Fun with the Origin of Chinese spoken languages

From: Jacques Guy (jguy_at_alphalink.com.au)
Date: 10/26/04 

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 17:39:32 -0700

PaPaPeng wrote:
 
> On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 07:15:36 +0000 (UTC), SJ <donot@send.spam.net>
> wrote:
 
> >In my humble opinion, the author of this book could have got a better
> >inspiration if he could have considered my main point: Chinese spoken
> >languages were originated from the isolating written language called Hanja
> >script. It's so pity that I am not any kind of linguist to publish in
> >linguistics journals (I should be satisfied with this kind of news group
> >where only terrapin's eggs are dominant).
 
> Huh?? Can you rephrase the stuff posted in plain English? Three
> sentences should do.

He's just learnt the meaning of wang2ba dan4. "Terrapin" is
a North American species of turtles (wang2ba)--the word is
believed to have been borrowed from Algonquian (a native
language spoken in Virginia and thereabouts).

So let me translate his gibberish into three sentences.

"The author of the book would have been better inspired
if he'd agreed with me that spoken Chinese originated from
written Chinese, called Hanja [yeah, right, wow!].
Alas I don't get to be published in linguistic journals.
So I have to be content with airing my seminal theories
in this despicable newsgroup exclusively populated by
arseholes (terrapin's eggs = wang2ba dan4)".

So there. Three sentences, no more, no less, as you
asked for. But note that the fellow (SJ) does not seem
to know the other meaning of wang2ba.

Oh, definitely, not knowing any Chinese does help
building theories about it!