Another Short History of Linguistics (90)

Some terms in recent fictions are even harder to translate into English. People think it maybe an impossible mission. I tried to translate them here.

九阴白骨爪,  in this term九 means nine, it is the largest number of one digit, so it could also means ‘most’  阴 means sinister, 白骨means white bone, 爪 means claw. Put them together the term means ‘the most sinister white bone claw’ it is a sort of Chinese Gong Fu, normally used by bad women.

 Pic from: http://mediainfo.tvscn.com:8088/media/ViewMedia-Normal-264647-jpg.jpg

Stories of Chinese word and term (37)

The other time, 刘伶 had a quarrel with a fellow drunk in a pub. He was a short man, the drunk was a tall and strong man. As their argument going to be fierce, the drunk held his collar and wanted to beat him. Quietly刘伶 opened his cloth and showed his chest to the drunk. He said, “Do you see my chest? It looked like a chicken’s. If you put your fist on it, you are degrade yourself, don’t you know?” 

The drunk laughed, “I admired you so much for telling me this.” And he turned back left the pub.

Another Short History of Linguistics (89)

春秋，means  ‘spring autumn’ . A Chinese term for luxury life is 春花秋月, means ‘spring flower autumn moon.

兄弟，we have talked about this word, as 兄is elder brother and 弟is younger brother. Put them together 兄弟=brother. Since we can separate the word of ‘brother’ in Chinese, we can put two other characters in front of them as难兄难弟. Here the character 难 means adversity or catastrophe. The this term means ‘two brothers that have experienced the same ordeal’ or ‘a well-matched pair of brothers’

熙means daylight or time for busy,攘 means push, especially push your way forward and fro among crowd people. Put them together 熙攘means everyday busy on road. If use each of these character in double as 熙熙攘攘. It means emphatic the pronunciation of same meaning. You may split them as 天下熙熙皆为利来，天下攘攘皆为利往. The characters 天下 means under sky, 皆为 means all people are, 利 means benefit, 来means come, and 往means go. Put them together天下熙熙皆为利来，天下攘攘皆为利往 means “under the sky, all people come for benefit, and under the sky all people go for benefit.” 

Stories of Chinese word and term (36)

刘伶（234-305）was one of the 竹林七贤Seven Sages among Bamboo Grove. The history book said he was about 1.4 meters tall. At his time, it was hard to be an officer unless you were from a noble family. Especially for those that always had some new idea against the tradition. Unfortunately刘伶 was one of such person. During his 70 years of life, the best thing that he loved was alcohol. One day, in drunk, he felt hot and he stripped off his cloth in his bed. A friend came to see him. As he found him in naked body, the friend said, it was an offence to see friend like that. 刘伶said, “I didn’t offend you. Do you know the sky and earth are my hall, the room in my house is but my trousers and you squeeze into my trousers, so what you want to do? ” (metaphor sex abuse)

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Another Short History of Linguistics (88)

Language is a means that help us to understand each other. Under this idea, any symbol do this job we may call them language. For instance the mathematics, and geometry. Any tools do this job may called as tools of language such as pen, paper, telescope and TV. For they help us to understand each other and nature. In fact, we may say any branch of study is to developing a new expressing system， either by language, by picture or by geometry etc. for this reason some linguist had said that the linguistics is the original wisdom of human kind, it started before any other knowledge and wisdom was known. 

When ancient people invented such symbols, their target was looking for something can be transmitted and remembered easily and simply. If every symbol of meaning are simple then their combination will be simple too. On the other hand if the size of a symbol is smaller they combined symbol wound be smaller too. Just like the mosaic, the smaller pieces make the clearer image, for our visual range is settled, each time we can only pick up a certain amount of information. How much information of a word, a character is contained, sometimes decided by the physical or writing size of them.  Here are some example for the smaller mosaic theory:

In Chinese language 离 means left, 别 means part with. Put them together 离别 means farewell. But if one want to express the idea that after the farewell they may never see each other again, they put two character behind these two characters 生死 means life-died. As 生离死别, here the 生 means life and 死means dead. Put them together as ‘life left dead part with’.

Stories of Chinese word and term (35)

除三害eliminate three calamities； 周处was a famous general of 晋dynasty. When he was a youth, in his home town, one day he heard people rumoured there were three calamities among that county. As a young blood, 周处 asked an old man, who are they? The old man said the first calamity was a big tiger in the south mountain. Hearing this, 周处 went there and found the tiger, with a fight, he killed the tiger successfully. Then he turned back, asked the old man, what about the second calamity? The old man said, it was a big crocodile that had bitten many passengers recently. Then 周处went there killed the crocodile too. When he came back, he asked the old man, where was the third calamity? The old man said, “I had better not to tell you. If you want know it, please ask someone else.” it made the周处 unhappy, he shouted, “Why you do this to me, didn’t I kill the two calamities already? If you don’t tell me the truth, I shall kill you.”

The old man said with a sigh, “To tell you the truth, the third calamity is you. Have you ever thought that your bad temper always hurt people?”

周处didn’t say anything and left the old man, later he tried hard to cultivate his temper and became a famous general in Chinese history.

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Another Short History of Linguistics (87)

From internet under the term ‘List of unsolved problems in linguistics’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_linguistics

We find such questions:

·         Is there a universal definition of word?

·         Is there a universal definition of sentence?

·         Are there any universal grammatical categories?

·         Can the elements contained in words (morphemes) and the elements contained in sentences (syntactic constituents) be shown to follow the same principles?

·         Is it possible to formally delineate languages from each other? That is to say, is it possible to use linguistic (rather than social) criteria to draw a clear boundary between two closely related languages with a dialect continuum between their respective standard forms (e.g. Occitan and Catalan)?

·         How does grammaticalization function?

·         How do creole languages emerge?

These questions looked like an identical equation of math, its definition is:  an equation that is satisfied for all values of the literal symbols. In other words it is a sentence that you don’t worry about putting what symbols in it, it always a good, balanced equation and no one can find fault for it. So once a linguist study these problems, he will never do anything wrong for they are meaningless questions.      

Stories of Chinese word and term (34)

六尺巷, Six Feet Lane. In 安徽province 桐城city, today, we can find a small lane the name is Six Feet Lane. It get its reputation because a famous chancellor at 清Dynasty 张英，who was a powerful officer at that time. One day his family sent him a letter telling him that when they built a house, they had a dispute with their neighbour. So the family hope him to help them to win the case. But his family received a simple letter from him:

You wrote to me from home town just for the wall,

Why not get simple solution as give ground three feet.

Do you know the first emperor of China had built the great wall for thousands miles?

Yet where he is?

When the family get this letter, they give away three feet of the land. The neighbour felt a big debt of gratitude to the family, so they gave away three feet of the land too. Then it appeared this six feet lane between these two families.

Pic from: http://bbs.tongcheng.gov.cn/upfile_pic/0910/09101711204658.jpg

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I believe the so called problem of microwaves could not measure each other may have a solution later. Like other solutions, it not only solve the issue itself but it will theorize to solve a series of issues. Such as when we solved the Zeno's paradoxes, we got Limit theory simultaneously. It is a healthy way of human development.  

The linguistic study in the beginning of 21^st century look like a study of economist.  Nov 2008, during a briefing by academics at the London School of Economics on the turmoil on the international markets the Queen asked: "Why did nobody notice it?"

There are so many bright people include plenty Nobel Prize winner. They could not answer this question. For it is true, before the financial tsunami, none even one among the greatest economist had ever spoken about one word of the coming disaster. It may be a very good evidence that in most time, the so called main stream idea may pull everybody into a useless argument. It doesn’t offer any good opinion for the human kind but rather make trouble out of nothing. I believe the similar thing is appeared in linguistic study too. All the argument are not for finding a solution but for making things worse and more trouble. 

Stories of Chinese word and term (33)

小康社会a moderately prosperous society. This term also came from 礼记The Book of Rites; a book published around 200 BC. It said:

“Later, the great way of life could not prevail. People only cared about their family. Caring their own parents and children, they did anything for self. Kings demised of the crown as normal as rite or tradition. People built walls for cities for their own safety. They set plenty rules between king and subjects, father and son, elder and younger brothers, husband and wife. They designed many institutions to separate land, to honour the wise and brave person. They valuate merit for self. So evil scheming is appeared and war started.  Yet the six saint禹、汤、文、武、成王 and周公 still insisted the right rite for good king or master. People trust their judgement, for they have enough credibility. If they lost credibility, even if they have power, people can dismiss them from office. Such a society is called as < a moderately prosperous society>.”

This term of 小康社会 was the target of current communist party before 2020. The report said, once the Engel coefficient reach 45% could be called < a moderately prosperous society>.

Pic from: http://www.sinaimg.cn/dy/c/2007-10-14/U2008P1T1D14082578F21DT20071014100221.jpg

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In modern time, any essential development of philosophy is always accompanied with the development of mathematics. But, today, the students of linguistics don’t required to know math. The result is that they could not find out a real breakthrough.  In the first half of twenty century, the mainstream linguistics still looking for the mathematic spirit of linguistic idea. They made great efforts to get a model called structuralism, yet later they gave up. Instead a new trend of thought took place. A term in vogue call it Deconstructism. In fact it is an idea of ‘thinking without math’. It started form the indeterminancy principle, a phenomenon of using microwave to measure microwave. It is but a special case, no one has ever said that it could not be solved. Yet it give Deconstructism a good excuse that using the mind of mathematics is stupid.

In the history we found many times people wanted to negate the spirit of mathematics. The most famous example could be the Zeno’s paradoxes. It triggered someone declared that the mathematics is failing. There are many other examples such as someone declared that the universe could not be understood by simple mathematics and the organic matter could not be understood by human being etc.  But all of these issues were solved later.

Stories of Chinese word and term (32)

天下为公，the world community is equally shared by all. This tern came from 礼记The Book of Rites; a book published around 200 BC. It said:

“When the great way of life prevails, the world community is equally shared by all. The worthy and able are chosen as office holders. Mutual confidence is fostered and good neighbourliness cultivated. Therefore people do not regard only their own parents as parents, nor do they treat only their own children as children.

Provision is made for the aged till their death, the adults are given employment, and the young enabled to grow up. Widows and widowers, orphans, the old and childless as well as the sick and disabled are all well taken care of. Men have their proper roles, women their homes. While they hate to see wealth lying about on the ground (waste), they do not necessarily keep it for their own use.

While they hate not to exert their own effort, they do not necessarily devote it for their own ends. Thus evil scheming is repressed, and robbers, thieves and other lawless elements fail to arise. So that outer doors do not have to be shut. This is called <the Age of Great Harmony>”.

This term of天下为公 was highly praised by the former leader of Chinese National Party 孙中山. It described a society before 夏Dynasty (about 2100-1700BC.). It was the dream of Confucian.  

Pic from: http://zt.blogchina.com/2011zt/xinhaigeming/images/tianxiaweigong.jpg

In many Chinatowns one may find this term. 

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I have said that the Japanese don’t like to look for their own thinking style but love to learn and borrow from other countries, the give their practice a beautiful name as ‘adopt good points from others’ 博采众长. But in most case, they only learn language or culture from other partially and with bias. When I was talking about my linguistic law, I have said that after the Greece learn alphabetic letter from Phoenician, many great thinkers were born in Greece. But after Japanese learn characters from China, it seemed no thinker was born in that country. My reason is that when the Greece learn the alphabetic letters from Phoenician, they increased the number of sound several times by the invented vowel, while when Japanese learn character from China, they missed plenty sounds by missing the tone. That is the quantity decide thinking speed. But this phenomenon is only happened in a natural environmental. It means to say, an environmental that have not been intervened by an academic system.  For an academic system is like a bureaucratic system. Its job is filtering out thinker. So the better an academic system is, the less thinkers it will be. And the bad luck is China had the best such system. Furthermore, today, all of the teacher in such a system are the students of 鲁迅Lu Xun (the literature icon of communist party), 钱玄同Qian Xuan Tong，陈独秀Chen Du Xiu (the funder of Chinese communist party). They got their position was not by their new idea but by the length of year that they remained in school. And for this reason they still insist the view of their graduation thesis 50 years ago that ‘only alphabetic language could be the master of the world.’

Stories of Chinese word and term (31)

近水楼台A waterfront pavilion. The original sentence is近水楼台先得月. A waterfront pavilion gets the moonlight first. (It means the advantage of being in a favoured position.) This term was from a poem of Song Dynasty, the name of author was 苏麟, who was a very able and virtuous officer at that time, but as he always working far from the central government, so he missed many chances of promotion. If he complain this, he might lose his reputation of virtuous. So he wrote a poem to his superior under the name of seeking advice or comments. In his poem he wrote:  近水楼台先得月, 向阳花木易为春. A waterfront pavilion gets the moonlight first, flower and trees that towards the sun enjoy the spring earlier.

The superior understood his meaning in a short time he got his promotion.

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Between 19 and 20 centuries, the theory of ‘might is right’ had a good shown off in linguistic study. It started from Japan and followed by Chinese.

After the Chinese lost many wars during this period, lot of Chinese students that had studied in Japan came on stage, such as 鲁迅Lu Xun (the literature icon of communist party), 钱玄同Qian Xuan Tong，陈独秀Chen Du Xiu (the funder of Chinese communist party). This Japanese idea gave them good chance to show off. I have said that as a pictogram, during the long history, the Chinese could not find a good question to challenge their language so they had no way to develop their own linguistics. Now when the above scholars studied oversea, they found so many linguistic material in the western world, it daunting them. They joint together to abolish the old Chinese character writing system with their Japanese teacher. When the party took the office, the later leader 毛泽东Mao Ze Dong who didn’t know anything about linguistics was trying to adopt alphabetic letters. His hatred of Chinese Character was from Chen Du Xiu, it was but an arty-crafty idea. And even before Mao took power he tried to abolish character in 延安Yan-An in order to prove the legality of his domination. Under this idea, 1955 Bandung Conference, the first third world meeting is decided using English as working language, with the fully support of Chinese delegation. After this meeting 1.5 billion out of 3.0 billion people at that time regarding English as international language.

From above we may understand that the so called linguistics was never a study of science or philosophy but a politic scheme, intrigue against each other anyone who have right of speech will promote his linguistic idea, because at that time there is no canon, no standard of right or wrong.

 According this theory the former pictogram country such as Vietnam, Korean turned to adopt alphabetic letters one after another.    

Stories of Chinese word and term (30)

Besides above terms, there are some others that express the idea of low-key and modest. Such as人怕出名猪怕壮. Fame portends trouble for men just as fattening does for pigs.

抢打出头鸟, the standing out bird get shot.

急流勇退，it is a braveness that when a running water forward, you go backward.  Normally, it means resolutely retire at the height of one's official career. The Chinese like use such terms because the political system unlike the electoral one that need self-promotion to get the vote. So I wonder, even if today the Chinese GDP double the size of America, they may still declare that they are a third world country. 

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When 18 century came, the Europe and America broken the gate of Japan, this country found that in the world, there was another writing system with much more simple expression for the universe, they reviewed what they had learned from China during the past 10 centuries? They believed the language issue was the key reason of them that always being Chinese student and never turned to be teacher. Now if they adopted the alphabetic language, they would be the teacher or at least second-class teacher of China. With this intention they spread the theory of pictogram was the backward language. According Darwinist, the pictogram of Egyptians was gone forever and the Chinese pictogram was on the way of disappearing. This theory got positive response of western world. Coincidently, during that time, the Chinese economy from the world’s number one fell into number thirty something. With weak economy, this country experienced humiliation and aggression.

Later, more and more scholars, involved this trend. 1785 A.D. Japanese scholar declared that the Chinese and Indian pronunciation was incorrect sounds only the 50 sounds were the correct sounds of their empire. Some scholars tried to deny that their language was introduced from China, as they wanted to prove that their culture was not born from Chinese culture, they tried to find out witness about their native language before the introduction of Chinese language. After around one hundred year’s effort, they gave up their attempt, for truth is truth.

1798 A.D. they started using the geographic position to explain culture: “Only China, Korean, Indo-China using characters the rest world using alphabet; since the minority is subordinate to the majority so the character is a backward and barbarian language. The western world using twenty something characters can express everything.” This opinion didn’t cause a sensation at that time, but 1842 A.D. in the War of Opium the navy force of Qin Dynasty was beaten by the British fleet. When the news arrived Japan, their theory was proved again that the barbarian pictogram speaker would never win an alphabetic speaker.

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木秀于林 (风必摧之) an outstanding tree among forest (the hidden meaning is ‘the wind destroy it first’). The original term is that ‘an outstanding tree among forest, the wind destroy it first. Piled out of the shore, the turbulent flow will be. Arrangement of ideas is higher than the people, the public will defame him.’ (Note, some terms are emotional but not scientific for a protrude riverbank normally increase not decay.) The author named 李康, who lived in the time of three kingdoms (the time, when the story of ‘Red Cliff’ happened), these words was from his《運命論》the theory of fate.

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After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895，The Chinese Navy (the greatest one in Asia at that time) was beaten by Japan. All the warships, if had not been bombarded and sank, would surrender to Japan. It greatly enhanced morale of Japan. They really believed that the alphabetic letter was the best language and final solution of the world, otherwise they won’t win the battle so easily. Besides this they thought they were the real master of Asia. If the national power of Japanese still growing up step by step, they could still believe that the pictogram is a barbarian language.

In linguistic study the most unacceptable attitude is a theory from one’s original standing point or mother tongue without even think about other languages. A Chinese tern to express it as 屁股决定大脑 ‘buttock control the brain’. Buttock is the part of a body to sit on a chair. But someone sit on different Chair will think differently such as sitting on the chair of defender, you will think about how to explain the innocent of the accused. Sitting on the chair of prosecutor you will think about how to convict the accused. So the thinking style of defender and prosecutor is decided by which chair they sit on not by their own mind that is to say buttock decided the brain:

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出头椽子(先烂),exposed rafters(the hidden meaning is ‘decay first’). We may see many old houses their rafter decayed first, because they are overhanging of the roof. The metaphor is ‘People in the limelight bear the brunt of attack.’

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