The Meaning of Plants (27)

风吹草低见牛羊, when breeze bend the grass, we can see the herd of cattle and sheep there. This is a folk song of ancient China. It express the herdsman lived in the grassland of north-west China

 敕勒川， in the 敕勒 valley,

 阴山下， under the 阴 mountain.

天似穹庐， the sky looked like a big Mongolian felt tents with rounded tops.

笼盖四野。 It covered the surrounding country.

天苍苍，     the sky is vast and hazy.

野茫茫，    the field is boundless and indistinct

风吹草低见牛羊。when breeze bend the grass, we can see the herd of cattle and sheep there.

Pic from: http://cppcc.people.com.cn/mediafile/201001/05/F201001051539341773215471.jpg

Another Short History of Linguistics (49)

From above, a language shift from pictogram to alphabetic letter will lose at least two benefit, one is radical the silent part of a word (or character), and the other is the ability of introducing new sounds. When pictogram meet new sound, the language adopted it as a part of this language and give it a new symbol. While an alphabetic language meet a new sound in most case, the language has to announce that it is not a pure correct sound for human or just announce that it is noise. Until too much such ‘noise’ appeared then they have to use the closest alphabetic letter or letter groups to imitate these new sounds. This kind of remedy will still left a gap with the original sound. It doesn’t mean that original sound disappearing, it is still there, as a useful element for other language but denied by this language. Or we may say that the already existed letters of a certain alphabetic language handicapped the process of intake new sounds to this language greatly. Think about if we took English as the international language, as an alphabetic language, it has to depress sounds that not appeared in English. What if one day the United State lost ground? It will repeat what happened in the Latin of Rome again. And if we take a pictogram as international language, the things will be different, any new sound will have a totally different symbol (or character) for it. By the help of this language as a whole, peoples from the end of other side of world will know it easily. With more and more of such sounds, our international language will be the shortest one for oral expressing, audio receiving and memory in mind.  

The Meaning of Plants (26)

When a Chinese poet admiring a plant, he (or she) loved to drink wine. Especially a poet named 黄庭坚 of Song Dynasty. Here are two of his verses:

酒浇胸中之磊隗，the wine irrigated the untold imagination in my blossom,

菊制短世之颓龄。The chrysanthemum eased my sigh for the short life.

 Pic from: http://blogcache2.artron.net/201310/30/29417_13831707071F8e.jpg

In mind of Chinese intellectual, chrysanthemum represent recluse. The typical versed 瓦斯written by a famous recluse 陶渊明:

采菊东篱下，collect chrysanthemum under the east hedge,

悠然见南山。see the south mountain leisurely.

Pic from: http://2.jxjjx.com/Article/uploadfiles/200903/2009030213555422.jpg   

Another poem is describing a picture:

酒浇胸次不能平,  the wine irrigated the untold  story yet it could not  be eased,

吐出苍竹岁峥嵘。So it seeking vent as a green bamboo that can be lofty and steep forever.

Pic from: http://eblog.cersp.com/userlog/11802/archives/2008/954447.shtml

Another Short History of Linguistics (48)

The alphabetic language is hard to be lingua franca or international language. Theoretically, since the alphabetic language connected sound with writing system, then any changed of sound must reflected in writing system. From the following web page: 

http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320hist&civ/pp/slides/17alphabet.pdf

Gives an example about the pronouncing of ‘girl’

gal (American dialect)

goil (New York)

gull (Irish)

gel (London)

gill (South African)

gairull(Scottish)

This example tells us that once a group of people adopt alphabet system, they are doomed to suffer endless splitting. For the writing system has to follow the change of dialect pronunciation. But the dialect can be changed in any minutes, after few hundred years, they may be changed totally, so the change of writing style will be inevitable. That is the key reason that the Rome Empire trying to unify the language during the 1,500 years of their ruling but after its fall, the European language split. On the other hand, in China, the unification of language was carried by 秦始皇Qin Shi Huang, who had decreed his order of language unification at 212BC, three years later, he died and 5 years later, his Dynasty was ended. That is to say his order was only carried out for eight years, yet the language started unified since then. Because the character didn’t follow sound to change, they never changed, any local dialect may change but no dialect could go too far, for the necessary of communication will pull you back. The best example was the 西夏language, it was invented in 1036 by the king named 李元昊. He wanted to split a new country from the central government. He thought that only with a new language, his region could be independent forever. So he invented language like this:

The character written in black is Chinese while in purple is 西夏language. But without any particular advantage it was disappearing after survived 191 years, when the Genghis Khan invasion occurred this country. This language had invented totally 6,000 characters. Most of them were similar the Chinese characters. Today it could be found only in some museum. People know them only by dictionary. 

The Meaning of Plants (25)

Sometimes a Chinese author loved to express a dead of tree. For instance a famous poet黄庭坚 had written a verses for his teacher and friend 苏轼’s painting of a dead tree.

胸中元自有丘壑， in your bosom you have so many thing as large as mountain and gully,

故作老木蟠风霜。So you make an old tree freely to stand wind and frost.

Pic from: http://www.pep.com.cn/oldimages/pic_300862.jpg

Another poet马致远 wrote a poem about an old tree in the autumn as:

枯藤、老树、昏鸦， Withered vine，old tree,  confused crow.

小桥、流水、人家， Small bridge,  flowing water, resident house.

古道、西风、瘦马。 Ancient road, west wind, thin horse.

夕阳、西下，            Setting sun, down west.

断肠人、在天涯。    Lonely person, in the End of the World.

You may find that in this poem, there has no predicate verb.

Pic from: http://www.12371.gov.cn/uploadfiles/2011/2/201102121210514848.jpg

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