Re: Origin of Chinese spoken languages - 2nd evidence

From: PaPaPeng (papapeng_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 10/21/04 

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 16:07:23 GMT

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 12:44:44 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
<grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

>>
>> I think it will be a good idea if everyone took a step back and look
>> at some published sources. The July 2003 issue of the national
>> Geographic provides an easy to read and well illustrated account of
>> the archaelogical record.
>
>Good grief. National Geographic is written by journalists. Their
>manuscripts are not reviewed by specialists. (I know this from personal
>experience. They once queried me about a specific point in an article on
>writing, and when they sent me the published issue, and the language map
>-- the first one they'd ever published in over 100 years -- the point
>they'd queried me about was correct, but there were many other errors of
>the sort lay writers make all the time.)

One very important contribution by the National Geographic is that
they do check their facts. And as you confirmed they do ask from
someone like yourself. While scholars may disagree with their
author's interpretation the NG version nonetheless does represent the
best and latest information on the subject and they do weed out wild
speculations. That's the job of journalists, to clarify concepts for
everyman. You haven't pointed out any objections to the factual
content of the parts I quoted. And anyone with a modicum of knowledge
of Chinese history and prehistory will recongize the data as correct.

 I take some pride in knowing more about China than most but even I
had to look at that extremely simplified NG map over and over again to
form a good mental picture, to relate that picture to the article's
description and to incorporate that into my general knowledge of the
subject. Look at a map of the same areas in any atlas and it will be
impossible to locate the sites described let alone give it context.
The same goes for historical accounts where its easy to mix events
that occurred centuries apart as being contemporaries. This was why I
I always cite a timeline.

In a newsgroup we are appealing to a very general public whose source
of knowledge is the idiot tube. It is necessary to use some
reputable print source that is readily available to everyone to check
on. More important it must be in a readily digestable form. The
history, culture and geography of China is way too vast for anyone to
grasp with any confidence. I value the NG immensely because this
publication has the ability to get to the core of an issue with which
one can see the big picture and use that use as the framework to build
a better picture. If one can induce someone else to investigate
further it is a more significant achievement than winning an argument.

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