Re: Origin of Chinese spoken languages

From: SJ (aniso_bipolar_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 11/01/04 

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 10:09:07 +0000 (UTC)

"Dylan Sung" <dylanwhs.tsktsktsk@pacific.net.hk> wrote in
news:2um9oiF2bb96pU1@uni-berlin.de:
>Show us how the inflections of Old Chinese give rise to difference in
>vocabulary, if there are many terms for butterfly, how do they arise?
>You said spoken Chinese language generated and evolved from writing
>systems. If dialectal terms never really got written down, since the
>trend was to imitate the literary language, how do spoken languages
>evolve new vocabulary. If the inflections are important to your
>demonstration, give us a word, and show how it changes to become
>several different distinct words in different Chinese languages.

You can invent any word in any spoken and written languages. Different
people can invent different words. The unique feature of Chinese
languages is that the rule of inventing a new word has been limited by
Chinese Hanja characaters, not by the sound.

Here you should tell a Chinese word from a Chinese character. Althouh a
character can denote a concept, usually two-character words dentoing
exactly the same concept have been invented and used as you illustrated
well in butterfly. The major reason for this is to distinguish homonyms.
Thus, again confirming my thoery that Chiense characters molded Chinese
spoken languages, in this case Chinese spoken words.

>Bang sa is Cantonese for butterfly. Yong yap is Hakka Chinese for
>butterfly. How do these arise if the term in literary Chinese for
>butterfly is hudie/wudip/fut'iap?

Synonyms in dialects are always possible.

Even in Korea, there can be dozens of variants for each word (dialects).
Even a poet can invent his own word. For example, the word denoting
butterfly is 'nabi' in Korean. This word is related with 'Nal-da' (na =
fly) and bi = denoting a noun. A Korean poet made a verb word 'Na-bil-le-
ra'. The nuance and meaning of na-bil-le-ra can not be fully grasped even
for foreigners who mastered Korean. Only native Koreans can feel and
understand this new word. The nuance is related with the flipping
movement of a butterfly's wings, particulary emphasizing its delicacy,
smothness and rhythm. The poet is said to have stayed in a remote temple
for several months to invent this and other few words and to complete his
entire poetry. The original Korean version is at:
http://myhome.naver.com/woomi9/poem/cch101.htm

And English version is at: http://myhome.naver.com/woomi9/poem/cch301.htm

>From the English version, you can not feel the delicate nuance like 'na-
bil-le-ra'. It's just translation of literal meaning, not nuance.

>> 나는 한국 신문을 읽고 있습니다.
>
>Forgive my rendering in romanisation, but for that I get
>
>naneun hangug sinmuneul ilggo issseubnida.
>
>An explanation of the sentence words would be welcomed. Are there any
>grammatical particles indicating subjects etc. (For example, would that
>literally be translated as "I Korean newspaper read", and what does
>issseubnida function as, and the go at the end of ilgo, how does that
>change the meaning of the word. My dictionary says ilgda for read, but
>it isn't conjugated.)

'neun' in na-neun indicates it is the subject (na = I in English). 'eul' in sinmun-eul
indicates it is the object (sinmun = newspaper). isseubnida is a variant of 'issda' (-ing
in English, the progressive form), emphasizing honorifics. Unlike Chinese or English,
Korean language have a complex set of variants denoting degree of honorifics and
abasement. 'ilgda' is just a neutral, standard and primary form. 'ilgo issda' = I am
reading. Innumerable suffixes are used to indicate honorifics, tense, and other
grammatic functions (as in 'na-bil-le-ra').

The Subject is mostly omiited, if it is too obvious in the context as in "(You) come
on" in English.

SJ.

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