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(Message started by: william wu on Jul 31^st, 2002, 11:08am)

Title: URL
Post by william wu on Jul 31^st, 2002, 11:08am

In case you're wondering what this forum is about, it's inspired by my [ wu :: chinese ] website

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/chinese/intro.shtml

Title: Re: URL
Post by Stephen Halvorson on Aug 22^nd, 2002, 9:01pm

Hello Wu
I am really enjoying your puzzles. Everyone at the local pub wants to wring my neck. I love it. However, there ability to answer is, I think, above average. This probably is skewed because most of us are foreigners living in Tokyo. So rather than have an average selection of patrons, the bar is frequented by professionals, who have been selected to work over here. One of them belongs to Mensa, but hasn't answered any riddles yet.

Anyway, I have been surfing your site and found this forum about Chinese. Well, I do not speak Chinese, but I am literate in Japanese. As you know, Japanese was created based on the Chinese written language. So I thougt it might be interesting to discuss characters, which is the term I use for ideograms.

Do you know the character for dog. Œ¢@It is pronounced "KEN" in Japanese. Strangely this is the same as the latin root for dog. KEN, as in kennel, or canine.

How do you say it en Chinoise?

Title: Dogs
Post by william wu on Aug 24^th, 2002, 8:11am

That's great! Yes torturing your friends can be fun. I'm glad you've been enjoying the puzzles so much, and that you checked out other parts of the site.

* * *

I actually don't know much about Japanese, so I did some online research and found an interesting site on the history of Japanese:

http://humanities.byu.edu/classes/ling450ch/reports/japanese.htm

I was surprised to discover that linguists are still uncertain about which family of languages Japanese belongs to. Korean is also an uncertainty -- and here's something interesting about Korean -- did you know that some of the characters are pictograms of the mouth? So supposedly, the mouth configuration illustrated by the character is the same configuration you would use to pronunciate the character! Anyways, I couldn't find much on a link between Japanese and the Latin-based Indo-European languages, so I'm guessing your shrewd observation about "ken" may just be a coincidence. Unless these kinds of relationships are actually common?

Here are two ways of saying the word "Dog" in Chinese; the number appended to the pronunciation tells you what tone to use.

1) quan3 http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/images/chinese/dog_quan3.gif

Explanation: A pictogram of a dog. I guess I could see how it was once a dog. At least the legs.

2) gou3 http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/images/chinese/dog_gou3.gif

Explanation: Composed of two parts:

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/images/chinese/dog_radical.gifThis is actually the same character as quan3. When quan3 is placed to one side of a character to serve as a radical, it looks like this.

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/images/chinese/sentence.gifThis character can mean "sentence" or "law", and is pronunciated "gou1" (derivation: mouth http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/images/chinese/mouth_small.gif entangled http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/images/chinese/entangled_small.gif. entangled is a pictograph of entangled vines, and is written here as http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/images/chinese/enveloped_small.gif.). I can't think of a good metaphoric reason for why gou1 is here, so I believe it was added as a phonetic. 90% of Chinese characters are meaning-sound compounds, which means that one part of the character conveys the meaning (quan3), whereas the other conveys the sound (dropping the tones, gou1 and gou3 are identical).

Title: Re: URL
Post by stephen halvorson on Aug 29^th, 2002, 9:14pm

Hello Wu
I am betting the dog thing is a coincident. But what about noodles. Did Marco Polo bring them east or west? Is the transition from pasta to –Ë@or –Ë to pasta?

Anyway.
I did know about the way that characters in the Korean language indicate their own pronunciation. I thought is was great for two reasons. First, what a great form of multi-tasking. Second, somebody was really thinking when they developed this language.

I think it is incredible that ancient scholors were able to guide the creation of the language. I compare it to English, which seems to be a random combination of the latin and germanic languages. People have recorded and described and analyzed the English language, but did any one plan it?

In the game Civilization, you gain some advantage by attaining the use of language, and the alphabet. Imagine the scholors in the royal court of ancient Korea, recognizing the value of language, and, and then doing something about it.

They probably were just opening trade with China and were introduced to the concept. Maybe.

I have also heard that one of the Japanese alphabets, katakana, was developed by aristocratic ladies in ancient Japan to get around customs against the education of women.

Creating a language is really cool.

Title: Re: URL
Post by Speaker on Nov 20^th, 2002, 9:57pm

Sure creating a language is cool, but the simultaneous manipulataion of a language through a quasi-language like pig-latin is a skill to be admired. ;)

Title: Re: URL
Post by towr on Nov 25^th, 2002, 8:32am

That scolars have thought about the written language doesn't mean they had much influence on the spoken language.. (As long as written language is elitist it hardly influences the spoken language).

As for 'ken' It might be because latin is in a related to the much older sanskrit, which was used far more to the east, and thus closer to Japan. There are probably more words like that..
Also, recent research has shown dogs were domesticated in the east, so it only makes sense that their oldest name would have its origin there as well. And I'm guessing that it's probably something like 'ken'.

here's something from google (hope it works.. it's from the cache, since the original seems to be gone) (http://www.google.nl/search?q=cache:6Lb647QM2OMC:members.aol.com/_ht_a/yahyam/page24/protoworld.htm+ken+sanskrit+dog+japanese+latin&hl=nl&ie=UTF-8)

Title: Chinese section
Post by Alice Wong on Dec 11^th, 2002, 11:39pm

Hi William again,

I can't get myself off of your website!! And it's finals time, geeeeez... :P Yea, it's a really tight site and I've found a lot of things of interest to me.
I really like your Chinese section in particular...
Under Idioms, the literal translation for bie2you3 in bie2you3tian1di4 and bie2you3yong4xin1, i think is more like "there is surely..." so "there is surely sky and earth", "there is surely the use of the heart". This is from what i know from Cantonese..=P

See ya
Alice

Title: Re: URL
Post by william wu on Dec 15^th, 2002, 12:12am

Research on dog origins and dog psychology; actually ties in well with the psychology forum:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2498669.stm

and the relevant content from towr's link:

9. *KUAN—'dog' —— canine; cynic; hound; !Kung /gwi 'hyena'; Proto-Afro-Asiatic *k(y)n 'dog, wolf'; Proto-Indo-European *kwon- 'dog' > Sanskrit s'van, Phrygian kan, Latin canis, Greek kuon, Germanic hund; Proto-Uralic *küinä 'wolf'; Old Turkish qanchiq 'bitch'; Monglian qani 'wild dog'; Proto-Tungus-Manchu *khina 'dog'; Korean ka 'dog' (< kani); Gilyak kan 'dog'; Chinese kou 'dog' (<Archaic Chinese khjwen); Tibetan khyi 'dog'; Proto-Oceanic *nkaun 'dog'; Taos kwiane-, Tewa tukhwana 'fox, coyote'

Alice: Thanks for the flattering comments! I'm glad you find the site interesting. I will apply your helpful corrections after finals are over for me. I'm sure I messed up a lot in those idiom translations ... my knowledge of Chinese is actually pretty weak, so I often resorted to guessing. Let me know if you have other corrections or cool idioms/ideographs/pictographs/whatever to share.

Title: Re: URL
Post by jabhiji on Jan 31^st, 2003, 1:32pm

Now I know why J.R.R. Tolkien chose the name "Huan" for one of the hounds in his book "The Silmarillion". It's rather a shame that I don't know any sanskrit at all inspite of coming from India.

Title: are you studing chinese?
Post by yanwei1020 on Jun 12^th, 2003, 7:27pm

::) I think this section of forum is very excellent! In fact, I 'm not catch on you very well ,for my poor english. But ,I know english is as interesting as chinese, so I 'm studing english very hard! Maybe ,I can help you on the study of chinese ,and communication between orient and west can let us know each other better!

Title: Re: are you studing chinese?
Post by mistysakura on Jul 11^th, 2003, 10:40pm

on 06/12/03 at 19:27:03, yanwei1020 wrote:

::) I think this section of forum is very excellent!

It would be better if there were any other topics on it. ;D I can't think of anything to start a new topic for, though. And by the way, I'm Chinese, and the language is interesting. The extra lessons are very annoying, though (I have to take Chinese classes outside school, as the syllabus in Australia is too easy for my standard) :-/

Title: Re: URL
Post by yanwei1020 on Jul 19^th, 2003, 6:27am

I think so!
No one come here

Title: Re: URL
Post by wtiow on Feb 5^th, 2004, 11:14pm

Hi I did chinese in school and I bumped across this forum, and i think it is really nice to discuss about things like that. The gyst of a language lies in its roots. and knowing the roots is kinda interesting..

Title: Re: URL
Post by fizyka on Dec 30^th, 2011, 3:41pm

I heard about chinessse that You can't learn this if You are not from asia, it's just to hard to people from europe and america is it true?

Title: Re: URL
Post by Grimbal on Jan 3^rd, 2012, 12:59am

Wrong. It is just that it is a difficult language that you better learn young because:
- The writing system is complex with thousands of characters. Not only the meaning, but the shape and the pronounciation needs to be memorized. It requires years to learn.
- The spoken language uses tones to discriminate words. If you haven't learned to integrate the tones in the recognition of words as a child while your brain is still flexible, then you'll have trouble learning it later.

Title: Re: URL
Post by JiNbOtAk on Jan 8^th, 2012, 9:19pm

Though I'm an asian, and had been living with Chinese for nearly my whole life, and I only understand a handful of Chinese (either Hokkien or Cantonese) phrases.

Compare that to T&B, who somehow managed to speak the language, with no (noticeable) trace of his English accent.

Hmm..does that mean the English only have their English accent when speaking English ? :P

Title: Re: URL
Post by wbayderda on Feb 19^th, 2012, 1:17pm

Now I know why J.R.R. Tolkien chose the name "Huan" for one of the hounds in his book "The Silmarillion". It's rather a shame that I don't know any sanskrit at all inspite of coming from India.

Title: Re: URL
Post by jorge on Mar 13^th, 2012, 8:29am

Not only do I like Chinese food :P, I also like many many traditional Chinese stuff like feng shui, Chinese painting and herbal medicine. I actually created a website for gender prediction by using the Chinese pregnancy calendar @
(Link removed -- Grimbal)

Title: Re: URL
Post by aghy on Jun 17^th, 2012, 5:36pm

i'm fine thanks you

Title: Re: URL
Post by karann on Jul 6^th, 2012, 9:26am

Cinese script is very difficult

Title: Re: URL
Post by karann on Jul 6^th, 2012, 9:27am

I want to learn chinese. will you recommend a site?

Title: Re: URL
Post by flashlearner on Mar 19^th, 2013, 6:15am

Hello,

Actually Chinese is rather easy to learn, much much easier than English. The grammar is very very very simple.

The following is good website to learn Chinese online:

http://www.hkmz.com

Best regards

Alex

Title: Re: URL
Post by Mariko79 on Mar 30^th, 2013, 2:49pm

on 07/06/12 at 09:27:58, karann wrote:

I want to learn chinese. will you recommend a site?

I don't think that learning chinese from a website is the best solution...

Title: Re: URL
Post by mwan7717 on May 3^rd, 2013, 7:26pm

I am Chinese, I really like this forum, on the cultural and political life for many years in China represents an ordinary person's feelings.
My English is not very good! !
If you need any help in China, please email to 872431405@qq.com. Or liyanglong88@gmail.com
If you come to China you know sometimes cheated ~ ~ because there is a "magic" place!

Title: Re: URL
Post by mikeyrc3 on May 11^th, 2014, 6:56pm

once i tried to learn chinese it's difficult

Title: Re: URL
Post by erica on May 30^th, 2014, 11:23pm

Yes, Learning Chinese online is bit tricky, but if it is from a trusted source which is well planned and lessons are drafted by very experienced teacher, then it will be much easier.