From: adam@address.invalid   
      
   Jim Beard wrote:   
   > On 05/22/2012 06:05 PM, Adam wrote:   
      
   >> I've heard there are dialects there that sound so different that   
   >> spoken communication is impossible even though the written   
   >> language is identical.   
   >   
   > probably 70 percent of all those within China's borders could   
   > speak the standard version of Chinese well enough to communicate for   
   > all ordinary purposes. Probably 90 percent could understand it   
   > fairly well (the influence of radio and television).   
      
   I hadn't thought of radio and television.  I suppose that unless   
   they provide different programs for different regions, they would   
   have to be in a language/dialect that most people would understand.   
      
   >> I've heard that _written_ Chinese is a "grammarless tongue,"   
   >   
   > Close. Chinese definitely has a grammar, but it is the simplest   
   > grammar of any human language I know anything about. Esperanto is   
   > far far more complicated in grammar.   
      
   I've read that this is due to several thousand years of   
   simplification through daily usage.  Even Old English (less than a   
   thousand years ago) had cases and other now-archaic forms.   
      
   > If you are taught Chinese as spoken language only (as young children   
   > learn it -- writing comes years later)   
      
   Isn't that true for children in most places?  Here (U.S.) the   
   written language isn't taught until first grade (age 6), when   
   children have already been using spoken English.   
      
   > Stability of word meanings   
   > over time (centuries) is also greater for Chinese, in consequence of   
   > the visual cues, though the "simplified" Chinese now in use in China   
   > has drastically reduced this benefit.   
      
   I remember we discussed simplified Chinese a while back.  IIRC it's   
   a one-for-one substitution of old characters with new ones simpler   
   to write... am I remembering correctly?   
      
   > Most characters have only one pronunciation, but there are   
   > exceptions. The choice of how to pronounce the character will then   
   > depend on the word it is a part of, or context if a single-character   
   > word. This is not a big problem, though.   
      
   English has the same (small) problem, e.g. "close" as in nearby vs.   
   "close" as in shut, the final sound being either "s" or "z".   
      
   > Number, tense, and time frame in Chinese are commonly left to   
   > context, and are implicit rather than explicit. They can be made   
   > explicit by use of additional words or grammatical elements.   
   > European grammatical concepts such as "past tense" are not   
   > duplicated precisely, however.   
      
   That's often a problem when translating between any two languages,   
   especially (as here) when have such different cultural backgrounds.   
      
   > IIRC, maybe 60 percent of all Vietnamese have surname Nguyen   
   [...]   
   > The Koreans, though, have   
   > the lock on commonality of surname. I don't remember the number, but   
   > Kim must be the surname for well over 75 percent of all Koreans.   
      
   As someone pointed out recently, that kind of takes away the point   
   of having a surname (family name). :-)   
      
   Adam   
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