The great Vindications

The Chinese language was accused as the worst language in the world by both the Chinese philologists and the Western sinologists. Yet, at the time of my initial work on “Chinese etymology”, I did not know about the above fact. After I learned that fact, I have written some weekly newsletters on the issue, and they were posted in this blog.

Two months ago, I met a few Chinese at LinkedIn while they were discussing the book  “紅樓夢”. I found out that that book was also wronged for the past 200 years. Worst yet, those who wrong that book are the same people who wrong the Chinese written system. Thus, I have decided to write a book to vindicate these two (Chinese language and 紅樓夢). Now, the first draft of this book is done and is available via the links provided. The first two parts of the book are written in Chinese. The part three is written in English.

       

            沉冤大白 
    (the great Vindications)

                     ----   為 “紅樓夢” 與 “漢語文” 平冤

(Part one) 沉冤大白 --- 為 “紅樓夢”平冤

(http://www.chineselanguageforums.com/chinese-idioms/topic-t227.html)

第一章: 評 “紅樓夢” 的 三大原則

第二章: 普世價值一 (宿命與自由意志)

第三章: 普世價值二 (性事、愛情 與 儒家神學) 

第四章: 先評 “中國的三大奇書”

第五章: “紅樓夢” 的宗旨 --- 三綱

第六章: 原書 與 續集

第七章: “紅樓” 的仙佛世界 與塵世的因果報應

第八章: 色、 情、 淫與 意淫 (一)

第九章: 色、 情、 淫與 意淫 (二) 

第十章: 色、 情、 淫與 意淫 (三)

第十一章: 紅樓中的儒家禮教

第十二章: 紅樓中的仙佛因果與緯讖

第十三章: 高鶚的續集 與 老紅學

(Part two) 沉冤大白 --- 為 “漢語文” 平冤

(http://www.chineselanguageforums.com/chinese-idioms/topic-t228.html)

第十四章: 百年沉冤 “漢語文” 

第十五章: 語言學的 夢想

第十六章: “一二三萬” 的語文

第十七章: 丟死人的 “沉冤” 

第十八章: 最偉大與完美的 “語法”

第十九章: 最偉大的語文

(Part  Three) 沉冤大白: The new Chinese Etymology

(http://www.chineselanguageforums.com/chinese-idioms/part-three-the-new-chinese-etymology-t229.html)

Chapter 20 ----  The background history before this new Chinese etymology

Chapter 21 ----  The claims of this new Chinese etymology

Chapter 22 ----  The only  axiomatic human language

Chapter 23 ----  About  形 聲(phonetic loan) and 會 意(sense determinators),

Chapter 24 ----  Accommodating a verbal universe by the written system

Chapter 25 ----  The evolution of Chinese etymology and the verifications of four premises

Chapter 26 ----  The Conceptual Language and Super Unified Linguistics paradigm

Chapter 27 ----  Wrong to the young students! (誤 人 子 弟)! 

Chapter 28 ----  500 examples of this new Chinese etymology (available in paperback only)

Bibliography of Chinese etymology

Someone is still saying that radicals are known for thousands of years, and this new etymology is not new at all. I have given a detailed discussion on this issue in the article “The proper perspective of this new Chinese etymology, http://chineselanguageetymology.blogspot.com/2011/05/proper-perspective-of-this-new-chinese.html” .  In this article, I will provide more bibliography on this issue for your convenience.

 

In the article, “PreBabel (Chinese), http://www.prebabel.info/bab015.htm”, I discussed three points:

1. The current (traditional) Chinese character system (the 隸 書) was a revolution, not an evolution from the Oracle Characters --> Bronze Characters --> Large seal characters --> Small seal characters. The supporting evidence of this was the story of interactions between the 秦 始 皇 (Emperor Qin Shi Huang),  王 次 仲 (http://baike.baidu.com/view/201945.htm ) and  程 邈 (http://baike.baidu.com/view/97773.htm ). Thus, anyone who describes the 隸 書 with Oracle characters are the same as describing the human evolution with the facts of Neanderthal, and this is exactly what the "old school" is all about.

2. The greatest Chinese philologists did not know about this new Chinese etymology. The best example is about 王 安 石  (http://baike.baidu.com/view/2515.htm   , one of the greatest philologist in Chinese history)  and his book  字 說 (http://baike.baidu.com/view/420769.htm , which turned out to be a laughing-stock).

3. The greatest Chinese philologists in the 1930s were despising Chinese character system, viewing it as the feces and the shame of Chinese people. The following sites provide the evidence on this.

   i.   近现代文化名人对汉字的诅咒 ---  (http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/content/worldlook/1/178259.shtml )

   ii.  鲁迅欲消灭汉字  ---  (http://www.kanzhongguo.com/news/12/04/14/447923.html?%E9%B2%81%E8%BF%85%E6%AC%B2%E6%B6%88%E7%81%AD%E6%B1%89%E5%AD%97%28%E5%9B%BE%29 )

  iii. 郭沫若、蔡元培 等人的 ＂消滅漢字宣言＂ --- (http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?4,73347 )

More detail on this, please read the article “李敖 與無知的 魯 迅, http://tienzengong.pixnet.net/blog/post/35566874”.

With the evidence above, if anyone still believes that this new Chinese etymology was known long ago and is not new, then so be it.

A fair review

Mr. Wayne Walter used this system and gave a fair review. The following is quoted from his review, posted on a discussion forum.

“FYI, I purchased the book [Chinese Etymology] and agree with Volapuk49 with one additional information...

Volupuk49 said, "I suspect that the author is on to something valuable but unfortunately, at this point in my studies, I am not willing to make the effort to decipher ... "

Now that I have the book, I have taken some time to figure out what is valuable.

After discussing with several native Chinese, they agree the information is valuable in the following way:

Most Chinese recognize characters are composed of different other roots which often are standalone characters of which the meaning is commonly understood.

However, many characters have ideographic symbols included in them which, while repeated in other characters, never exist as standalone and the meaning has been lost to the average (even well educated) Chinese person.

Additionally, many symbols that exist as standalone characters and form parts of other characters had their meaning change over time so that the meaning is very different when included inside another character.

Note: My earlier post was incorrect in that the professor never said that all characters contain sounds. But he does include sound.

What the professor, (through email correspondence), has convinced us that he can do is really tell how the meaning and writing of a character evolved to what it is today. …

What he successfully accomplished while personally teaching students in class is enough "critical mass" of understanding of etymology and the evolution of characters so that students can "decode" the meaning of new characters they never saw before.

How is this useful to me....

I personally want to know all the symbols individually that can construct any characters. His list of 220 symbols has been proven to cover EVERY single character that exists.

In other words, once you learn the 220, you'll never see a character that looks completely foreign.

Plus, with some practice, (and support from Dr. Gong) you can get the "hang of" decoding characters based on these.

It seems, personally, that reading about ancient Chinese culture and habits helps a great deal to decode characters. …

Additionally, learning the roots that related to Chi, (energy) like blocked Chi, unblock Chi, week Chi, etc. unlocks greater meaning from characters.

I'm personally creating a much more approachable beginners guide to how this all works. I have proposed to Professor Gong to collaborate. FYI, I'm a trained language teacher and speak and teach French and Spanish as well as my native English. …

Hey, would anyone else would like to join in this effort?  If so, I can give you an outline of how I will approach it to make it easy and useful. And I would love ideas, input and feedback.

I will follow a style like the book Reading and Writing Chinese but with some major differences and an emphasis on teaching the roots primarily with enough examples and etymology so the beginner gets immediate satisfaction with understanding the compositions of popular characters.”

The original discussion about this review is available at http://www.chineselanguageforums.com/post1575.html#p1575