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    Chinese Language Chinese Language

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    The document provides a brief introduction to the Chinese language in 3 paragraphs: [1] It discusses the long history and widespread influence of Chinese, noting it has over 2,000 years of history and is spoken by more people than any other language. [2] It explains some basic concepts in Chinese linguistics, including the differences between terms like Chinese language, Mandarin, and Cantonese. It also introduces the romanization system Pinyin. [3] It gives a brief overview of the structure of the Chinese writing system, including the use of characters, tones, and principles of character construction like pictographs and phonetic complexes.

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    Chinese Language Chinese Language

    Uploaded by

    saparamaduchandima
    35 views40 pages
    The document provides a brief introduction to the Chinese language in 3 paragraphs: [1] It discusses the long history and widespread influence of Chinese, noting it has over 2,000 years of history and is spoken by more people than any other language. [2] It explains some basic concepts in Chinese linguistics, including the differences between terms like Chinese language, Mandarin, and Cantonese. It also introduces the romanization system Pinyin. [3] It gives a brief overview of the structure of the Chinese writing system, including the use of characters, tones, and principles of character construction like pictographs and phonetic complexes.

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    The document provides a brief introduction to the Chinese language in 3 paragraphs: [1] It discusses the long history and widespread influence of Chinese, noting it has over 2,000 years of history and is spoken by more people than any other language. [2] It explains some basic concepts in Chinese linguistics, including the differences between terms like Chinese language, Mandarin, and Cantonese. It also introduces the romanization system Pinyin. [3] It gives a brief overview of the structure of the Chinese writing system, including the use of characters, tones, and principles of character construction like pictographs and phonetic complexes.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    35 views40 pages

    Chinese Language Chinese Language

    Uploaded by

    saparamaduchandima
    The document provides a brief introduction to the Chinese language in 3 paragraphs: [1] It discusses the long history and widespread influence of Chinese, noting it has over 2,000 years of history and is spoken by more people than any other language. [2] It explains some basic concepts in Chinese linguistics, including the differences between terms like Chinese language, Mandarin, and Cantonese. It also introduces the romanization system Pinyin. [3] It gives a brief overview of the structure of the Chinese writing system, including the use of characters, tones, and principles of character construction like pictographs and phonetic complexes.

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    of 40

    A Brief I ntroduction to the

    Chinese Language

    Keqian Xu, Ph.D.


    Professor of Chinese Literature and Culture,
    Nanjing Normal University,
    Visiting Professor and deputy director of
    the Confucius Institute at NCSU
    [email protected]
    A very old yet still living language:

    „ Several thousand years long history, ever


    changing, but never interrupted.
    „ Belong to the “Sino- Tibetan ” language
    system.
    „ More people speak Chinese than any other
    language in the world.
    „ One of the five official languages of UN.
    „ About 2 million American residents are
    Chinese home speakers.
    „ 60% of Korean vocabulary comes from
    Chinese.
    „ Written Japanese has several thousand
    characters borrowed from Chinese.
    „ I t has been estimated that until the 18th
    century more than half of the world's
    printed books were in Chinese.
    Some confusing terms：

    „ Chinese Language 中文
    „ Hanyu 汉语
    „ Mandarin 官话
    „ Putonghua 普通话
    I s Cantonese Chinese?
    „ Yes!
    „ I t ’s only one of the many dialects of
    Chinese (Yue Dialect).
    „ The difference is mainly in pronunciation,
    slightly in vocabulary and grammar, but
    not in writing system.
    The Map of Chinese Dialects

    „ Northern
    „ Wu
    „ Yue
    „ Min
    „ Xiang
    „ Gan
    „ Hakka
    What is “Pin Yin ”?
    „ The Romanized phonetic spelling system
    created in 1950’s for Mandarin or standard
    Chinese (Putonghua)
    „ I t is based on Beijing Dialects, a branch of
    the Northern dialects of Chinese language
    „ I t uses 25 letters in English except “ V ”.
    Chinese (Mandarin) Phonetics
    „ I nitials (consonants)
    „ Finals (a vowel, or a combination of vowels,
    sometimes with a nasal at the end)
    „ Tones (four distinct and one light tones)
    „ Each Chinese character corresponds to one
    syllable. A syllable is consist of an initial, a final
    and a tone.
    21 initials (consonants)
    Voiceless Voiced
    Unaspirated Aspirated Nasal
    fricative fricative

    Labial b p m f
    Alveolar d t n l
    Velar g k h
    Palatal j q x
    Dental
    sibilant z c s
    Retroflex zh ch sh r

    y w
    35 finals
    6 simple
    finals: a o e i u ü

    13
    ai ao ei ia iao ie iou (iu) ou ua
    compound
    finals: uai üe uei (ui) uo
    8 front an en ian in uan üan
    nasals: uen (un) ün
    16 nasal
    finals:
    8 back ang eng iang ing iong
    nasals: ong uang ueng

    er
    4 tones and a light tone

    High Up Low Dow n light

    mā má mǎ mà ma
    Māma q í m ǎ m ǎ m àn m ā m à m ǎ.

    妈 妈 骑 马，马 慢， 妈 骂 马。

    Mother is riding on a horse, the horse walks


    too slow, so mother curses it.
    „ Combinations of initials and finals, plus
    several special cases, result in 411
    possible combinations.
    „ Applying the four tones, we get a total of
    around 1,600 unique syllables.
    Zh ōng Gu ó Měi Gu ó
    中 国 美 国
    China USA
    Běi Jīng 北京
    Nán Jīng 南京
    Dōng Jīng 东京

    Běi kǎ lu ó lái n à 北卡罗来纳


    Why not use “Pin Yin ” to replace Chinese
    characters as Chinese writing system?

    „ I mpossible! Because there are too many


    homophonic characters.
    „ Zhao Yuanren , a famous Chinese linguist,
    wrote an article entitled 施氏食狮史( The
    Story of Mr. Shi Ate a Lion ), the whole
    article only use one syllable “shi”.
    When did the earliest Chinese
    Characters appeared?
    „ No later than 14 century B.C.
    „ Oracle- bone inscriptions of the Shang
    Dynasty (1600- 1028 B.C.)
    I nscription on tripod
    vessels
    Large seal script
    (1100- 256 BC)
    I nscription on
    stone stele,
    Qin Dynasty
    (221B.C. - 206 B.C )
    small seal
    script
    “Li shu ” or Clerical
    script:
    Han Dynasty (220
    B.C. - 206 A.D.)
    „ “Kai Shu ” , the
    standard script
    Tang Dynasty
    (618- 907)
    The evolution of Chinese Characters.

    Oracle Large Small Clerical Standard Running Grass Simplified


    bone seal seal script script script script script
    script script script (207 BC-
    BC- (Since (Since (Since (Since
    (1400-
    (1400- (1100-
    (1100- (221-
    (221- 207 BC) 207 BC) 207 BC) 1949)
    220 AD)
    1200 BC) 256 BC) 207 BC)

    Human
    r én
    Mountain
    shān
    Sun r ì
    Horse M ǎ
    Are all the Chinese characters
    pictographs？

    „ No! Only some basic words are.


    „ Chinese works pictographically as well as
    phonetically.
    How do Chinese characters
    constructed?
    „ Xu Shen a scholar lived in Han Dynasty,
    summarized “Six Ways” : 指事 象形 形声
    会意 转注 假借
    „ Later scholars pointed out that only the
    first 4 are the principle of constructing
    Chinese characters, the rest two are ways
    of using them.
    The Main 4 Principles for Character
    Construction:

    „ Pictographs ( ≈4% )
    „ I deographs ( ≈1% )
    „ Logical Aggregates ( ≈13% )
    „ Phonetic Complexes ( ≈82% )
    Pictographs:
    Represent real- life objects by drawings ( ≈4% )
    – Animal, plants, parts of the body etc.
    – Example (Scripts from oracle bone)

    zHorse 马 zBig great 大


    zHuman 人 zHand 手
    zSun 日 zKnife 刀
    zMountain 山 zTree wood 木
    I deographs：
    Represent positional and numeral
    concepts by indication ( ≈1% )
    Example:

    z一 二 三 zHeaven 天
    z 上 下
    z 本 末 zSeparate 分
    Logical Aggregates:
    Form a new meaning by combining the meanings of two
    or more characters ( ≈13% )
    Example
    „ Wood 木 Small Forest 林 Big Forest 森
    „ Person 人 Small Group 从 Large Group 众

    „ Person 人 Ground 土＝ Sit 坐

    „ 手 + 分 + 手 ＝ 掰 Hand + To separate +
    Hand ＝ To separate sth with two hands
    Phonetic Complexes
    Form a character by combining the meaning of one
    character and the pronunciation of another character
    ( ≈82% )

    Example：

    „江 河 湖 海 流 沐 潮
    „椅 杆 杨 桐 案 架 梨
    „妈 码 玛 骂 蚂 吗 犸
    „驴 骡 骆 驾 驶 骑 驻
    9 basic
    stokes 书
    How many Chinese characters in all ?
    „ 9,353 in 1st century C.E. 《说文解字》
    „ 47,043 in 1716 《康熙字典》
    „ ~ 60,000 in 1990
    „ Occurrence
    ƒ 1,000 characters 90%
    ƒ 2,400 characters 99%
    ƒ 3,800 characters 99.9%
    ƒ 6,600 characters 99.999%

    300 of the most common characters w ill help you


    survive in Chinese daily life.
    Chinese word building：
    „ Some words are single syllable (one
    character)
    „ Majority words in modern Chinese are
    double syllable (two characters)
    „ Some words are multi- syllable (three or
    more characters)
    学 xu é ：learn study
    „ 学校 school „ 学者 scholar
    „ 小学 primary school „ 奖学金 scholarship
    „ 中学 secondary school „ 哲学 philosophy
    „ 大学 university „ 科学 science
    „ 学院 college „ 物理学 physics
    „ 学生 student „ 形而上学 metaphysics
    „ 学分 credit „ 人类学 anthropology
    „ 学费 tuition „ 医学 medicine
    „ 学期 semester „ 汉学 sinology
    Strong capability in make new w ords:

    电 diàn ：thunder flash electricity

    „ 电力 electricity power „ 电池 battery


    „ 发电站 power plant „ 电视 TV
    „ 电灯 electric light „ 彩电 color TV
    „ 电车 trolley bus „ 电脑 computer
    „ 电话 telephone „ 电子邮件 E- mail
    „ 电影 movie
    I s Chinese grammar complex ?
    „ Not any more complex in general compare
    with other languages. Some aspects are
    even much simpler.
    „ Main features:
    – No inflection of nouns, verbs etc.
    – The order of words is more important.
    – Functional empty words.
    – Many measure words.
    English: Chinese:
    to be ----- am, is, are, always “ 是” sh ì .
    was, were, been, being,
    have been,

    study studied, always “ 学习 ” xu é


    studying xí .
    „ 我在姑妈家 I am in auntie's home.
    „ 姑妈在我家 Auntie is in my home.
    „ 我姑妈在家 My auntie is at home.
    „ 我家姑妈在 My auntie is right here.
    Learning Chinese：A rewardable
    long- term investment
    „ I f my kids w ere of very young ages
    today, I w ould be asking them, and
    encouraging them, to learn Chinese.
    ( How ard Schultz Chairman, Starbucks - Seattle Times,
    12/ 25/ 2005)

    „ I f you w ant to get ahead, learn


    Mandarin…learning Chinese w ill
    provide an edge in the 21st.
    ( Time magazine , June 19, 2006) .
    Some useful internet resource
    index web pages:
    „ Ocrat.com http://www.ocrat.com/
    „ Leaning Chinese Online
    http://www.csulb.edu/~txie/online.htm
    „ MERLOT (Multimedia Educational
    Resource for Learning and Online Teaching)
    http://www.merlot.org
    Thank you!

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