jbdp@jenny.UUCP (Julian Pardoe) (07/09/85)
In article <1610@dciem.UUCP> Martin Taylor writes: > Many very long-lived writing systems have only a tenuous connection > with the sounds of language. Chinese (~5-6000 yr) ... One can read aloud > texts written in either, but this does not mean that such reading... I gather that although one can indeed read a written Chinese text out loud one's listeners might well not understand one. This is because Chinese by which I mean Mandarin) has a very limited stock of possible `words' -- I think about four thousand. (Each `word' in Chinese is monosyllabic, consisting of three elements: an initial, a final and a tone. There are four tones and some twenty initials, which suggests about fifty finals -- these figures seem about right but I can't promise.) As a result a single `word' has many meanings. According to the Guinness Book of Records the fourth tone of `i' has some eighty odd distinguishable meanings. In spoken Chinese the resulting ambiguity is often resolved by using words in pairs. Thus `to eat' is (I think) `chao', but if the thing being eaten is not mentioned one says `chao fan' (`fan' means `rice'), so `to eat' is often translated as `to eat rice'; likewise `to read' is usually translated as `to read (a) book'. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for one's listener to interject with questions like `Do you mean "chao fan" or "chao ..."?'. Written Chinese tends to have a character for each meaning and so does not need to qualify words in this way. Hence the characters on the page may be clear in meaning, but the sounds they represent highly ambiguous. This possibility was made stronger by the fact that conciseness in expressing one's thoughts was considered a great virtue. Part of the art of Chinese poetry lies in expoiting this ambiguity. One of the problems of Romanization is in developing a new style of writing the language which is less prone to ambiguity than the traditional one, without being completely colloquial.
bill@utastro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys) (07/10/85)
> I gather that although one can indeed read a written Chinese text out loud > one's listeners might well not understand one. This is because Chinese by > which I mean Mandarin) has a very limited stock of possible `words' -- I > think about four thousand. (Each `word' in Chinese is monosyllabic, > consisting of three elements: an initial, a final and a tone. There are four > tones and some twenty initials, which suggests about fifty finals -- these > figures seem about right but I can't promise.) > > As a result a single `word' has many meanings. According to the Guinness Book > of Records the fourth tone of `i' has some eighty odd distinguishable > meanings. In spoken Chinese the resulting ambiguity is often resolved by > using words in pairs. Thus `to eat' is (I think) `chao', but if the thing > being eaten is not mentioned one says `chao fan' (`fan' means `rice'), so `to > eat' is often translated as `to eat rice'; likewise `to read' is usually > translated as `to read (a) book'. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for one's > listener to interject with questions like `Do you mean "chao fan" or > "chao ..."?'. > > Written Chinese tends to have a character for each meaning and so does not > need to qualify words in this way. Hence the characters on the page may be > clear in meaning, but the sounds they represent highly ambiguous. This > possibility was made stronger by the fact that conciseness in expressing > one's thoughts was considered a great virtue. Part of the art of Chinese > poetry lies in expoiting this ambiguity. One of the problems of Romanization > is in developing a new style of writing the language which is less prone to > ambiguity than the traditional one, without being completely colloquial. Actually, the situation with Chinese is considerably more complex than this. While it is true that the number of distinguishable syllables is very limited (much less than the 3-4 thousand mentioned above - counting tones, DeFrancis estimates 1277), it is incorrect to make the equivalence character=word on which the above article depends. The vast majority of Chinese words consist of two syllables. When written, they are written with two characters. While it is true that spoken Chinese is sometimes ambiguous (so is spoken English, for that matter), it is not as ambiguous as pictured above. Ambiguities are normally resolved, as in English, by the context, although it is true that ambiguities have to be resolved explicitly more often than in English. The most common situation in which people ask for clarification is when trying to associate a syllable with a written character (as, for example, when transcribing a name). Also, it is not uncommon to see someone "writing" a character in the palm of his hand. But it doesn't happen all the time, either. It is certainly true that Classical Chinese (Wenyan) is very difficult to understand when spoken. Partly this is due to the fact that Classical Chinese *is* basically monosyllabic (which is probably a major source of the Monosyllabic Myth). Partly, also, it is due to the fact that even Chinese must learn Classical as a second language (as different from modern Chinese as, say, Modern English is from Chaucerian English). Yet the ancient Chinese *did* talk to each other, and my Classical teacher (who specializes in the development of the Chinese Language) says that the classics actually record language similar to the way people spoke in those days. So it can't have been *that* ambiguous, to those that spoke it! One of the reasons that more recent written Chinese is sometimes hard to understand when it is read is because the influence of Classical Chinese on the written language is still very strong. People love to show off their erudition by using constructions and phrases that you never hear in spoken conversation. This is even true on the mainland where there has been a conscious effort to bring the written language closer to the spoken language. There is an excellent book by John DeFrancis, *The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy* (Univ of Hawaii Press, 1984) that discusses the Monosyllabic Myth and other issues about Chinese, particularly language reform. I highly recommend it. -- "Men never do evil so cheerfully and so completely as when they do so from religious conviction." -- Blaise Pascal Bill Jefferys 8-% Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712 (USnail) {allegra,ihnp4}!{ut-sally,noao}!utastro!bill (uucp) bill%utastro.UTEXAS@ut-sally.ARPA (ARPANET)
bill@utastro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys) (07/10/85)
> > One of the reasons that more recent written Chinese is sometimes hard to > understand when it is read is because the influence of Classical Chinese > on the written language is still very strong. People love to show off I meant to say, "when it is read *aloud*". Sorry. -- "Men never do evil so cheerfully and so completely as when they do so from religious conviction." -- Blaise Pascal Bill Jefferys 8-% Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712 (USnail) {allegra,ihnp4}!{ut-sally,noao}!utastro!bill (uucp) bill%utastro.UTEXAS@ut-sally.ARPA (ARPANET)