DOCSLIB.ORG

Introduction to Chinese Writing

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Introduction to Chinese Writing Introduction to Chinese Writing Sunday, March 27, 2011 BC Carney 102 • 3pm-4:50pm Stephen M. Hou [email protected] Splash Spring 2011 Boston College 1 How Many People Speak Chinese? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Native_speakers_in_the_World.jpg 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 2 S.M. Hou •Chinese is one of the world’s oldest continuously used writing systems. •More people speak/read Chinese than any other language in the world. •Classical Chinese was the lingua franca of East Asia until the 20th century. •Until the invention of European movable type printing by Gutenberg (1439), the majority of the world’s written and printed material was in Chinese characters. 2 Sample Chinese Writing • One-minute exercise: What are some distinguishing characteristics you observe with Chinese writing? 我聯合國人民同茲決心，欲免後世 再遭今代人類兩度身歷慘不堪言之 戰禍，重申基本人權、人格尊嚴與 價值、以及男女與大小各國平等權 利之信念… WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to regain faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small… Preamble to the UN Charter 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 3 S.M. Hou 3 Sample Chinese Writing • One-minute exercise: What are some distinguishing characteristics you observe with Chinese writing? 我聯合國人民同茲決心，欲免後世 再遭今代人類兩度身歷慘不堪言之 戰禍，重申基本人權、人格尊嚴與 價值、以及男女與大小各國平等權 利之信念… WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to regain faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small… Preamble to the UN Charter 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 4 S.M. Hou •Chinese characters (including punctuation marks) occupy square spaces. •Chinese writing paper is a grid. 4 Chinese is an Analytic Language One character = One morpheme (Smallest linguistic unit with semantic meaning) All characters are one syllable long* 他不讓我用你的 電 腦 tā bú ràng wǒ yòng nǐ de diàn nǎo He (negative) allow me use you (possessive) electronic brain He (negative) allow me use your computer “He doesn’t allow me to use your computer.” * Only true in Chinese dialects and Korean. Not the case in Japanese. 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 5 S.M. Hou 5 Characters and Words •“Word”/phrase: 詞 (cí ) • In Modern Chinese, most “words” consist of two characters. 銀行 bank 肯定 to affirm 電梯 elevator 退休 to retire 滑雪 skiing 好笑 funny 小吃 snack 可愛 cute 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 6 S.M. Hou 6 How Many Characters Are There? • Kangxi Dictionary (康熙字 Characters Huang Da 典) (A.D. 1716) lists (1994) (2004) 47,000 characters. • One needs to know Top 250 64.4% 57.1% ~3,000 characters to read a modern Top 500 79.2% 72.1% newspaper fluently. • Shih-Kun Huang (1994) Top 1000 91.1% 86.2% analyzed Internet postings (Traditional); Top 1500 95.7% 92.4% Jun Da (2004) analyzed web publications, including online works Top 2000 97.9% 95.6% from before 1911 (Simplified). Frequency Top 3000 99.4% 98.3% results are shown. 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 7 S.M. Hou •Students in Mainland China and Taiwan learn about 2,000 by 4th grade, and 5,000 by the end of college. •Chinese as a foreign language varies widely at different universities; seems to be 400-1200 in each year. •MIT: 600 per semester, but another instructor said 200. •Yale: 300-400 in first year, 700-800 by end of second year. •BU: 500-600 per year (2000 by end of fourth year), but another lecturer said 600 per semester. •UMich: 500 in first semester, 300 in second semester (800 in first year). •Columbia: 200 per semester (non-intensive), 400 per semester (intensive). •Brandeis: 400 per semester (all courses are intensive). •Univ Washingon: 650 in first year, a little on the high end compared to other universities. •For some universities, the first semester or even the first year students will not learn Chinese characters but pinyin. However, many do not ask them to write Chinese with pen but with computer. They will use computer to typewrite Chinese (pinyin input creating Chinese characters). This is in line with Chinese AP test started in 2007. 7 The Ideographic Myth “Chinese characters represent ideas using pictures.” 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 8 S.M. Hou 8 Category 1: Pictograms ~600 characters are pictograms (象形 xiàng xíng “form imitation”); based on drawings of their meaning. 1400 B.C. – 500 B.C. – 200 B.C. – A.D. 200 – English 1050 B.C. 200 B.C. A.D. 400. Present Sun, Day 日 Moon, Month 月 Mountain 山 Rain 雨 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 9 S.M. Hou These historical writing styles are the origin of modern calligraphic styles. 9 Guess the Character: Pictograms Can you guess the meaning of these characters? 1400 B.C. – 500 B.C. – 200 B.C. – A.D. 200 – English 1050 B.C. 200 B.C. A.D. 400. Present 目 馬 鳥 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 10 S.M. Hou 10 Guess the Character: Pictograms Can you guess the meaning of these characters? 1400 B.C. – 500 B.C. – 200 B.C. – A.D. 200 – English 1050 B.C. 200 B.C. A.D. 400. Present 目 馬 鳥 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 11 S.M. Hou 11 Guess the Character: Pictograms Can you guess the meaning of these characters? 1400 B.C. – 500 B.C. – 200 B.C. – A.D. 200 – English 1050 B.C. 200 B.C. A.D. 400. Present 目 馬 鳥 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 12 S.M. Hou 12 Guess the Character: Pictograms Can you guess the meaning of these characters? 1400 B.C. – 500 B.C. – 200 B.C. – A.D. 200 – English 1050 B.C. 200 B.C. A.D. 400. Present Eye 目 Horse 馬 Bird 鳥 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 13 S.M. Hou 13 Modern Calligraphic Styles Examples for “horse” Seal Clerical Cursive Semi-cursive Regular Script Script Script Script Script (篆書) (隸書) (草書) (行書) (楷書) 221 B.C. 206 B.C. 206 B.C. A.D. 1st c. A.D. 200 Qin Han Han Century Han Dynasty Dynasty Dynasty Han Dynasty Dynasty 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 14 S.M. Hou •Overlapped in time, gradual evolution. •Seal script was the official script of the Qin Dynasty, first unified script for all China. •Seal script is used on seals, and few people can read it; need training. •Clerical script was the official script of the Han Dynasty. •Cursive script is purely artistic; Japanese hiragana is based on it. 14 Modern Typefaces 麻省理工學院 Kaiti (楷體) “regular” 麻省理工學院 Song/Ming (宋體/明體) 麻省理工學院 Heiti (黑體) • Kaiti typeface is considered “true script” and thus is the basis for handwriting. Appears on formal documents. • Song/Ming is the most common printed typeface in both Chinese and Japanese; analogous to Times New Roman in English. Appears in books, magazines, and newspapers. • Heiti is analogous to sans-serif fonts in English (e.g. Arial). Appears on signs, websites, computer apps (e.g. karaoke). 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 15 S.M. Hou Song/Ming -Print blocks started in the Song dynasty. -Wood grain ran horizontally. -Vertical and slanted lines caused the grain to break easily, so thin horizontal and thick vertical strokes. -To prevent wear and tear, the ending of horizontal strokes are thickened (fish scales (uroko in Japanese)). -Called Mincho in Japanese, and myeongjo or batang in Korean. 15 Category 2: Simple Ideograms Express abstract ideas One 一 Two 二 Three 三 Up 上 Down 下 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 16 S.M. Hou Pattern ends at 3! 16 Guess the Character: Simple Ideograms If 凹 (āo) means “concave, dented, indentation”, what do you think 凸 (tū) means? 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 17 S.M. Hou It means “convex”, “protrusion”. 17 Category 3: Ideogrammic Compounds Two or more ideograms are combined to form a new meaning 人+ 木 = 休 Person resting against tree = to rest 不+ 正 = 歪 Not straight = crooked 禾+ 火 = 秋 grain fire = autumn 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 18 S.M. Hou 18 Guess the Character: Ideogrammic Compounds If 小 (xiǎo) and 大 (dà) mean “small” and “large”, respectively, what do you think 尖 (jiān) means? 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 19 S.M. Hou It means “point” or “tip”. 19 Category 4: Rebus (Phonetic Loan) Characters are borrowed to mean a similar-sounding word (cf. Egyptian and Sumerian), but sometimes, the secondary meaning would dominate, so the first meaning would develop a new character to reduce ambiguity. Character Original Secondary New char. meaning meaning for original meaning 北 bèi “back” běi “north” 背 要 yāo “waist” yào “to want” 腰 永 yǒng “to swim” yǒng “forever” 泳 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 20 S.M. Hou This makes interpreting ancient texts confusing sometimes. 20 The Universality Myth “Chinese from thousands of years ago is immediately readable by any literate Chinese today.” 27 Mar 2011 BC Splash Spring 2011 - Chinese Writing - 21 S.M.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Stochastic Model of Stroke Order Variation
    2009 10th International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition Stochastic Model of Stroke Order Variation Yoshinori Katayama, Seiichi Uchida, and Hiroaki Sakoe Faculty of Information Science and Electrical Engineering, Kyushu University, 819-0395, Japan fyosinori,[email protected] Abstract “ ¡ ” under an unnatural stroke correspondence which max- imizes their similarity. Note that the correct stroke order of A stochastic model of stroke order variation is proposed “ ” is (“—” ! “j' ! “=” ! “n” ! “–”) and that of “ ¡ ” and applied to the stroke-order free on-line Kanji character is (“—” ! “–” ! “j' ! “=” ! “n” ). Thus if we allow any recognition. The proposed model is a hidden Markov model stroke order variation, those two characters become almost (HMM) with a special topology to represent all stroke order identical. variations. A sequence of state transitions from the initial One possible remedy to suppress the misrecognitions is state to the final state of the model represents one stroke to penalize unnatural i.e., rare stroke order on optimizing order and provides a probability of the stroke order. The the stroke correspondence. In fact, there are popular stroke distribution of the stroke order probability can be trained orders (including the standard stroke order) and there are automatically by using an EM algorithm from a training rare stroke orders. If we penalize the situation that “ ¡ ” is set of on-line character patterns. Experimental results on matched to an input pattern with its very rare stroke order large-scale test patterns showed that the proposed model of (“—” ! “j' ! “=” ! “n” ! “–”), we can avoid the could represent actual stroke order variations appropriately misrecognition of “ ” as “ ¡ .” and improve recognition accuracy by penalizing incorrect For this purpose, a stochastic model of stroke order vari- stroke orders.
    [Show full text]
  • The Status of Cantonese in the Education Policy of Hong Kong Kwai Sang Lee and Wai Mun Leung*
    Lee and Leung Multilingual Education 2012, 2:2 http://www.multilingual-education.com/2/1/2 RESEARCH Open Access The status of Cantonese in the education policy of Hong Kong Kwai Sang Lee and Wai Mun Leung* * Correspondence: waimun@ied. Abstract edu.hk Department of Chinese, The Hong After the handover of Hong Kong to China, a first-ever policy of “bi-literacy and Kong Institute of Education, Hong tri-lingualism” was put forward by the Special Administrative Region Government. Kong Under the trilingual policy, Cantonese, the most dominant local language, equally shares the official status with Putonghua and English only in name but not in spirit, as neither the promotion nor the funding approaches on Cantonese match its legal status. This paper reviews the status of Cantonese in Hong Kong under this policy with respect to the levels of government, education and curriculum, considers the consequences of neglecting Cantonese in the school curriculum, and discusses the importance of large-scale surveys for language policymaking. Keywords: the status of Cantonese, “bi-literacy and tri-lingualism” policy, language survey, Cantonese language education Background The adjustment of the language policy is a common phenomenon in post-colonial societies. It always results in raising the status of the regional vernacular, but the lan- guage of the ex-colonist still maintains a very strong influence on certain domains. Taking Singapore as an example, English became the dominant language in the work- place and families, and the local dialects were suppressed. It led to the degrading of both English and Chinese proficiency levels according to scholars’ evaluation (Goh 2009a, b).
    [Show full text]
  • Neural Substrates of Hanja (Logogram) and Hangul (Phonogram) Character Readings by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
    ORIGINAL ARTICLE Neuroscience http://dx.doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2014.29.10.1416 • J Korean Med Sci 2014; 29: 1416-1424 Neural Substrates of Hanja (Logogram) and Hangul (Phonogram) Character Readings by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Zang-Hee Cho,1 Nambeom Kim,1 The two basic scripts of the Korean writing system, Hanja (the logography of the traditional Sungbong Bae,2 Je-Geun Chi,1 Korean character) and Hangul (the more newer Korean alphabet), have been used together Chan-Woong Park,1 Seiji Ogawa,1,3 since the 14th century. While Hanja character has its own morphemic base, Hangul being and Young-Bo Kim1 purely phonemic without morphemic base. These two, therefore, have substantially different outcomes as a language as well as different neural responses. Based on these 1Neuroscience Research Institute, Gachon University, Incheon, Korea; 2Department of linguistic differences between Hanja and Hangul, we have launched two studies; first was Psychology, Yeungnam University, Kyongsan, Korea; to find differences in cortical activation when it is stimulated by Hanja and Hangul reading 3Kansei Fukushi Research Institute, Tohoku Fukushi to support the much discussed dual-route hypothesis of logographic and phonological University, Sendai, Japan routes in the brain by fMRI (Experiment 1). The second objective was to evaluate how Received: 14 February 2014 Hanja and Hangul affect comprehension, therefore, recognition memory, specifically the Accepted: 5 July 2014 effects of semantic transparency and morphemic clarity on memory consolidation and then related cortical activations, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) Address for Correspondence: (Experiment 2). The first fMRI experiment indicated relatively large areas of the brain are Young-Bo Kim, MD Department of Neuroscience and Neurosurgery, Gachon activated by Hanja reading compared to Hangul reading.
    [Show full text]
  • Top 100 Languages by Total Number of Native Speakers in 2007 Rank
    This is a service by the Basel Institute of Commons and Economics. Browse more rankings on: http://commons.ch/world-rankings/ Top 100 languages by total number of native speakers in 2007 Number of Country with most Share of world rank country speakers in native speakers population millions 1. Mandarin Chinese 935 10.14% China 2. Spanish 415 5.85% Mexico 3. English 395 5.52% USA 4. Hindi 310 4.46% India 5. Arabic 295 3.24% Egypt 6. Portuguese 215 3.08% Brasilien 7. Bengali 205 3.05% Bangladesh 8. Russian 160 2.42% Russia 9. Japanese 125 1.92% Japan 10. Punjabi 95 1.44% Pakistan 11. German 92 1.39% Germany 12. Javanese 82 1.25% Indonesia 13. Wu Chinese 80 1.20% China 14. Malay 77 1.16% Indonesia 15. Telugu 76 1.15% India 16. Vietnamese 76 1.14% Vietnam 17. Korean 76 1.14% South Korea 18. French 75 1.12% France 19. Marathi 73 1.10% India 20. Tamil 70 1.06% India 21. Urdu 66 0.99% Pakistan 22. Turkish 63 0.95% Turkey 23. Italian 59 0.90% Italy 24. Cantonese 59 0.89% China 25. Thai 56 0.85% Thailand 26. Gujarati 49 0.74% India 27. Jin Chinese 48 0.72% China 28. Min Nan Chinese 47 0.71% Taiwan 29. Persian 45 0.68% Iran You want to score on countries by yourself? You can score eight indicators in 41 languages on https://trustyourplace.com/ This is a service by the Basel Institute of Commons and Economics.
    [Show full text]
  • Congressional-Executive Commission on China
    CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA ANNUAL REPORT 2008 ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION OCTOBER 31, 2008 Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.cecc.gov VerDate Aug 31 2005 23:54 Nov 06, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6011 Sfmt 5011 U:\DOCS\45233.TXT DEIDRE 2008 ANNUAL REPORT VerDate Aug 31 2005 23:54 Nov 06, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6019 Sfmt 6019 U:\DOCS\45233.TXT DEIDRE CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA ANNUAL REPORT 2008 ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION OCTOBER 31, 2008 Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.cecc.gov U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE ★ 44–748 PDF WASHINGTON : 2008 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate Aug 31 2005 23:54 Nov 06, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 U:\DOCS\45233.TXT DEIDRE CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS House Senate SANDER LEVIN, Michigan, Chairman BYRON DORGAN, North Dakota, Co-Chairman MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio MAX BAUCUS, Montana TOM UDALL, New Mexico CARL LEVIN, Michigan MICHAEL M. HONDA, California DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota SHERROD BROWN, Ohio CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska EDWARD R. ROYCE, California SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas DONALD A.
    [Show full text]
  • Cantonese Vs. Mandarin: a Summary
    Cantonese vs. Mandarin: A summary JMFT October 21, 2015 This short essay is intended to summarise the similarities and differences between Cantonese and Mandarin. 1 Introduction The large geographical area that is referred to as `China'1 is home to many languages and dialects. Most of these languages are related, and fall under the umbrella term Hanyu (¡£), a term which is usually translated as `Chinese' and spoken of as though it were a unified language. In fact, there are hundreds of dialects and varieties of Chinese, which are not mutually intelligible. With 910 million speakers worldwide2, Mandarin is by far the most common dialect of Chinese. `Mandarin' or `guanhua' originally referred to the language of the mandarins, the government bureaucrats who were based in Beijing. This language was based on the Bejing dialect of Chinese. It was promoted by the Qing dynasty (1644{1912) and later the People's Republic (1949{) as the country's lingua franca, as part of efforts by these governments to establish political unity. Mandarin is now used by most people in China and Taiwan. 3 Mandarin itself consists of many subvarities which are not mutually intelligible. Cantonese (Yuetyu (£) is named after the city Canton, whose name is now transliterated as Guangdong. It is spoken in Hong Kong and Macau (with a combined population of around 8 million), and, owing to these cities' former colonial status, by many overseas Chinese. In the rest of China, Cantonese is relatively rare, but it is still sometimes spoken in Guangzhou. 2 History and etymology It is interesting to note that the Cantonese name for Cantonese, Yuetyu, means `language of the Yuet people'.
    [Show full text]
  • A Comparative Analysis of the Simplification of Chinese Characters in Japan and China
    CONTRASTING APPROACHES TO CHINESE CHARACTER REFORM: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE SIMPLIFICATION OF CHINESE CHARACTERS IN JAPAN AND CHINA A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN ASIAN STUDIES AUGUST 2012 By Kei Imafuku Thesis Committee: Alexander Vovin, Chairperson Robert Huey Dina Rudolph Yoshimi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express deep gratitude to Alexander Vovin, Robert Huey, and Dina R. Yoshimi for their Japanese and Chinese expertise and kind encouragement throughout the writing of this thesis. Their guidance, as well as the support of the Center for Japanese Studies, School of Pacific and Asian Studies, and the East-West Center, has been invaluable. i ABSTRACT Due to the complexity and number of Chinese characters used in Chinese and Japanese, some characters were the target of simplification reforms. However, Japanese and Chinese simplifications frequently differed, resulting in the existence of multiple forms of the same character being used in different places. This study investigates the differences between the Japanese and Chinese simplifications and the effects of the simplification techniques implemented by each side. The more conservative Japanese simplifications were achieved by instating simpler historical character variants while the more radical Chinese simplifications were achieved primarily through the use of whole cursive script forms and phonetic simplification techniques. These techniques, however, have been criticized for their detrimental effects on character recognition, semantic and phonetic clarity, and consistency – issues less present with the Japanese approach. By comparing the Japanese and Chinese simplification techniques, this study seeks to determine the characteristics of more effective, less controversial Chinese character simplifications.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Pictorial Structure of Chinese Characters
    National Bur'SaU 01 Jiwiuuiuu Library, N.W. Bldg Reference book not to be FEB 1 1965 taken from the library. ^ecltnlcai v|ete 254 ON THE PICTORIAL STRUCTURE OF CHINESE CHARACTERS B. KIRK RANKIN, III, WALTER A. SILLARS, AND ROBERT W. HSU U. S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS THE NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS The National Bureau of Standards is a principal focal point in the Federal Government for assuring maximum application of the physical and engineering sciences to the advancement of technology in industry and commerce. Its responsibilities include development and maintenance of the national stand- ards of measurement, and the provisions of means for making measurements consistent with those standards; determination of physical constants and properties of materials; development of methods for testing materials, mechanisms, and structures, and making such tests as may be necessary, particu- larly for government agencies; cooperation in the establishment of standard practices for incorpora- tion in codes and specifications; advisory service to government agencies on scientific and technical problems; invention and development of devices to serve special needs of the Government; assistance to industry, business, and consumers in the development and acceptance of commercial standards and simplified trade practice recommendations; administration of programs in cooperation with United States business groups and standards organizations for the development of international standards of practice; and maintenance of a clearinghouse for the collection and dissemination of scientific, tech- nical, and engineering information. The scope of the Bureau's activities is suggested in the following listing of its four Institutes and their organizational units. Institute for Basic Standards.
    [Show full text]
  • The Chinese Script T � * 'L
    Norman, Jerry, Chinese, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. 1 3.1 Th e beginnings of Chinese writing 59 3 FISH HORSE ELEPHANT cow (yu) (m ii) (xiimg) (niu) " The Chinese script t � * 'l Figure 3.1. Pictographs in early Chinese writing 3.1 The beginnings of Chinese writing1 The Chinese script appears as a fully developed writing system in the late Shang .dynasty (fourteenth to eleventh centuries BC). From this period we have copious examples of the script inscribed or written on bones and tortoise shells, for the most part in the form of short divinatory texts. From the same period there also Figure 3.2. The graph fo r quiin'dog' exist a number of inscriptions on bronze vessels of various sorts. The former type of graphic record is referred to as the oracle bone script while the latter is com­ of this sort of graph are shown in Figure 3.1. The more truly representational a monly known· as the bronze script. The script of this period is already a fully graph is, the more difficult and time-consuming it is to depict. There is a natural developed writing system, capable of recording the contemporary Chinese lan­ tendency for such graphs to become progressively simplified and stylized as a guage in a complete and unambiguous manner. The maturity of this early script writing system matures and becomes more widely used. As a result, pictographs has suggested to many scholars that it must have passed through a fairly long gradually tend to lose their obvious pictorial quality. The graph for qui'in 'dog' period of development before reaching this stage, but the few examples of writing shown in Figure 3.2 can serve as a good illustration of this sort of development.
    [Show full text]
  • Language Specific Peculiarities Document for Cantonese As
    Language Specific Peculiarities Document for Cantonese as Spoken in the Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces of China 1. Dialects The name "Cantonese" is used either for all of the language varieties spoken in specific regions in the Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces of China and Hong Kong (i.e., the Yue dialects of Chinese), or as one particular variety referred to as the "Guangfu group" (Bauer & Benedict 1997). In instances where Cantonese is described as 'Cantonese "proper"' (i.e. used in the narrower sense), it refers to a variety of Cantonese that is spoken in the capital cities Guangzhou and Nanning, as well as in Hong Kong and Macau. This database includes Cantonese as spoken in the Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces of China only (i.e. not in Hong Kong); five dialect groups have been defined for Cantonese (see the following table)1. Three general principles have been used in defining these dialect groupings: (i) phonological variation, (ii) geographical variation, and (iii) lexical variation. With relation to phonological variation, although Cantonese is spoken in all of the regions listed in the table, there are differences in pronunciation. Differences in geographic locations also correlate with variations in lexical choice. Cultural differences are also correlated with linguistic differences, particularly in lexical choices. Area Cities (examples) Central Guangzhou, Conghua, Fogang (Shijiao), Guangdong Longmen, Zengcheng, Huaxian Group Northern Shaoguan, Qijiang, Lian Xian, Liannan, Guangdong Yangshan, Yingde, Taiping Group Northern
    [Show full text]
  • Construction and Automatization of a Minnan Child Speech Corpus with Some Research Findings
    Computational Linguistics and Chinese Language Processing Vol. 12, No. 4, December 2007, pp. 411-442 411 © The Association for Computational Linguistics and Chinese Language Processing Construction and Automatization of a Minnan Child Speech Corpus with some Research Findings Jane S. Tsay∗ Abstract Taiwanese Child Language Corpus (TAICORP) is a corpus based on spontaneous conversations between young children and their adult caretakers in Minnan (Taiwan Southern Min) speaking families in Chiayi County, Taiwan. This corpus is special in several ways: (1) It is a Minnan corpus; (2) It is a speech-based corpus; (3) It is a corpus of a language that does not yet have a conventionalized orthography; (4) It is a collection of longitudinal child language data; (5) It is one of the largest child corpora in the world with about two million syllables in 497,426 lines (utterances) based on about 330 hours of recordings. Regarding the format, TAICORP adopted the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) [MacWhinney and Snow 1985; MacWhinney 1995] for transcribing and coding the recordings into machine-readable text. The goals of this paper are to introduce the construction of this speech-based corpus and at the same time to discuss some problems and challenges encountered. The development of an automatic word segmentation program with a spell-checker is also discussed. Finally, some findings in syllable distribution are reported. Keywords: Minnan, Taiwan Southern Min, Taiwanese, Speech Corpus, Child Language, CHILDES, Automatic Word Segmentation 1. Introduction Taiwanese Child Language Corpus is a corpus based on spontaneous conversations between young children and their adult caretakers in Minnan speaking families in Chiayi County, Taiwan.
    [Show full text]
  • Post-Cold War Experimental Theatre of China: Staging Globalisation and Its Resistance
    Post-Cold War Experimental Theatre of China: Staging Globalisation and Its Resistance Zheyu Wei A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The School of Creative Arts The University of Dublin, Trinity College 2017 Declaration I declare that this thesis has not been submitted as an exercise for a degree at this or any other university and it is my own work. I agree to deposit this thesis in the University’s open access institutional repository or allow the library to do so on my behalf, subject to Irish Copyright Legislation and Trinity College Library Conditions of use and acknowledgement. ___________________ Zheyu Wei ii Summary This thesis is a study of Chinese experimental theatre from the year 1990 to the year 2014, to examine the involvement of Chinese theatre in the process of globalisation – the increasingly intensified relationship between places that are far away from one another but that are connected by the movement of flows on a global scale and the consciousness of the world as a whole. The central argument of this thesis is that Chinese post-Cold War experimental theatre has been greatly influenced by the trend of globalisation. This dissertation discusses the work of a number of representative figures in the “Little Theatre Movement” in mainland China since the 1980s, e.g. Lin Zhaohua, Meng Jinghui, Zhang Xian, etc., whose theatrical experiments have had a strong impact on the development of contemporary Chinese theatre, and inspired a younger generation of theatre practitioners. Through both close reading of literary and visual texts, and the inspection of secondary texts such as interviews and commentaries, an overview of performances mirroring the age-old Chinese culture’s struggle under the unprecedented modernising and globalising pressure in the post-Cold War period will be provided.
    [Show full text]