Re: Zheng spoke English well

arnab.zaheen@xxxxxxxxx wrote...
On Jun 28, 6:50 pm, Richard Eich <richard.e...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
arnab.zah...@xxxxxxxxx wrote...
On Jun 28, 5:00 pm, Richard Eich <richard.e...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
jli...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote...

"Richard Eich" <richard.e...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:MPG.22cfc9b8cfbce27e98b14e@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
arnab.zah...@xxxxxxxxx wrote...
On Jun 28, 11:07 am, jingus <jin...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Fan wrote:
It says that she lives in China. I wonder where she learned English.

my guess is that she learned to speak english in china. you've
obviously not met many people from china.

Fan is edging closer to my killfile.

Of course, it would have been entirely appropriate if Zhen didn't
speak English. Chinese is growing in stature as a second language.

"Chinese"? There is no "Chinese" language there are only Chinese
dialects.

Sorry, there is chinese language, There is written language that all
chinese
can understand regardless if you are a mandarin speaker, Fukian speaker,
Hokka speaker or you speak Sichuan dialects ( this is where Zheng Jie
came from ).

If you are referring to the written form then your statement that
"Chinese is growing in stature as a second language" is false. It is
structurally too imprecise for scientific applications (which,
incidentally, is why English, Russian, and German are the dominant
languages in the sciences, and in English is for business).

Any and every language can be used for scientific and business
applications. English, Russian and German are dominant languages in
the sciences for historical reasons, not linguistic reasons.

"Historical reasons" ?!? China is significantly older than
European/Causasian culture, so no that isn't it. Heck, China
invented gunpowder and gave it to the Europeans so they were
inventing stuff before the Europeans were.

If the Chinese culture is significantly older than European cultures,
and if they have invented many

I didn't say "many" did I? I said "gunpowder" -- for as old as
Chinese culture is w.r.t. European culture, if

...things before Europeans, then it
automatically suggests that their language(s) has been more than
adequate to transfer and preserve scientific thoughts. The Chinese
even wrote massive encyclopedias in the middle ages.

The Chinese weren't
particularly great mathematicians though; the language didn't support
the kinds of abstraction that make algebra, geometry, and calculus
possible. To that we owe Arabic, Greek, Latin, and English.

The Chinese language has nothing to do with the perceived lack of
great mathematicians in China. There is nothing inherently difficult
in the Chinese language that may have hindered their mathematical
progress. A culture does not evolve without developing in all areas,
including Mathematics. China was a vast empire and to run it
efficiently, the royalty must have made use of extensive calculations
for various purposes: to maintain the Chinese calendar, to measure
lands, to calculate and collect taxes, etc. etc. Obviously the Chinese
language was very adequate in doing all these things.

This is the branch of mathematics referred to as arithmetic. That's
what schoolkids learn in elementary school. I specifically referred
to geometry, algebra, and calculus.

You do know the difference?

I read an extremely thorough linguistic analysis of this topic a few
decades ago.

Really? It must have been written by some non-linguist or may be a
misguided linguist.

Says who?

I have been studying linguistics for several years

Well, apparently you suck at it. Or are so caught up in post-modern,
politically-correct assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of
all languages that you knee-jerk on "all languages are equally good
at all things."

and nothing in the vast amount of literature that I have read so far
indicated that Chinese is ill suited for scientific disciplines. In
fact, many of the books I have read have actually been translated into
Chinese to appeal to the average Chinese science reader.

While written Chinese is a wonderful language for
poetry and allegory, it is a weak language choice for science.

Simple example: Find an efficient way to represent 'Sodium
Chloride' or 'electron' in Chinese.

I don't get what you are asking. The Chinese can choose to represent
Sodium Chloride or electron in many different ways. They can choose to
invent new words for them. They can choose to just transliterate the
Latin names into Chinese. They can use a selection of already existing
words to denote them. There are many possibilities. Let's say, for our
discussion's sake, that Chinese scientists have decided to call Sodium
Chloride Xin Zhe and electron as Ming, as part of a broader naming
standard. And they have enforced a standard that all published books
abide by this new naming standard. Is there any linguistic problem
with that?

There's a scientific efficiency problem with it. Anyone with a
little high school chemistry can tell you what elements, and to what
degree of each, Sodium Chloride is made of by virtue of its name.
Xin and Zhe mean what, exactly, and in what dialect?

The question isn't one of representation, it's one of efficiency and
accuracy.

As China becomes politically and economically more and more
significant, inevitably the stature of Chinese as a second language
will grow.

Maybe in the general culture. It won't be used for science. It
isn't precise and or efficient enough.

I don't see why not. Language is after all a system that arbitrarily
connects spoken/written symbols to some entity or process in the
world. The Chinese can do it as efficiently as any other language.

The reason why Chinese language is currently not the dominant
scientific language is entirely historical. For the past two
centuries, it is the West which has lead the world in science.

I've already refuted this line of argument.

Therefore western classical languages like Latin and Greek got
precedence in Scientific naming conventions. I come from the Indian
subcontinent. The classical language that dominates this part of the
world is Sanskrit. And for every root, prefix and affix in Greek and
Latin, I can give you a corresponding root, prefix and affix in
Sanskrit. If India instead of Europe led the scientific revolution for
the past two centuries, we would all be using Sanskrit based words
right now. But history tells us that during the most part of this
Western-led scientific revolution, India was subjugated as a British
colony and its resources were plundered by the West to feed the
economies in the Western society. And yet India did produce
mathematical geniuses like Ramanujan. The same goes for the Chinese,
or Japanese language.

I am using the enormous MIT Encyclopedic Dictionary of Mathematics at
the moment, and I can see that it was written by Japanese
mathematicians in Japanese first and translated into English and then
published by the MIT press. What do you think of that?

I think a dictionary can be written in any language. Your point?

--
"Three things that politicians hide behind: The flag, the Bible, and
children." George Carlin, "Life is Worth Losing"
.

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