Another Short History of Linguistics (47)

The development of sound was shifting step by step, yet since the alphabetic letter is (or has to) representing sound, then when the quantity of letter was settled it should very hard to introduce a new sound into that system. For any new sound could be substandard sound to this language, it would meet the pressure from orthodox power, until it have more power to overcome it. When a new sound don’t have a form of letter to represent it; for the number of letter was settled already, this new sound can only share a letter or combination of letters with other sound. That is why the English letter can have so many different pronunciations. The funny thing is that at the beginning, Phoenician was intend to simplify the language writing system but now, when more and more new species of sound emerged accompanying with the requirement of information quantity growing up, to remember how to pronounce a single letter such as a, c, e, o etc. turned to be difficulty or complex. We have to learn them by a special knowledge called phonology. In other word, if in ancient time, the Phoenician didn’t invent the alphabetic letter, the human kind still using pictogram, then there would be no phonology. While on the other hand, a pictogram language doesn’t have this limit, theoretically, each character had a separately single sound, they don’t interfere each other. If a new sound were introduced or we may say if any time they meet a new sound from a different language or a dialect, they just invent a new character for it. The only exception to introduce a great quantity of new letters in alphabetic language is separating from the originally language by political reason or we may say a new political power is rising. So I reckon the alphabetic language will never solve the international linguistic issue.   

The Meaning of Plants (24)

小草, ‘small grass’. It is the name of a song in recent year. The original poem is written by 何兆华.

没有花香没有树高,      no fragrance as flower not high as tree,
我是一棵无人知道的小草.   I am a small grass that no one care about.
从不寂寞从不烦恼.      I don’t feel lonely and never worry.
你看我的伙伴遍及天涯海角.As my friends covered all the world
春风啊春风你把我吹绿.   Wind of spring blow me to green.
阳光啊阳光你把我照耀.   The sun shine cast on my body.
河流啊山川你哺育了我.   River and mountain nurtured me.
大地啊母亲把我紧紧拥抱. Oh earth mother you embrace me.

Another similar sound is from 邹友开, named 好大一棵树, ‘How big a tree’ this song was for the former Chinese leader 胡耀邦who was died for the 1989 ‘6.4’ Tian-An-Man Square Movement

头顶一个天          above your head is heaven.

脚踏一方土          under your foot is earth

风雨中你昂起头   in the storm you raised your head

冰雪压不服      ice and snow could not overwhelm you

好大一棵树      oh how big a tree

任你狂风呼      careless the blustery of fierce wind

绿叶中留下多少故事  in your green leaves have so many stories.

有乐也有苦        some happy some bitter.

欢乐你不笑        in the happy day, you don’t laugh

痛苦你不哭        in the suffering day you don’t cry.

撒给大地多少绿荫 you cast so much greenery to the earth

那是爱的音符     that is the musical note of love

风是你的歌        the wind is the your song

云是你脚步        the cloud is your step

无论白天和黑夜  from the day to the night

都为人类造福     you always for the happiness of human

好大一棵树        oh how big a tree

绿色的祝福        the green pray

你的胸怀在蓝天 your bosom is in the blue sky

深情藏沃土        your love is hidden in the fertile soil.

Pic from, http://www.kanzhongguo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/huyaobang.jpg

Another Short History of Linguistics (46)

If alphabetic language study the number of sound and symbol then it will solved the information explosion issue easily but they believed that the language had a logical called grammar. In this way the alphabetic language took a totally different way.

To compare with the Phoenician language with European language we may find the former one missing vowel. Comparing Chinese language with European language we may find the difference between tone-language and non-tone-language. Here we repeat non-vowel-language or non-tone-language doesn’t mean their speakers don’t utter these phonetic element when speaking. The reality is that any language in the world has such elements but the Phoenician language doesn’t regard the vowel and tone as information carrier and European languages doesn’t regard tone as information carrier. We can counting consonants, vowels and tones as three different dimensions’ elements. Here I suggest the consonant as first dimension, vowel as second dimension and tone as the third dimension. As history tell us, higher dimension element always require more of human perceptions than the lower dimension element in sending and collecting information. I reckon, no one would feel sad, if his mother tongue has no vowel or tone, and no one would feel proud if his mother tongue has them, for all of us have done nothing about that, it is but the tradition.

From this easy to understand that why today, when information explosion start, the alphabetic language turned to be most vulnerable language. Because the designer of alphabetic language was designed it for a society with less information

The funny thing is that nearly all the linguists is looking for a method of special grammar to deal with the issue of large information. The grammar is in fact expecting using regular signals to express some irregular phenomenon while the growing up information quantity required irregular symbols to carry them.

We have talked, the radical in Chinese. It is an element of pictogram, although it represented no sound, but it can help to increase the utilization rate of sound in a language, we have said that in a language, the most important resource is species of sound. Of course what we mean to say is the SCAVs (a simultaneously combined action of all vocal organs), not the syllable. The unit syllable is a self-cheating unit, once you use such unit to explain questions, you will never make people and yourself clear, for it is some combination of sounds.

If a language with limited species of sound and use them lavishly then every word of this language will be longer in speaking, plus when the writing system changed from pictogram to alphabetic letter, it lost radical, the total number of sounds would felt deficit. For a remedy, the language like English using the voiceless consonant. At the beginning, all the consonant in Phoenician was a solid voiced consonant accompanied by a vowel, but as lack of adequate species of sound it required too many combination of sounds. People felt tire to do it and then uttered some of the unimportant consonant lightly. It is in fact violet the principle of alphabetic language, but they have no choice, step and step the lightly uttered consonant turned to be legal and regard as a new species of consonant, the target is no other than a greasiness of the already existed alphabetic system.     

The Meaning of Plants (23)

离离原上草，the luxuriant field grass. This was a verse from白居易, who was a famous scholar at Tang Dynasty. It described the sadness of parting with friends. At that time, to live in the capital长安 was a luxurious hope for every youth but when 白居易 wrote this poem, his master said that you could afford to live in长安 with no worry.  For at that time if you were good in literature, you would pass the royal examination easily and after that you would be the high rank officer. When白居易 heard his master telling him this, he took this name of白居易, that白 was the surname居 meant live and易 meant easily. Now I translate the poem as:

离离原上草，the luxuriant field grass,

一岁一枯荣。It would be withered  and lush once a year.
野火烧不尽，the wild fire didn’t burn it up.

春风吹又生。The spring wind blow it recovery.
远芳侵古道，it’s good smell spread on the ancient road.

晴翠接荒城。It’s green colour covered the abandoned town.
又送王孙去，Again I bid farewell to my friend.

萋萋满别情。That is full with sadness.

Pic from: http://chinaenglish.com.cn/upload/2013-11/13111114228099.jpg

Another Short History of Linguistics (45)

We have said that the Chinese language or culture lack of mathematics expression. Yet it is said that when God closes a door he opens a window. This window is simplification.

With common sense we know the most simple and easy way to study language is separated writing symbol, sound symbol and meaning first and study their number directly. 3

Two different minds of scientific or literary may mention the same scenery indifferent ways. For instance when we see the reflection of cloud of the river. The literary mind may tell us, “It is beautiful.” The scientific mind may ask, “Is it real cloud, how can it shaped like that?” That is to say, the development of science is irrelevant with what language, it is depend on mind.

Further study shown that the relationship of the symbol and meaning is man-made or artificially attached by people. We felt the symbol (characters) of pictogram has the meaning naturally because we have used that symbols more times than the symbols (words) in alphabetic language that we mistake the truth with the reality. Or we may say, by thousand times of practice, we thought the symbol is equal the meaning by mistake of our mind.

Likewise, the alphabetic language speaker always think that the ‘a’ can naturally represent a sound of ‘a’ or similar. But the fact is also with thousand times of practice, the mistake is formed in mind gradually and the truth is that symbol is symbol meaning is meaning without assign a meaning to a symbol arbitrarily or artificially they are irrelevant things. People made them relevant because people needs to communicate by either sound or (writing) symbol. 

The semantic language like Chinese usually required the speaker repeat 3,000 characters during lifetime with so many repeats, people mistake them as real meaning. While an alphabetic language like English, people repeat 26 letters throughout life, it make people believe that the sound of 26 letters is real.

When we want send a message, firstly, we find the first word, (for English speaker normally have 20,000 words in mind) it means we focus of 1/20,000 of our mind. Then find out the second words and our mind focus on 1/20,000x20,000 of it until it focus on 1/several billion, then we find the really necessary meaning hidden there. Or we may say that when we are expressing a sentence, we are looking for a meaning that can be distinguished from the rest several billions of meanings. When we receive a message, it play the same game too.

A common principle called, “A thing is valued in proportion to its rarity.” So between the sound and drawing symbol the number of sound is rarity and it is more important.

The Meaning of Plants (22)

结草衔环, knotting grass and holding jade ring in the beak. It was two stories. Normally they means gratitude to someone. The first one 结草 was happened in 594 BC. The 秦Qin kingdom fought with 晋Jin kingdom. The general of Qin named 杜回 and the general of Jin named 魏颗. 杜回 was the most brave warrior at that time. It seemed the魏颗 would lost this battle. But strange things happened, when they were be inextricably involved, 魏颗 found there was an old man knotting the grass in front of杜回. 杜回 seemed didn’t see him and whenever his horse lift hoof the knot would trip it. Later, the horse fell down, then魏颗 caught杜回easily. 魏颗 asked him, ‘did you see the old man that knotting the grass?’  杜回 said, ‘I saw no one’.

That night, 魏颗 dreamed the old man came to see him and told him, ‘General, I am the father of 祖姬, I come here to repay your kindness to my daughter.’ Then魏颗 realized the story. At their time people had a cruel tradition as funeral murder. When a nobleman dead, some of his concubines would be the martyrs for their love. 祖姬 was his father’s loved concubine. Before his father was alive, he had said, ‘I never wanted anybody to be martyr for me.’ Yet when he was laying dying he changed mind said, ‘let祖姬 be my martyr, I loved her so much.’ But魏颗 didn’t do this, he said that a dying man’s mind was confused, we could not trust on it. So the 祖姬 was saved. Today her father come to pay this kindness to 魏颗. (It means the old man is a ghost. So not everybody could see him.)

Pic from: http://dichanja.edupia.com/gosp/gosp0004.jpg

The second story was 衔环. The father of 杨震（59-124）named 杨宝. When he was a nine years old boy, he saw a yellowbird was hurt by eagle and dropped on the ground while a group of ants was biting it. He saved the yellowbird and bring it to his home. He caring it for a hundred days and the yellowbird flying away. That night he dreamed a child wearing a yellow cloth carrying four jade rings and he told him, ‘I am the envoy of a god, I am gratitude that you have saved me. Here are four white jade rings, they will guaranty that four generations of your decedents will be high rank officer with good behaviour.’  When he waked up, he found the jade rings and it was true, all he son, grandson, great grandson and great-great grandson were good behaved high rank officers.

 Pic from: http://www.jjdsxx.com/xspd/UploadFiles_5768/200711/20071111132217349.bmp

Another Short History of Linguistics (44)

The principle of pictogram is that every new symbol had to have a reason from visual effect, not arbitrarily. Yet no one can abstract a symbol from the picture of bull that can be distinguished from cow. So the only solution is put a gender symbol accompany with that symbol as we have talked 牡and 牝 of Chinese. This was the first emotion of semantic language. Aristotle had been study in Egypt for many years, of course he would know the structure of pictogram language. He wanted following the example of Thales to improve the Greek and he wanted to do something better than the nature linked pictogram language. He imagined the system of semantic or ontology, by the reverse deduction he thought there could be a substance and every symbol can be link with it. For the semantic language is setting one word and put a lot of word to qualify it. For instance we set a word ‘cattle’ and put male, female, young, yellow etc. to qualify it. This phenomenon made Aristotle to think that ‘cattle’ could be a qualified word of another above level. But he make a mistake, for the job of language is distinguish not summary.

Not only Aristotle, nearly all of the Greek scholar had thought this issue. For the pictogram language inventing every new symbol from the abstraction of a picture, this effect caused the alphabetic language felt astray as their new symbol of language was from arbitrary. This astray was expressed by Robert H. Robins when he narrated two controversies of ancient Greece, in his book ‘A Short History of Linguistics’. To solve this question most of the Greek philosopher paid plenty of energy. First of all the Pythagoras claimed that everything can be represent by number. We know that in human’s knowledge. Only mathematic and geometry was totally invent by human being. In the nature you will never find such concept. The Greek scholar understood that also their language didn’t have the walking stick of picture, yet they could find another walking stick that was totally man made or artificially concept that was number and Geometry. In the ‘Black Athena’ the author even believe that Greek had been colonized by Egyptian or Phoenician. No doubt, this must stimulated the Greek scholar deeply. And this stimulation caused the Greek scholar worked strenuously, as a Chinese term said, 生于忧患，死于安乐 “Thrive in calamity and perish in soft living.”

If we regard mathematic as a certain language, we have to study any gap of this expressing means. That was why the Pythagoras had visited Egypt and of course he knew the property of pictogram and that was why he claimed that everything was related to mathematics and that numbers were the ultimate reality if everything really relate to math, then he could invent a new language just like many later European scholar did such as Descartes claimed the universal alphabet of meaning and Linnaean classification. Pythagoras didn’t fulfilled his wish but as he wanted to spread his mathematic rule to everything, firstly he had to study if the simplest number and the straight line are continuous, with this emotion, he first study the continuity of number, his disciple found irrational number and finally it pushed the whole scientific study of the world.

The Meaning of Plants (21)

桃花源，The Peach Blossom Spring，陶渊明(365—427) was lived in a chaos time of East Jin Dynasty东晋（317－420）.陶渊明 had resigned in a strange way. At his time, the seal is the ID of an officer. So when he left office, he hanged his seal in the middle of his office. He said, I will never bow and flatter for just fifty litre rice. (At that time a salary of officer was fifty litre rice).

  At that time China had endless wars in successive years. People longed for a time of peace. Someone even dreamt a place as Shangri-la. Then陶渊明 the resigned officer wrote a story it told that a fisherman sailed a boat at a place called 武陵. There was a river full of peach blossom. The fisherman felt strange. He landed there and found a mountain that had a small cave. He went in, at beginning it was very narrow only allow one person to pass but later it got wider and he found a new world behind. It had beautiful farm land people worked among the field busily.  They lived peacefully and happily unlike the outside world. They didn’t even know the history for the past few century. They said that their ancestors settled in that land for many centuries and never contact with outside since then. The whole village was like a big family, every house kept open doors and when one family had a vistor, all the villagers would come to see him as a big news. They enjoyed their life so much.

When the fisherman was ready to leave, the villagers told him not to tell outside world about them. Yet the next time, when the fisherman went there seeking them he got lost totally.  

Pic from http://www.chinancient.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/shangri-la-02.jpg

Another Short History of Linguistics (43)

I am sorry for last time when we talking about the Chinese architectural plagiarizing, I forget something, now I put it here. That is the water tower of Kuwait. It was built in 1979.

Pic from: http://image.wangchao.net.cn/baike/1268533066760.jpg

Soon it was copied by the Pearl of the Orient at Shanghai. It was designed in 1991 and finished in 1994:

http://cache.house.sina.com.cn/citylifehouse/citylife/ce/57/20090626_42835_1.jpg

Who will took the responsible for all these copies? It must be the Chinese government. Because when a building was planning. For other countries, they may be decided by private company or single architecture. But in China, all building must be decided by the government officer. Of course they don’t care about creativity of the building, what they care is how much benefit they can get from this building. Even if a building was designed by foreigner, it is still the result of the government internal struggle. And even if later find it is a garbage building, no one will take the responsible for they never publish who is the final decider. They just say that is was decided by a committee or by the country.

Another example is the recent building of ‘People’s Daily’  

 Pic from: http://house.chinadaily.com.cn/xa/img/attachement/jpg/site385/20130417/f0def1ff4f4312d8a00206.jpg

It copy the Jumeirah Hotel in Dubai:

Pic from: http://image.wangchao.net.cn/nvxing/1246622940116.jpg

So the China lacking of scientific though is not to blame the intellectual but the government-like academy system.