For Questions That Don't Merit Their Own Thread

[razark]

12 minutes ago, Lisias said:

NASA employees playing...

I'm not saying we don't...

[kerbiloid]

The NASA employees don't play KSP to learn physics.

They watch the Scott Manley's videos for that.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Loosely 'Science' related question...

To what extent are the 'major' Asian languages related to one another?

• Are they analogous to English / German where there are many similar root words (even if English's grammatical structure is a hodge podge of Viking and Celt)?
• ...or
• Are they analogous to English / Russian where the alphabets are different, the words and grammatical structures are totally distinct?

[Kerwood Floyd]

A lot depends on what you mean by "the 'major' Asian languages". English is more closely related to Hindi than either is to Mandarin.

If you have in mind what I would call "East Asian languages", it seems that the Chinese languages, Korean, and Japanese are no more related to each other than they are to any of the Indo-European languages.

Edited May 31, 2023 by Kerwood Floyd
elaboration

[SunlitZelkova]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Loosely 'Science' related question...

To what extent are the 'major' Asian languages related to one another?

• Are they analogous to English / German where there are many similar root words (even if English's grammatical structure is a hodge podge of Viking and Celt)?
• ...or
• Are they analogous to English / Russian where the alphabets are different, the words and grammatical structures are totally distinct?

Assuming you mean Chinese, Korean, and Japanese…

The very old Korean and of course Japanese kanji are more or less Chinese characters. Korean uses a modern writing system but the root is the same. So although pronunciation is different, some words are the same. For example, 火星 and 火星. The left is in Chinese, and the right is in Japanese. Both mean Mars, despite different pronunciation.

But on the other hand, grammar structures are totally different as far as I am aware.

EDIT- Just to add a little more, it can be very different too for words. I’m sure Chinese has some traditional words dating back thousands of years for “rocket”, but in Japanese we just say ロケット (roketto) which is a word that obviously comes from English.

Edited May 31, 2023 by SunlitZelkova

[sevenperforce]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

To what extent are the 'major' Asian languages related to one another?

• Are they analogous to English / German where there are many similar root words (even if English's grammatical structure is a hodge podge of Viking and Celt)?
• ...or
• Are they analogous to English / Russian where the alphabets are different, the words and grammatical structures are totally distinct?

They are much farther removed apart than English and Russian.

The Sino-Tibetan language family consists primarily of Chinese (in most of its various versions), Burmese, and Tibetan. It has no known ties to the Indo-European language family, the Austroasiatic language family, the Austronesian language family, or the Altaic language family, which themselves contain the following:

• Indo-European: German, English, Russian, Hindi, Punjabi, Greek, Spanish, French
• Austroasiatic: Vietnamese, Khmer
• Austronesian: Malay/Indonesian, Javanese, Tagalog
• Altaic: Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Mongolian

So you could say that Mandarin is as different from Japanese as Japanese is from English.

In comparing within the language families, however, there are closer similarities. Japanese and Korean (or Malay and Tagalog) have about as much in common as English and Russian.

38 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

The very old Korean and of course Japanese kanji are more or less Chinese characters. Korean uses a modern writing system but the root is the same. So although pronunciation is different, some words are the same. For example, 火星 and 火星. The left is in Chinese, and the right is in Japanese.

Since Chinese scripts go back so far in history, they were adopted for a number of other languages despite those languages having no recent common ancestry with each other. Just like you can use Roman characters to write transliterated Hebrew even though Hebrew and Latin aren't closely related.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Assuming you mean Chinese, Korean, and Japanese…

Yeah - I didn't want to devolve into dialects (although interesting topic for a different time).

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

3 hours ago, Kerwood Floyd said:

East Asian languages

That is what I was originally thinking about - should have used that level of specificity.

(I tend to think of the entire Indian subcontenent as it's own place.  In my mind I think I was limiting it to relationships between Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and Thai... but just ripped off the question with my kid yelling at me that it was time to go!)

2 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

The Sino-Tibetan language family consists primarily of Chinese (in most of its various versions), Burmese, and Tibetan. It has no known ties to the Indo-European language family, the Austroasiatic language family, the Austronesian language family, or the Altaic language family, which themselves contain the following:

• Indo-European: German, English, Russian, Hindi, Punjabi, Greek, Spanish, French
• Austroasiatic: Vietnamese, Khmer
• Austronesian: Malay/Indonesian, Javanese, Tagalog
• Altaic: Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Mongolian

So you could say that Mandarin is as different from Japanese as Japanese is from English.

Very interesting .  Actually - you remind me that I once read Japanese and Finnish are related.

[kerbiloid]

Finns watch anime.

[SunlitZelkova]

4 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

Since Chinese scripts go back so far in history, they were adopted for a number of other languages despite those languages having no recent common ancestry with each other. Just like you can use Roman characters to write transliterated Hebrew even though Hebrew and Latin aren't closely related.

The fact remains I can make a general understanding of Chinese articles about military history because the writing is similar. I recognize grammar is very different, but they are related in the same way I can recognize бомба and bomb, despite Russian and English being very different.

[steve9728]

The dialect accents of various parts of China within the country are in fact inherited from the various different parts of the ancient Chinese pronunciation, which have evolved locally over time. 

The languages relationship between the 'chopstick culture circle' around China, including Vietnam, the Korean peninsula, and Japan, and Chinese is similar to the way "imported words" are now taken from English - if the words in your language can express what I want to say more simply, then I will use your words. But if your words are difficult for me to understand and learn, then why should I use your words? The only downside, though, is that they may not be able to read the writing written on artifacts from their own country that are at most a century or two old.

Rocket in Chinese is "火箭", 火=fire, 箭=arrow. The common abbreviation for rocket in Chinese is 箭. For example, using one rocket to launch multiple satellites in Chinese is "一箭多星". (一=one, 多=multiple,星=satellite, in Chinese, is "卫星", in short, is "星")

19 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

So you could say that Mandarin is as different from Japanese as Japanese is from English.

Not exactly. The difference in many words between Japanese and Mandarin just be like "turn a corner and you're right there". For example "Your point is correct", in Chinese can be "说得是 (shuō dé shì)", and in Japanese is "そうです (sodesu)". There're lots of other examples like that. Because, well, of course, is inextricably linked to the deep cultural exchanges of all kinds between China and Japan and others where around China, both peacefully and not. That started from very long ago. If must find a similar example like this, I would say is kind like Britain and France.

Edited June 1, 2023 by steve9728

[sevenperforce]

6 hours ago, steve9728 said:

19 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

So you could say that Mandarin is as different from Japanese as Japanese is from English.

Not exactly. The difference in many words between Japanese and Mandarin just be like "turn a corner and you're right there". For example "Your point is correct", in Chinese can be "说得是 (shuō dé shì)", and in Japanese is "そうです (sodesu)". There're lots of other examples like that. Because, well, of course, is inextricably linked to the deep cultural exchanges of all kinds between China and Japan and others where around China, both peacefully and not. That started from very long ago. If must find a similar example like this, I would say is kind like Britain and France.

On the other hand, doesn't Japanese have a lot of loan words from English as well?

Maybe the more accurate statement is that Mandarin is almost as different from Japanese as Japanese is from English.

[steve9728]

Just now, sevenperforce said:

On the other hand, doesn't Japanese have a lot of loan words from English as well?

Maybe the more accurate statement is that Mandarin is almost as different from Japanese as Japanese is from English.

Yep. That's what we called the influence of diverse culture, isn't it?

[kerbiloid]

As English, German, French, Russian, etc. from Ancient Greek and Latin.

[magnemoe]

8 hours ago, steve9728 said:

The dialect accents of various parts of China within the country are in fact inherited from the various different parts of the ancient Chinese pronunciation, which have evolved locally over time. 

The languages relationship between the 'chopstick culture circle' around China, including Vietnam, the Korean peninsula, and Japan, and Chinese is similar to the way "imported words" are now taken from English - if the words in your language can express what I want to say more simply, then I will use your words. But if your words are difficult for me to understand and learn, then why should I use your words? The only downside, though, is that they may not be able to read the writing written on artifacts from their own country that are at most a century or two old.

Rocket in Chinese is "火箭", 火=fire, 箭=arrow. The common abbreviation for rocket in Chinese is 箭. For example, using one rocket to launch multiple satellites in Chinese is "一箭多星". (一=one, 多=multiple,星=satellite, in Chinese, is "卫星", in short, is "星")

Not exactly. The difference in many words between Japanese and Mandarin just be like "turn a corner and you're right there". For example "Your point is correct", in Chinese can be "说得是 (shuō dé shì)", and in Japanese is "そうです (sodesu)". There're lots of other examples like that. Because, well, of course, is inextricably linked to the deep cultural exchanges of all kinds between China and Japan and others where around China, both peacefully and not. That started from very long ago. If must find a similar example like this, I would say is kind like Britain and France.

A bit unrelated but I say relevant by your fire arrow example. How did an written language with thousands of letters survive, yes both China,Korea and Japan has versions with phonemic letters, but as I understand this was resent, think it was 20th century. In Europe and the middle east I believe Egyptian hieroglyphs was the last holdout and there and they had multiple versions of phonemic letters and at the end the old pictograms was for ceremonial or religious / magical use 
Phonemic alphabets was copied many times. Even in pretty modern history, One Cherokee blacksmith made an for their language after been seeing books and written notes and got it explained. He could not read English but the idea sound very useful so he made an alphabet. 

Yes pictograms are more intuitive, You draw an sheep or a bread and something like Roman numerals behind for the amount who works for primitive accounting. 
But it don't cut it for official documents or other abstract documents. The first downside of an huge alphabet is the steep learning curve. 
It hardly mattered for the first civilizations, writing was needed for administering the kingdoms by specialized scribes the rest at best primitive accounting. 
But at the classical antiquity you was expected to be literate if pretty rich.
At medieval times most could read and write at least if living in an city and not dirt poor. Illiterate at this point was not understanding Latin, gatekeeping is not new. 
They learned to read an write from others, its not what hard if you only care is speling is understabele  as it was leters or nots  

So why did not China adopt phonemic letters over 1000 years ago? Or do I miss something very obvious? 
 

[kerbiloid]

... and now about the East Asian Morse....

[steve9728]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

A bit unrelated but I say relevant by your fire arrow example. How did an written language with thousands of letters survive, yes both China,Korea and Japan has versions with phonemic letters, but as I understand this was resent, think it was 20th century. In Europe and the middle east I believe Egyptian hieroglyphs was the last holdout and there and they had multiple versions of phonemic letters and at the end the old pictograms was for ceremonial or religious / magical use 
Phonemic alphabets was copied many times. Even in pretty modern history, One Cherokee blacksmith made an for their language after been seeing books and written notes and got it explained. He could not read English but the idea sound very useful so he made an alphabet. 

Yes pictograms are more intuitive, You draw an sheep or a bread and something like Roman numerals behind for the amount who works for primitive accounting. 
But it don't cut it for official documents or other abstract documents. The first downside of an huge alphabet is the steep learning curve. 
It hardly mattered for the first civilizations, writing was needed for administering the kingdoms by specialized scribes the rest at best primitive accounting. 
But at the classical antiquity you was expected to be literate if pretty rich.
At medieval times most could read and write at least if living in an city and not dirt poor. Illiterate at this point was not understanding Latin, gatekeeping is not new. 
They learned to read an write from others, its not what hard if you only care is speling is understabele  as it was leters or nots  

So why did not China adopt phonemic letters over 1000 years ago? Or do I miss something very obvious? 
 

First, how did people know "this word read as this?" here we go, ancient dictionary 《说文解字》(shuo wen jie zi), 《字林》(zi lin), and 《玉篇》(yu pian). Simply put, the dictionary will tell you that the word is pronounced exactly the same as several other words, and then tell you what the parts of the word are. And here's the answer to why not phonemic letters: Just simply the same pronunciation of a tone can have at least three or four different words that have completely different meanings. For example, let's take "箭 (jiàn)" back as an example. In exactly the same pronunciation "jiàn", it could be sword "剑", warship "舰", witness "见", building "建", healthy "健", or lowlife "贱". Yep, they are all the same pronounced and the same tone of voice (there are more words with this pronunciation actually).

And what would happen if Chinese characters were abolished and replaced with phonemic letters, this question you can ask the Koreans to see their ID cards. Their current script is a phonetic script, but as I mentioned earlier, there are bound to be many homophones for the same pronunciation. This leads to them having to mark their names with Chinese characters at the end.

Chinese morse is using numbers.

But aren't you curious about how our ancestors wrote music in Chinese characters hahaha

Add: Many of China's ancient emperors would have had some of the classics - essential reading for intellectuals of the era - inscribed on stone tablets for proofreading in order to avoid errors when they were copied. These include, of course, not only such 'scholarly works', but also accounts of the achievements of kings and subjects, religious texts, poetic works, and excellent calligraphic works. Religions are not only Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, but also Christianity and Islam.

Edited June 1, 2023 by steve9728

[kerbiloid]

4 minutes ago, steve9728 said:

Chinese morse is using numbers.

Oops, I was thinking that it's using English Morse + Pinyin.

[steve9728]

Just now, kerbiloid said:

Oops, I was thinking that it's using English Morse + Pinyin.

There has been some genius who produce Chinese character typewriters. However, computers: 

[SunlitZelkova]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

So why did not China adopt phonemic letters over 1000 years ago? Or do I miss something very obvious? 

Yes. No Western influence.

Vietnam was heavily influenced by Catholic missionaries from Portugal (or some southern European country, I don’t remember for sure). So it abandoned its Chinese style writing system and uses Latin script today.

Everywhere else did not have this because they all were quasi-isolationist for one reason or another. So it stuck.

As @steve9728 said, it would suck to use Latin script in an Asian language. Like Chinese, there are numerous homophones in Japanese.

Note that it didn’t necessarily have to be this way. It had been postulated that it Japan did not close its borders and was somehow converted to Christianity in the 1600s, it might have adopted a Latin script system like Vietnam.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Loosely related - does anyone know to what extent the Chinese Christians derived from post - 15th century European missionaries or whether they are remnants from the 1200s & Mongol conquests?   Or perhaps before?  I read somewhere that Christian theology reached East Asia via the land route as early as 1000 CE.  

 

 

[steve9728]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Loosely related - does anyone know to what extent the Chinese Christians derived from post - 15th century European missionaries or whether they are remnants from the 1200s & Mongol conquests?   Or perhaps before?  I read somewhere that Christian theology reached East Asia via the land route as early as 1000 CE.  

 

 

9 hours ago, steve9728 said:

 Religions are not only Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, but also Christianity and Islam.

Church of East and in China. In fact, I believe this was a continuing influence - missionaries from the West kept coming to China. Just like other religions such as Islam from Arab and Zoroastrianism from Persia

Edited June 2, 2023 by steve9728

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, steve9728 said:

Church of East and in China. In fact, I believe this was a continuing influence - missionaries from the West kept coming to China. Just like other religions such as Islam from Arab and Zoroastrianism from Persia

Yeah - I've been reading lately about those early days.  1200s was very interesting - with Mongols hosting representatives from various faiths - and leaders being Christian, Islamic, anamistic - etc.  Kind of a 'do what you want to, so long as you're Mongol and obey the Khan'.  

The other thread I'm following is that those early Christians were from a different tradition than the Western Missionaries following the 1500s; still trying to figure out if that distinction is meaningful.

Mostly just looking at how people moved, interacted and influenced each other in the pre-modern world.

FWIW - "Church of the East" is the thread I've been following.  Did not even think of looking for it on Wiki - Thanks for the link!

[miklkit]

Interesting topic.  I recently found that archeologists have discovered some similarities between Sumerian cuneiform and Chinese writing.  Some characters not only look the same but have the same sounds attached to them. 

[kerbiloid]

38 minutes ago, miklkit said:

Interesting topic.  I recently found that archeologists have discovered some similarities between Sumerian cuneiform and Chinese writing. 

Both are derived from Gothic, together with the Hebrew one.

The key question is, when they derived the Phoenician from Greek.