my experience in the WORLD outside of the US.
Paris, Rome, London, Amsterdam, Tahiti, and a few other places
in the world I didn't expect Cantonese would come in handy
whereas Mandarin was foreign to those who understood Cantonese.
But that's just personal experience. Nothing conclusive.
>>But the WRITTEN piece of WOOD in my name LING is the same, no
>>matter what the spoken dialect is.
That is conclusive.
>
>The written graph that represents the word that means "forest" in
>Chinese languages/dialects is not the word (or words), it is a sign
>that represents that word/those words.
You statement makes no sense.
There are only about 100 different last names in China. The
character meaning "forest", my last name, is ONE of those 100.
Whether it's written in ENGLISH as LING, LIN, Lam Lum, Lim,
and a few ohter ways, it's the same Chinese character!
>>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.
Talk to a LINGUIST (a specialist in the study of languages) and
s/he will tell you how wrong you are. There is only ONE Chinese
language, but plenty of dialects. Whether they sound alike or
not is NOT how a linguist define different languages.
>As I said, IN THE SENSE THAT WE REGARD SPANISH, FRENCH, PORTUGUESE to
>be different languages.
But linguist regard those as different languages for entirely
different reasons than how differently they sound.
>Whether to call two related speech systems two different languages or
>different dialects of the same language is really a matter of how one
>defines languages and dialects.
Exactly! That's how the LINGUIST differentiate them. While their
notion is not as well developed as mathematics, what you are saying
about languages is like saying 8 is not much different from
infinity because they look alike, one standing up and one lying
down.
>Most serious comparative linguists now
>regard the Chinese group as made up of four or five main language (or
>dialect groups), each of which has its own "dialects". Thus, the
>Mandarin dialects spoken almost everywhere north of the Yangzi River
>(plus Sichuan); the Wu group of dialects (including Shanghainese)
>spoken in the lower Yangzi Delta (Jiangsu, Zhejiang);
>Fujianese/Hokkienese spoken in Fujian, southern Zhejiang, and northern
>Guangdong; Cantonese group (spoken in most of Guangdong and parts of
>Guangxi), plus the other languages spoken in China that are not closely
>related to any Chinese tongue (Tibetan, Uighur, Dai/Kadai, Mongol,
>etc.)
Never heard of this "group" theory. The groups have the same written
language. Shanghai is closer to Nanjing as I am from Memphis TN, I
think, yet the two dialects are as different as French and German,
but they are the same language.
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.
>
>Feesh, you're arguing about different spellings (using different
>romanization systems) of different words in different
>languages/dialects whatever. And LING is not a romanization of the
>word meaning "forest" in any Mandarin romanization system I know -
There ain't NO romanization system in Chinese, Robert! Those are
just the way the character "forest" is PRONOUNCED in different
dialects in China. Who are YOU to say LIN is the only way to
pronounce the Chinese character meaning "forest"? Do you know
any character for Lim, Lam Lum, and Ling that is written
differently from the Chinese character for Lin? Of cousre not.
>Feesh, I don't want to get into the argument about "mu" and "wood"
>except to say that when mu is used as part of a compound word such as
>"mutou" then it is not functioning as an adjective. And MU in
>isolation doesn't mean a "stick of wood" - at least not in Mandarin
>Chinese. I hasten to admit that nothing I'm saying necessarily applies
>to Cantonese, which I don't speak and which, as I've tried to argue
>here, is really a separate language with a grammar and lexicon that is
>related and similar but quite distinct from Mandarin and other Chinese
>languages/dialect groups.
Then you are as WRONG about Cantonese and Mandarin as you are about
the Chinese language and dialect. A cantonese will have NO PROBLEM
whatsoever reading a newspepr of Beijing or Nanjing, and vice
versa. The (written) language is one and the same, contrary to
your speculation.
On that note, I think we have already far over-extended this OT
discussion of the Chinese language, and should move on to other
subjects, OT (On) or OT (Off).
-- Bob.
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