The Meaning of Plants (2)

橄榄：olive; when bitterness is gone it will be sweet:

赵佶（1082－1135A.D.）was a well know emperor at Song Dynasty. He is good artist for his calligraphy and paint:

Calligraphy:

Pic from: http://www.seekfun.com.cn/shuhua/UploadFiles_6576/200904/20090423112723529.jpg

And his painting:

Pic from: http://img3.ph.126.net/xVIdhmEMqVupqtcxWcgWMQ==/2621376458123783853.jpg

But he was also a stupid master, he assigned traitors to important position and lost land, finally he was captured. His enemy thought he was a foolish emperor, then dug a big hole in ground and put him in it, naming坐井观天; look at the sky from the bottom of a well.

坐井观天is a proverb of China, meaning a person have a narrow scope just like a frog look at the sky from the bottom of a well. Of course it could not get the whole world.

 Pic from: http://www.edu888.net/flash/UploadPic/2008-12/2008121016241061697.jpg

Below was the place that the emperor坐井观天:

Pic from: http://photo4.56.com/albums/userpics/data5/66/39/2798813%7C663967836447ebbca85490.jpg

This memorial arch may be built in recent year, because in ancient time the Chinese writing characters from right to left but this title from left to right.

Before he was arrested, he had helped a robber named 燕青 came to see him and brought him some olives.  Telling him when eat olive, at the beginning it taste bitter but after some chewing, it will be turn to sweet. It means after a bitter life you still have bright future. 

Another Short History of Linguistics (24)

When it came the篆文, the character was more vivacious than before. At that time, Qin Shi Huang hadn’t unified the Chinese character yet. Different states had different drawing style. But people at that time already drew characters on timber or bamboo they had more chances to make the character better for look. Anyway, in ancient time, to draw a character was not easy, so, before they started, they had to think it carefully; how to represent the main idea of their imagination. And this habit turned to the Chinese calligraphy later. Below is 篆文

The Meaning of Plants (1)

Being an agricultural country, Chinese scholar always love to observe plants and study their meanings. But these so called meanings are not scientific one. It is said that a famous scholar 王阳明 (1472 Oct 31－1529 Jan 9 AD. who was a general also; in ancient China, most high level generals were also scholars) had stood in front of bamboo for seven days trying to find out the reason of it, but he failed for lacking a scientific environmental and he fell ill finally.

Now here are some examples about the meaning of plants.

荷花 water lily: born from mud, but never being stained. It means a good person even born in a nasty environmental his behave would be still decent. The story was from a scholar of Song Dynasty named周敦頤 (1017－1073July 24 AD) he said:
　　水陸草木之花，可愛者甚蕃。晉陶淵明獨愛菊；自李唐來，世人盛愛牡丹；予獨愛蓮之出淤泥而不染，濯清漣而不妖，中通外直，不蔓不枝，香遠益清，亭亭靜植，可遠觀而不可褻玩焉。予謂菊，花之隱逸者也；牡丹，花之富貴者也；蓮，花之君子者也。噫！菊之愛，陶后鮮有聞；蓮之愛，同予者何人；牡丹之愛，宜乎眾矣。

Among river, lake and dry land, there are so many flowers, most of them are lovely; 陶淵明 love chrysanthemum only. From Tang Dynasty, people love peony; I love the water lily, for it is born from mud, but never being stained, it was washed by pure water and nothing to do with seductive. It has empty heart (metaphor for modesty) and straight stems (metaphor for straightforward), neither spreading about nor branching out-concise (metaphor for not a trouble maker), light but spreading wider fragrant, it stay there steady and quiet, people can observe it from distant but not bother it closely. I think chrysanthemum is the hermit, peony is the noble, yet water lily is the decent. Ha, 陶淵明love chrysanthemum, people like me love water lily and most people love peony.

Another Short History of Linguistics (23)

Below is from 子卣:

Some of the traditional hair style could be like:

Pic from: http://upload.17u.com/blogpic/2012/09/03/ad1/2012090318222008507.jpg

Below is 子卣:

Pic from: http://upload.old888.com/s_image/20090417082403.jpg

Words about Marry and Love (14-9)

Now we know the real reason of曹丕 (1) conferring title of empress on Lady 郭 (8). And the reason of killing甄 (3) was get rid of the witness. But after曹丕 (1) dead, it was the turn of曹睿 (7), he wanted to know the reality from Lady 郭 (8) the empress dowager. But she still insisted that it was the idea of曹丕 (1) to kill his mother. In a wrath, 曹睿 (7) killed Lady 郭 (8). Revenge his mother and he conferred title of empress on his own mother that was甄 (3). When he was alive, 曹操 (4) loved his grandson曹睿 (7) very much. Yet until his dead he didn’t know that what he fought for was his enemy’s descendent. A bad news for曹睿 (7) was that he was no son too, he had to make his nephew his heir and the throne returned to 曹’s family again.

Story reference from: Reference from: http://www.douban.com/group/topic/15221104/

Following the change of time, the image of 曹丕 (1) and曹植 (2) changed too. For instance, during the 1980’s, when the Cultural Revolution just over, China turned to be the poorest country in the globe. Everybody was eager to gain material for live. Then the utilitarianism came to be the main stream idea, at that time the TV series modelled曹丕 (1) as real hero as he care about the economy of the country and their family, while曹植 (2) was but a vagabond. This trend of utilitarianism have caused a class of corrupt official, I am not sure if this trend is going to have a change.

Another Short History of Linguistics (22)

All these characters appeared before 商 Dynasty (17century-11 century BC.) at that time the law and discipline rite had not established, people at that time were very worldly, and they said anything directly. People respected commerce, so the later generation used the word ‘商 people’ as merchant.

Besides this, someone believed that all these characters represent that man is superior to woman for all of them shown that woman kneel down. But they forgot a truth that at that time, the chairs hadn’t been invented in China, even emperor sat on mat. And until today, the Chinese word chairman is 主席 mat-man. Today, Korean and Japan still kept the tradition that sat on mat.

 When people knew to use bronze then by typecasting, they put on characters on it. Below is from 盂鼎

This is 盂鼎：

Pic from: http://www.9610.com/xianqin/dayu01.jpg

Words about Marry and Love (14-8)

It turned out that曹丕 (1) sending the pillow of甄 (3) to曹植 (2) was a testing to see if he knew the conspiracy of 216AD. And曹植 (2) wrote the poem was telling him that he knew it very well. In this way, 曹丕 (1) dared not kill his brother, because曹植 (2) was a famous scholar at that time. He might write something about that conspiracy and bid someone to publish it if he dead, especially after the ‘Seven Steps Poem’ event. So曹丕 (1) treated his brother kindly later. But when曹睿 (7) was in power, he treated his uncle very kind at the beginning. Yet he send an order the change the name of the poem as what we have seen now ‘A Poem for the Goddess of Luo River’.  曹睿 (7)  knew the uncle was aware the conspiracy of 216AD yet he didn’t know if his uncle knew his real father too. It was lucky that his uncle didn’t know it as he wrote an article to曹睿 (7) it gave evidence of that. In that article曹植 (2) quote an allusion, that in the time of king楚庄王 (?-591BC), one day in a banquet, it was very dark before candle was lighted, an officer, treated one of his concubine in rude. That concubine could not see the face of that officer, but she took off his tassel from his helmet. Then she told this to her husband. Knowing this, the king said, “Brothers, today, we are so happy, let us all pick off the tassel on our helmet.” Then all of his officers picked off their tassels. Of course, the king wanted to protect that officer, to avoid the awkward situation of him. Few years later, in a war, the king found one of his officer fought bravely with the enemy, when he wanted to reward him, he said, “Your Highness, you have reward me already, that day when you asked everyone picked off the tassel, you have protected me kindly.”  曹植 (2) used that allusion to ask a job from his nephew, it meant to say, although I have an affair with your mother, yet you had better do something like 楚庄王 and I would return you good in later. It didn’t touch the issue about曹睿 (7)’s birth. 

Another Short History of Linguistics (21)

After few hundred years, another person saw a girl on a bank of river, he might change his carving style. As it was hard to carve something on bone, he had to consider it for a long time. It could be changed by the carver’s attitude towards woman too. We have said that the character 母means mother, it came from the word of 女，the only different is two more dots that means breast. So without the two dots the 女 even means a virgin. And then he got the impression as:

So, he carved his impression on the bone.

Words about Marry and Love (14-7)

Now, it was the time to talk about曹睿 (7) the true baby of the son of曹操 (4)’s enemy and with the false father曹丕 (1). Before曹丕 (1) killed his mother, the mother甄 (3) told him the truth. Might be this reason, 曹睿 (7) turned to be a clever, boy as Confucius said, “A solitary minister and a bastard son in many cases are easy to be outstanding.” After his mother dead, on day, 曹丕 (1) went out hunting with him; it was normal that the royal family member hunting for exercise. They found two deer, mother and son, 曹丕 (1) killed the doe, and he ask曹睿 (7) to kill the fawn. 曹睿 (7)  said in tears, “Your Highness, you have killed the mother already, I can’t bear to kill the son.”

This word threatened曹丕 (1) very much. Yet it seemingly a word of filial piety but the deep meaning was, that I can kill the fawn yet I don’t bear to so it.

At that time, although曹丕 (1) had many wives and plenty sons, but all of them dead early only曹睿 (7) and a very young son 曹霖 survived. The so called could not bear to kill is in fact meaning to kill曹霖. The father knew this, then the father and son made a deal, that father would make曹睿 (7) his heir and曹睿 (7) would took care of曹霖, besides, for many years, everyone knew that曹睿 (7)  was his son, any change would be a disaster of the whole family. Then, finally曹睿 (7) took the throne. 

Another Short History of Linguistics (20)

It seemed in the early years the character of woman 女 changed time to time. It could be like our time that in different angles, a camera catch different beauty. For when they invented character, the feudalism was yet so strong. Or we may say, to the same symbol, different generation found out different beauty so they record their feeling in that symbol. Some scholar believe this symbol just represent two big breast of female. I don’t believe it, for there were too many symbols to represent gender already why we need it again? And breast is not the organ that represent the gender the best, some male has big breast too. Besides the word 女 has another meaning that is daughter or young girl. It should be the representative of women’s beauty.

This was carved on a bone, museum number is 乙1378：

Some scholar believe this figure is from the special sleeve of Chinese women, in Chinese term it is called 水袖 water sleeve.

Pic from: http://www.niyu360.com/goods-370.html

But I don’t believe it, for at that time people didn’t have so much cloth to do it. In the history, sometimes cloth even meant civilization for instance衣冠南迁 (cloth moved towards south) means civilization moved south.

So the gender expressed by cloth is not a good choice.

In history, the male of Scotland wear skirt, how can we use it as a permanent symbol for gender?

三个一再被提起的问题

目前人们讨论语言时，有三个一再被提出的问题，回答一次，不久就又会出来。所以，我希望说话的人能够稍微了解一下它们。

第一个问题是关于繁体字简化的问题，港澳台的学者坚持说简化字是胡闹，是歪曲了中华文化。举出最多的例子就是简化后的‘爱’没有心字，没有心怎么‘愛’？这其实就是双重标准。英语中的love就没有心heart。怎么从来没听谁说过英国人不懂得爱呢？此外，所谓用‘心’来爱那是古代的说法，并不科学，现代科学发现，所有的思维都来源于大脑。这就是中国人为什么科学上总是落后的根本原因；不是抱着西方人的大腿不放，就是抱着古人的大腿不放，什么时候才能学者自己走路呢？

第二个问题是总有人喜欢说，英语中的某某词，在汉语中没有，因此汉语翻译不过来，翻译过来也不准确。这些人实际上是没弄清楚什么是语言的作用。语言的作用是运用你头脑中已知的符号去模拟一个事物，由于是你头脑中固有的东西，因此，根据你自己的认识你理解了这个事物。每次通过这个过程都增加了你对原有词汇的新认识，同时也可能增加了你头脑中新的词汇。因此，一种语言其实就是一组符号的整体。汉字代表的意思一般小于英语单词所代表的意思，因此变化起来十分灵巧。好比是用微积分计算面积时，先要将一个体积切成无数的小块，然后将它们总数相加，得到这个面积的总和。当然是在开始的时候，切得越细小越能够接近那个体积如图：

比如bull=公牛，‘公’和‘牛’是可以分开的，而bull 就分不开。也就是说，汉语模拟任何事物的时候都比英语清楚。这就等于说，汉语模拟（翻译）英语，要比英语模拟汉语来的清楚。比如，汉语中的‘九阴白骨爪’就没有办法翻译成英语。所以说，一种语言中有没有某个单词，并不重要，重要的是这种语言的系统是否先进，先进的语言做什么事情都游刃有余。

第三个问题是信息量的问题。这是计算机上面的单位，语言学家基本上不用它来衡量信息。可是，不少人为了抬高自己的身价，附庸风雅总喜欢使用它。所谓的拉大旗作虎皮。你真的问他这个单位是怎样计算出来的，99%以上的人是说不出来的。

冯志伟的文章中就谈到关于语言中怎样计算熵：

http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_72d083c70100pekd.html

“实际的试验是这样来设计的：我们给受试人看一个英语文本，然后要求受试人猜测下一个字母。受试人利用他们的语言知识来猜测最可能出现的字母，然后猜测下一个最可能的字母，如此等等。我们把受试人猜对的次数记录下来。Shannon指出，猜测数序列的熵与英语字母的极限熵是相同的。Shannon这种观点的直觉解释是：如果受试人做n个猜测，那么，给定猜测数序列，我们能够通过选择第n个最可能的字母的方法，重建原来的文本。这样的方法要求猜字母而不是猜单词，受试人有时必须对所有的字母进行穷尽的搜索！所以，Shannon计算的是英语中每个字母的极限熵，而不是英语中每个单词的极限熵。”

最关键的就是最后这一句，‘Shannon计算的是英语中每个字母的极限熵，而不是英语中每个单词的极限熵。’看懂了它就明白为什么信息论在语言学上根本派不上用场。按照信息论方法计算出来的东西只不过是某个人对于某种语言的熟练程度而已。和那种语言的字母，单词，字符等的信息量没有关系。举一个简单的例子：英语目前有一百万种单词，如果用这一百万种单词写成文章让任何一个英国人猜，他的结果都会是千奇百怪，毫无规律可言。因为，一个英国人能记住三万单词就算是大师级的人物了。莎士比亚不过如此，其余那九十七万单词，对个人而言，风马牛不相及，就是摆设，你让他猜什么？

而为什么‘熵’这玩艺这么流行呢？根本的原因和英语语法一样，在一个小范围内进行试验它总能给人带来不同的解释，越讨论就越没边，越没边就越热闹。根本就是无中生有的东西。人人好像都能插上嘴，而人人又都说不清楚。只有将问题放大才能看清语言的本质。怎样放大？很简单，把整个语言系统通盘考虑，比如，这样的问题‘人的大脑如何处理某种语言的总词汇量？’‘为什么所有的语言都能表达任何意思？’等。只有考虑大问题才能看清问题的实质。总龟缩在一词，一句的分析上面，磨磨牙还可以，可什么问题也解决不了。

Words about Marry and Love (14-6)

Yet even with a son, 曹丕 (1) still could not win the battle of heir. In the year of 216 AD, he married another wife郭 (8). 郭 (8) was a shrewdness woman, she told her husband a good idea to get the heir and also sow discord between her husband and甄 (3) in an assumed dignified airs. The plan was a honey-trap for曹植 (2). As their father assigned曹植 (2) in charge with the security of their base area. It was true that曹植 (2) loved his sister-in-law.曹丕 (1) asked甄 (3) to lure曹植 (2) to drink heavily. In that case, 曹丕 (1) and甄 (3) instigated an uprising. In this way, their father had no reason to make曹植 (2) as the heir. It put 甄 (3) in dilemma, she had to choose, either lured曹植 (2) and made her husband to be cuckolded or deny it and left her husband losing the heir. After consideration she decided to do it but not for free. She had her condition with her husband. That was, he would never deny曹睿 (7) as his own son and announced him his heir, once he was in power. Of course曹丕 (1) had to accept it.

This great conspiracy carried on successfully.  And it was the really reason that when the family member came back from the war, 甄 (3) looked great. Because she knew that she had ruined曹植 (2)’s career and her husband should fulfil his promise to make her son as the heir. On the other side, 曹植 (2) was out of favour and his brother got the heir finally. Once he got the heir, 曹丕 (1) still dared not telling the truth of曹睿 (7)’s father. If he told the truth, his father would change the heir no doubt, as曹植 (2) had two real sons.

In ancient time, as the ruler had absolutely power, he could make everyone who know the truth kept in silence. In the feudalism system making children was the real meaning of everybody to live. So Confucius said, among three sort of impiety, the worst one is no children. In the time of war states 453-221 BC. A king could not have his own baby, so he married many wives and he asked his officers to visit his palace from a side door, in secret to copulate with his wives and all the babies must bearing his surname.