Old Chinese, Was this really how it sounded? Options

[foi2]

Guys.

I hate to say this. But anyone who thinks the video even remotely resembles the actual Chinese language OVER TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO is an idiot and should be shot and/or subject to really painful torture. Imagine a person who knows Mandarin trying to speak English, but have never heard it spoken. How similar do you think what comes out of their mouth will be to actual spoken English? How well can a deaf person speak?

Since Chinese is written with logographic characters, not letters, it is not easy to trace changes to the sound of Chinese over time. Attempts to reconstruct Old Chinese have nearly always proceeded from first reconstructing Middle Chinese with the use of riming dictionaries and rime tables from the Sui, Tang, and Song

As I've said before. There are great barriers for reconstructing sounds in a logographic language such as Chinese. Certain sounds can be approximated, but that doesn't mean it's the same. The entire exercise is futile. Even readings of OLD ENGLISH vary wildly depending on the speaker, and that's an ALPHABETICAL LANGUAGE that's only 900 years old.

Stop being dumb. The videos are for fun, nothing more. Sound changes are only of use to Linguists who might want to track how sounds might have changed over the years. It is completely useless for someone to take a chart and read it out aloud as it'll sound nothing like the original language.

In fact, they're not even sure if Old Chinese is actually tonal or not (Most of the widely accepted theories say Old Chinese is not tonal, but there are disagreements). How do you reconstruct a language when you don't even have that fundamental aspect of the language figured out?

This post has been edited by foi2: Dec 30 2010, 05:59 AM

[tianya]

Guys.

I hate to say this. But anyone who thinks the video even remotely resembles the actual Chinese language OVER TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO is an idiot and should be shot and/or subject to really painful torture. Imagine a person who knows Mandarin trying to speak English, but have never heard it spoken. How similar do you think what comes out of their mouth will be to actual spoken English? How well can a deaf person speak?

As I've said before. There are great barriers for reconstructing sounds in a logographic language such as Chinese. Certain sounds can be approximated, but that doesn't mean it's the same. The entire exercise is futile. Even readings of OLD ENGLISH vary wildly depending on the speaker, and that's an ALPHABETICAL LANGUAGE that's only 900 years old.

Stop being dumb. The videos are for fun, nothing more. Sound changes are only of use to Linguists who might want to track how sounds might have changed over the years. It is completely useless for someone to take a chart and read it out aloud as it'll sound nothing like the original language.

1. Chinese isn't a logographic language.Chinese character were made in 6 ways and 90%+chinese character belong to 形声字.( the character was combined from 2 parts, half part shows meaning and another half shows pronunciation)
Most of the character on this world have the same evolution way.
Pictograph------------------>letters---------------->words
Chinese just has more letters than the other language.
2.U should study how to respect others work. Have u known how they reconstruct old chinese? If no, then I think u d better keep quiet.It is really annoying that so many people here although their chinese level is even worse than primary school students but they still pretended to be experts.

[foi2]

^^

LOL, Chinese language level is irrelevant. We know enough about linguistics to know that there's too little data. As I said before, I'll quote it here again:

They're not even sure if Old Chinese is actually tonal or not (Most of the widely accepted theories say Old Chinese is NOT TONAL, but there are disagreements). How do you reconstruct a language when you don't even have that fundamental aspect of the language figured out?

[qaib]

^

true.. a dead language is hard to construct if there are no speakers. Latin may be a dead language, but it is still spoken by some linguists that study Latin.

To me, if Old Chinese sounds like Tibetan/Lolo-Burmese, then it must not be tonal. If Old Chinese sounds like Miao-Yao, then it is tonal.

[orange peel]

isn't the most basic premise in this study that there in fact was at some point a consensus pronunciation in China? For a country the size of China, before the Qin dynasty even the written script wasn't unified (wasn't one of the greatest achievements of Qin the unification of Chinese written script). To suppose that at a time where most people spend their entire life in w/o leaving their home town there was a single pronunciation across such a vast land mass is a little bit of a stretch, not only is it very difficult to achieve but also that it's pointless as no 2 people from different regions are likely to speak to each other anyway.

[tianya]

LOL, Chinese language level is irrelevant. We know enough about linguistics to know that there's too little data. As I said before, I'll quote it here again:

I really admire ur courage.I have never hoped AFers can reach an expert level but u have problem in basal knowledge. Then u make jokes like "we know enough about linguistics to know there s too little data".

They're not even sure if Old Chinese is actually tonal or not (Most of the widely accepted theories say Old Chinese is NOT TONAL, but there are disagreements). How do you reconstruct a language when you don't even have that fundamental aspect of the language figured out?

Again have u ever read both sides' opinion?If no, I would suggest u "hey ,stop wasting ur time on AF".

isn't the most basic premise in this study that there in fact was at some point a consensus pronunciation in China? For a country the size of China, before the Qin dynasty even the written script wasn't unified (wasn't one of the greatest achievements of Qin the unification of Chinese written script). To suppose that at a time where most people spend their entire life in w/o leaving their home town there was a single pronunciation across such a vast land mass is a little bit of a stretch, not only is it very difficult to achieve but also that it's pointless as no 2 people from different regions are likely to speak to each other anyway.

Please study the concept of "old chinese".
I think u have no clue about what u r talking about.

^

true.. a dead language is hard to construct if there are no speakers. Latin may be a dead language, but it is still spoken by some linguists that study Latin.

To me, if Old Chinese sounds like Tibetan/Lolo-Burmese, then it must not be tonal. If Old Chinese sounds like Miao-Yao, then it is tonal.

I began to believe american government sucks in education. LOL

[foi2]

I really admire ur courage.I have never hoped AFers can reach an expert level but u have problem in basal knowledge. Then u make jokes like "we know enough about linguistics to know there s too little data".


Again have u ever read both sides' opinion?If no, I would suggest u "hey ,stop wasting ur time on AF".

heh, I think you should start by educating yourself in English first. What the hell is 'basal' knowledge? I don't need to read both side's opinion when we already know there's no conclusive evidence to arrive at a conclusion. If there was enough evidence, there would be no debate in the first place;the issue would be settled. Try some Logic sometime, it's good for ya.

I began to believe american government sucks in education. LOL

ahhh, the irony. LOL

[tianya]

heh, I think you should start by educating yourself in English first. What the hell is 'basal' knowledge? I don't need to read both side's opinion when we already know there's no conclusive evidence to arrive at a conclusion. If there was enough evidence, there would be no debate in the first place;the issue would be settled. Try some Logic sometime, it's good for ya.

Hey,please educate urself with such a truth "not everyone on this world take english as their mother tongue".
Admire again. U have never read both sides' opinion, now u know "there's no conclusive evidence to arrive at a conclusion"?
Even simple things like "The sum of degrees of interior angles of triangle is 180." is controversial.
Who sucks in logic? U or me?

ahhh, the irony. LOL

The most horrible things on this world is not ignorance but ignorance+arrogance. That's why I believe america sucks in education.lol

[papen]

to me, it sounds somewhere between Thai and Hokkien/Teochew

[AsianGames]

2.U should study how to respect others work. Have u known how they reconstruct old chinese? If no, then I think u d better keep quiet.It is really annoying that so many people here although their chinese level is even worse than primary school students but they still pretended to be experts.

If the studies were done for a pure academic purpose, I can totally respect them
However most of these people are hardly from the academia ( except very few numbers of overzealous scholars)
My suspicion is that these so called linguistic enthusiasts and Hanfu fanatics are the same group of people

This post has been edited by AsianGames: Dec 30 2010, 09:35 PM

[tianya]

If the studies were done for a pure academic purpose, I can totally respect them
However most of these people are hardly from the academia ( except very few numbers of overzealous scholars)
My suspicion is that these so called linguistic enthusiasts and Hanfu fanatics are the same group of people

Again I saw some arrogant BS.

1.Have u ever checked those paper? If no, how can u know that hardly academic research?
2.Most linguists of chinese r from south. And please respect others' work even when u became an experts in this field.
3.Everyone on this world should be proud of themselves. There s nothing wrong for people studying their own heritage.
Of course, first of all they should respect the truth(no one need faked pride).

Sorry but u sounds like a "Red guards".

This post has been edited by tianya: Dec 30 2010, 09:44 PM

[AsianGames]

U do not know most top linguists of chinese r from southern china?
OK, correct my mistake again:
some part of shandong also have 入声.

What does your questions have anything to do with my quote that you highlighted?





This post has been edited by AsianGames: Dec 30 2010, 09:43 PM

[tianya]

What does your questions have anything to do with my quote that you highlighted?

Sorry so I re-edit it.

[AsianGames]

I didn't know shandong dialects also have 入声

[Titanium]

It sounds Khmer mixed with Thai

OF course this is under the assumption that those linguists have gotten it down.