Chinese languages

Quate from the newsgroup soc.culture.china .I think this is the longest discussion thread I have ever seen, there is roughly 400
replies until today.



The so-called Chinese character was probably invented and
developed by Korean, although the populous Chinese also have used it as
their basic writing systems. I believe the number of population of any
ethnic group should not be a factor that obscures the origin. I explain some
evidences.

1. The original pictographs called 'gab-gol' (bone and shell) or 'bok-sa' in
Korean were certainly invented during the Yin dynasty (or Shang state, BC
1600~BC 1046), although it is uncertain who was the inventor. There is no
dispute regarding this matter between Korean and Chinese historians. There
are ample recent evidences that the dominant people of the Yin dynasty was
Korean, which some Chinese historians also acknowledge.

2. Among countries that adopted Chinese character, only Koreans use exactly
one syllable for one character. Chinese or Japanese used one or more
syllables for one character. A good example is the sounds denoting the
numbers. Only Koreans use just one syllable for one number. So, it is very
easy for Koreans to say any complex numbers quickly.

For another example, the sound for 'white' in Chinese character in 'baek'
(one syllable) in Korean but 'bai' (two syllable) in Chinese. Regarding the
character denoting 'head', it is 'doo' in Korean but 'tou' in Chinese. On
the other hand, it is the same for the character denoting 'mountain' -
'shan' in both Korean and Chinese.

Why have Koreans used only one syllable for one character, but Chinese one
or more syllables? It certainly shows that Chinese pronunciation system is a
variant from Korean counterpart.

3. Some basic pictographs reflect Korean life-style and customs.

For example, the character denoting 'house' (ga in Korean) contains a
character denoting a pig (hog) in the lower part. In the house, people live,
not a pig live. Why did they adopt a pig to denote a house? Only Koreans
raised pigs within their house.

Another example is the character denoting 'sun'. The character contains a
dot within a rectangle. Why did they contain the dot, seemingly
unnecessarily? The dot denotes a golden crow. Only Koreans had the legend
linking the sun to the golden crow.

Additional example is the character denoting 'surname' (ssi in Korean). In
Chinese, the character denotes only 'surname' while it denotes both
'surname' and 'seed' in Korean. 'Ssi' is a most common word in Korean and
compares the pedigree with the tree (i.e., the seed is a common symbol for
the original ancestor whose trace has been handed down by his surname).

4. Korean history book describes the origin of written systems, which is
inscribed in dolmens in Korea.

A Korean history book called Chun-bu-gyung records the origin of both
current Chinese character and Korean alphabet (hangul). Chinese character is
a kind of pictograph + ideograph, while hangul is the most advanced of
phonogram + ideogram in the world. Bone and shell inscriptions were a
pictograph, while hexagrams of I-ching invented by Fu Xi (Bokhwi in Korean)
are a kind of ideogram. The original character for both Chinese character
and hangul was 'Nok-doo-mun' (the most ancient writing system), according to
the Chun-bu-gyung. Currently, only Koreans still play a game called 'Yout',
which is believed to be very similar to the 'Nok-doo-mun'. The principles of
Yout game are essentially the same as I-Ching. Moreover, in Korea and
Manchuria, currently there are many ancient rocks (dolmen) in which various
kinds of primitive writings are inscribed (see some pictures at
http://myhome.shinbiro.com/~kbyon/culture/rokdo.htm)

Based on these four facts, I strongly argue that the Chinese character was
originated and developed by Koreans. The differences in pronunciation system
for numbers between Chinese and Korean clearly indicates it's Korean origin.

--- Footnote

I add my message on Fu Xi and I-Ching. Fu Xi (or Bokhwi in Korean) is one of
the candidates for the inventor of Chinese characters.

Han and 'I Ching'

The hexagrams of the I Ching were said to have been created by the
legendary emperor 'Fu Xi' after he had contemplated on a diagram
called Ha Do that was bestowed from the Heaven. Han scholars rewrote
many myths as fact to fill gaps in early Chinese history. Fu Xi was
declared to have been the very first emperor, ruling from 2852 to 2737
BC. He was said to have been the inventor of musical instruments and
Chinese handwriting [1].

Chinese legend says that Fu Xi is the most senior one among the three
ancestors. Together with N-Wa, the women who he married with, they
started the civilization of human being. The current Fu Xi's Temple in
Shandong was built on a 6-meter high terrace. In the main hall, Fu
Xi's state was placed and sacrifices are given. And in the back of the
hall, N-Wa's statue was placed [2].

It is said that the upper body of Fu Xi is that of a human being while
his lower body is in the form of a snake. Inferring from the
scientific nature of the I Ching, it may just be possible that Fu Xi
was an extraterrestrial. If Fu Xi was indeed the first ancestor of
Chinese, then how could the descendents describe their first ancestor
as a monster? Why did ancient Chinese historians initially consider Fu
Xi as just a legend? Ancient Chinese call their neighboring people as
"bugs" or"barbarians". The monster portrait suggests that Fu Xi might
have been from a neighboring country, not Chinese countries. What was
that country?

"Fu Xi came from the nationality called East Yi dwelling in the
Neolithic Age, along the coastal area of the present-day Shandong
Province and, therefore, Fu Xi turned out to have come from Shandong
Province" (quoted from a Chinese site [4])

What was "East Yi"? Of course, "Yi" means "barbarians" in Chinese.
Most Koreans know what is "Dong (east) Yi". People in 'East Yi' are
known to have been very good at archery, as Korean Olympic archery
teams are today. The Chinese character "Yi" indeed symbolize the
shape of a big bow. Surprisingly. the recently discovered Korean
history text titled "Han Dan Go Gi" describes the life of "Fu Xi"
(Bokhwi in Korean) [3].

It writes that he was the son of the 5-th emperor of the Baedal
(B.C.3898- BC 2333) and his surname was "Pung" as he lived in
"Pung-san". Although the surname "Pung" no longer exists in Korean
names, some related words survived to today such as "Pung-chae"
"Pung-gol" and"Pung-shin", all of which are terms for describing human
body shape. Another daughter name was "Yeo-wa" (N-Wa in Chinese) [3].

It writes that she was known to have a magical talent to make a human
being from mud and to be extremely jealous (these two points, together
with the sound, might may remind you of Jehovah) [5].

Unfortunately only a few Korean scholars in universities accept "Han
Dan Go Gi" as a history book, insisting that the book was fabricated
in some points. Some Koreans, while acknowledging that a few points
might have been fabricated while copying, decry the university
historians as too much contaminated by Japanese colonial view of
history that tried to disparage Korean history in the 1910-1945
period, as they deny whole text book. Anyway, East Yi was located in
Shandong Province...... What does this mean? I would rather stop here
for today. But the point is that it will not be awkward that I link "I
Ching" to Han.

Some References on this footnote

[1] Microsoft Encarta "Fu Xi"
[2] http://www.china-sd.net/eng/sdtravel/scenery/30.asp
[3]
http://www.sejongnamepia.pe.kr/name_before.html
http://www.shaman.co.kr/newspaper/09/mago.htm
http://www.jsd.or.kr/a/truth_sh/korhist/k_hist_05.htm
[4]
http://www.sbbs.com.cn/English/RE-EXPLO ... 20STONE.ht
m).
[5] http://www.hankooki.com/culture/200205/ ... 516030.htm
[6] http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Zh ... autumn.htm
"Later historians said it was intended to protect the original Chinese
states from the intruding barbarian tribes Man 蠻, Rong 戎
and Yi 夷"

http://www.xsenergy.com/theme.html
"Yi is known by a variety of names: The East Barbarian, Yi the Good,
Lord Yi, and Yi Lord of the Hsia. As a result of this ambiguity, Yi is
seen both as a hero who is favored by the Gods as well as a villain,
murderer, usurper and adulterer. In this myth Yi is the hero as he
shoots the Ten Suns to avert disaster

Everyone knowes that Japanese and korean both derived from Chinese, why waste your time with this crap?

Peter wrote:
>
> Quate from the newsgroup soc.culture.china .I think this is
> the longest discussion thread I have ever seen, there is
> roughly 400
> replies until today.

The soc.culture.* groups are a waste of time. There is a lot of
misinformation spread there by people with ulterior motives, or out of
sheer ignorance. (Mostly the latter, I think.)


The second argument is especially wrong.

> 2. Among countries that adopted Chinese character, only
> Koreans use exactly
> one syllable for one character. Chinese or Japanese used one
> or more
> syllables for one character.

Clearly, the poster only knows Korean, and nothing of other East
Asian languages.

Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese use one syllable per character. Only
Japanese uses more than one syllable per character, and that is only for
native Japanese words (not Sino-Japanese loanwords).


> A good example is the sounds
> denoting the
> numbers. Only Koreans use just one syllable for one number.
> So, it is very
> easy for Koreans to say any complex numbers quickly.

Right here is a good example of how the poster knows nothing about
Chinese. One syllable per character in Chinese.

The one-syllable numbers in Korean are actually loans from Chinese.
Ask a Korean how the count from one to ten--they'll use the indigenous
Korean numbers, which are sometimes more than one syllable. Clearly,
the poster is witholding this bit of information to make his argument--if the
single-syllable numbers are so convenient, then why would any Korean
count with the indigenous Korean number system, where some numbers
are more than one syllable?


> For another example, the sound for 'white' in Chinese
> character in 'baek'
> (one syllable) in Korean but 'bai' (two syllable) in Chinese.
> Regarding the
> character denoting 'head', it is 'doo' in Korean but 'tou' in
> Chinese. On
> the other hand, it is the same for the character denoting
> 'mountain' -
> 'shan' in both Korean and Chinese.

Here, it sounds like the poster learned a few words of Mandarin
Chinese, and has either mistaken a dipthong vowel or the rising
tone (#2) for two separate syllables.


> Why have Koreans used only one syllable for one character,
> but Chinese one
> or more syllables? It certainly shows that Chinese
> pronunciation system is a
> variant from Korean counterpart.

Totally wrong.

Ask a Korean to write some verbs in characters. They won't be able to,
because the majority of the verbs are indigenous words, and many
syllables long, and they will only be able to spell them out in hangul.


> Based on these four facts, I strongly argue that the Chinese
> character was
> originated and developed by Koreans. The differences in
> pronunciation system
> for numbers between Chinese and Korean clearly indicates it's
> Korean origin.

The funny thing is that the poster thinks point #2 was the strongest,
when in fact is the weakest and most easily verifiable to be wrong.
That doesn't bode well for the truth of the other three points.


There are legitimate Korean inventions which should be recognized,
but flawed claims like this point towards a sad and unfortunate inferiority
complex on the part of the poster, which is no doubt is a misapplied
backlash against the suppression of Korean culture in the early 20th
century.


Now, can we return this forum to a discussion of Cantonese?


Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu

Yes, I got an email about this same subject this week, I wrote back, and then I got a very strange response, and I wrote back again, which I copy here. (Please note that the encoding is UTF-8, not BIG5, so reselect the encoding in your browser):

>>Dear Adam,
>>
>> Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese are referred to as Sino-xenic, in that they have received a great amount of direct influence from Chinese and the Chinese language throughout their courses of history. Chinese vocabulary makes up as much as 60% in each of these Modern Sinoxenic languages (Hannas, 1997).
>>
>> Since China ruled over Vietnam for about 1000 years, and due to the fact that Vietnamese is a tonal language, all of the Chinese ...

>Hello James,
>
>Korean were related to Cantonese and if you look for over 5000 years ago, you will find that Korean nouns sounds very identical to Cantonese, in many thousands years ago. Korean re-constructed their language and writings 300 years ago, and therefore some traces were lost along the transition.
>
>I don't think China actually conquer and control Vietnam for over thousand years. I think China simply setup Vietnam as a subsidiary country, where Vietnamese governors still own Vietnam people and land. Vietnamese governors shipped gifts to China government on yearly basis, to show their relationship. In other words, China did not send soldiers and governors to take control over Vietnam for over thousand
(or hundreds) years.



I only have one thing to say in response: 我不想 "對牛彈琴" (dui-niu tan-qin). This is a Chinese saying that says there's no point in playing music for a cow. In other words, I don't feel like wasting my time arguing scientific issues with people who know nothing about these matters. Nevertheless, it's a Saturday evening, and the holiday for Confucius, and I do not have anything else to do, so I will make a few statements, in his honor.

1. Chinese / Korean
You can believe what you want, that's fine, even if it's totally opposite to every linguistics and anthropology books, but I wouldn't try spreading "hearsay" around to other people without backing it up with citations and proofs. Korean is neither related linguistically, nor bioethnically to the Chinese. I went to one of the best linguistic schools in the United States, and am a specialist in historical phonology and I can back these statements up with facts, unlike your "hearsay".

Korean history starts with the story of a man named Tangun, dated 2333 BC. That's the earliest record on date. The rest of Korean history that we know of generally starts from 194 BC when Wiman took control of Choseon Dynasty. More specific historical records begin around the reunification of the peninsula with Kokuryeo, Paekche, and Silla in 668 AD. In addition we have no trace of a Korean language during BC times or even as early as Silla. These details I cite from Cumings and Robinson, leading authorities on Korean history and both previous professors of mine at university. Any similarities you find between Korean and Chinese vocabulary is due to the fact that Chinese had a large influence on Korean society and many borrowings took place. The characters were adapted in a special format called 'itwu' to represent Korean during the 5th century AD. It was later revised and called 'hyangchal' during the 9th and 10th centuries, and then again as kwukyel (or 'to') in the 14th century. 'Hankul' didn't appear until 1446, and were described in a book called 훈민정음 (訓民正音 hun-min ceng-um), a translation in English from a rare Chinese version which I plan to put on my website soon. So in several ways, what you say cannot be supported by fact:
1. Documented Korean history is only 4335 years old now.
2. It's impossible to compare Korean to Cantonese 5000 years ago. The Cantonese dialect didn't even exist or start to appear until AFTER 600 AD. We don't even have information on Chinese 5000 years old! Just read Wang Li (王力), or Li Rong (李榮)--they're the leading experts in the field.
3. The earliest record of Chinese writing (and that's not anything we know about spoken language) is from the Oracle Bones (甲骨文 Jia Gu Wen, or Gap Gwat Man in Cantonese), and these are dated around 1300 BC, which means that our record of the Chinese language only extends 3300 years, not 5000. Can you argue with the facts?

Here are a few good examples of linguistic differences between Chinese and Korean:

I. Numbers
Numbers in Korean (these are the same numbers being used in Korean for thousands of years with roots remotely similar to Mongolian):
I use Yale romanization as used in linguistic works (I have a reference on my website):
1. hana (하나)
2. twul (둘)
3. seyt (셋)
4. neyt (넷)
5. taset (다섯)
6. yeset (여섯)
7. ilkop (일곱)
8. yetelp (여덟)
9. ahup (아흡)
10. yel (열)
*(Additional post-note for this discussion forum: notice that Korean numbers are not monosyllabic!!! Most Korean words are more than one syllable long!!)

Numbers in Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese:
1. i yat
2. er i
3. san saam
4. sih si
5. wu ng
6. liou luk
7. chi jat
8. ba baat
9. jiou gau
10. shih sap

Numbers BORROWED into Korean from Chinese, referred to as Sino-Korean, and used only in special situations (these are not of Korean origin):

1. il (일)
2. i (이)
3. sam (삼)
4. sa (사)
5. o (오)
6. yuk (육) (originally lyuk 륙)
7. chil (칠)
8. phal (팔)
9. ku (구)
10. sip (십)

Compare English numbers which are based on Germanic but have also Latin & Greek influence (Germanic / Latin / Greek):
1. first, once / one, prim-, mono-, uni- / enni-
2. two / duo-, bi-, second- / di-
3. three / tri-, terti- / tri-
4. four / quadr-, quatern- / tetr-
5. five / quint-, quinqu- / pent-
6. six / sex- / hex-
7. seven / sept- / hept-
8. eight / oct- / oct-
9. nine / nov- / non-
10. ten / dec-, deci-, deca- / dek-
11. eleven / ondec- / hendeka-
12. twelve / dodeca- / dodeka-
13. thirteen / / triskaideka-
There are more similarities here than between Korean and Chinese numbers because English, Latin, and Greek all belong to the same family of languages: Indo-European.

II. Syntax
Syntax (word order) is significantly different in Korean, which governs the syntactical structure of dependent clauses, placement of agglutinative affixes, and the placement of description words such as adjectives and adverbs.

Chinese:
S - V - O (Subject - Verb - Object), the same as English.

Korean:
S - O - V (like Latin, has an inverted word order we are not used to in English or Chinese--this also requires a lot of word endings in Korean, just like Latin)

III. Morphology
Grammatical density describes the amount of inner word changes due to syntactical placement in a sentence.

Chinese:
Isolating (Words do not change the form, ever! Almost every single syllable can be isolated as an unbound morpheme)

Korean:
Agglutinative with case marking (Similar to Uralic languages like Finnish, and Altaic languages like Turkish, the syllables in Korean words cannot be isolated (except for Sino-Korean vocabulary), and often undergo a great amount of agglutinative affixation, called postpositions)

IV. Verbal Complexity
Verbal complexity is described as Korean having both aspect and tense, and takes a great myriad forms of verb conjugations, including agglutinative particles depending on speakers' and listeners' social class distinctions. This is unheard of in Chinese. Chinese only differentiates aspect, not tense, and these are described with the addition of unbound isolating syllables.

IV. Phonology
The phonology of Korean is completely different than Chinese. Chinese is a tonal language. Korean is a pitch-accent language, like Japanese but more advanced in its evolution, having lost its mora distinctions in the modern language. Some minimal pairs can still be determined by vowel length alone. The Korean phonological system is completely different than Chinese. Korean has many parts alien to Chinese phonology: pitch-accent, multiple syllables, vowel harmony.

IV. Conclusion
Based on this data, it is hard to find any connection between Chinese and Korean, except that China left a lot of its vocabulary for the Koreans. Much like the French left a lot of vocabulary in English after they conquered England in 1066 AD, even though English is not a descendant of Latin. In addition, human genetic studies also prove this: between the Koreans and Japanese there is approximately 0.002% genetic difference, however between Koreans and Chinese, there is approximately 0.020% genetic difference, or ten times more. Compare this with a lower, 0.016% genetic difference between Koreans and Europeans since the Koreans are more genetically close to the Turks (Altaic peoples) and thus, Europeans, than they are to other Asians. (Source: Cavalli-Sforza, "Reconstruction of Human Evolution: Bringing Together Genetic, Archaeological and Linguistic Data," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 85: 6002-06, 1988).

2. Chinese / Vietnamese
I didn't say China conquered and controlled Vietnam. I said China ruled over Vietnam. Can you argue with the facts? The dates are as follows:
Bắc thuộc lần thứ nhất (第一次北屬) 111 BC - 39 AD (150 years)
Bắc thuộc lần thứ hai (第二次北屬) 43 AD - 544 AD (501 years)
Bắc thuộc lần thớ ba (第三次北屬) 603 AD - 939 AD (336 years)
Total number of years: 987 years.



James Campbell

i posted on this thread yesterday but my post was lost today, wonder why...

anyway, i rewrite again in response to peter,

1, the bone and shell inscriptions, or jaiguwen, is not found only in shang kingdom area. the chinese also discovered them in xi'an area, since 1954. and may i know what are the evidences to show that shang ppl are koreans? i agree that there is such a possibility but i would like to know why. koreans used chinese characters until they came up with their own writings around 1444ad.

2, chinese has 1 syllubus per characters. the korean language, like the japanese, belonged to the mongolian ural altaric system. they only borrows single syllubus from chinese. the word u mentioned, baek, is a loaned pronouciation. just like the japs have 'haku', 'shira' or 'shiroi' for 'white', probably 'haku' is loaned from chinese and 'shiroi' is their own pronouciation before chinese influence, their altaric origins. there are many other examples. the korean pronouciation of loaned chinese words were said to be from chinese pronouciation of shandong area during the song dynasty, which sounded probably like hokkien(fujian) and teochew(chaozhou) dialects nowadays. in these dialects 'white' is 'baeh'. 'bai' in modern chinese probably came around 1400s.

3, early chinese and other ancient people have livestock in their houses. chinese have legends of crow in the sun too, and the koreans probably borrowed that from the chinese. in the chinese legend, there were 10 suns in the sky, each came up for a day to bring light to the world. one day they decided to come out together, and they scorched the earth. the hero houyi shot down 9 of them with his magical bow and arrows, and the fallen ones turned into 3-legged crows. the sun is sometimes regarded as the 'golden crow'(jin wu) in ancient chinese language.

in ancient chinese, surname and clans' name were both used, so 'xing' and 'shi'(姓and 氏, simplified chinese encodings). the 'xing' or surname came from matronymic tribes in ancient times so it has a '女' to denote its origin. '氏' or clans's name, came only after men took over the leadership in the tribe. just like ancient western civiliasation, they have names like 'AB, son of C'. chinese also have 'AB, surname A, of clan C'. its just that modern chinese no longer used clans' name anymore. example, the first leader of the chinese, the yellow emperor, surname 'xuanyuan', clans' name 'bear', cos the bear was the name/totem/mascot for his tribe.

4, in chinese legends, fuxi only invented the hexagrams. its was changjie who later invented early chinese writings(which is said to looked something like egyptian drawings). that why the taiwanese had their input system called 'changjie'. the legend of fuxi as a half human and half snake was probablly bcos the mascot for his tribe is a snake, just like the one for the yellow emperor is a bear, and the one for the manchus is a bird. we see a peacock feather on the headress of qing dynasty officials signifying the tail of a bird. in chinese legends fuxi and nuwa were brother and sister, much like apollo and athena in greek mythology. and recent discoveries also doubt that fuxi actually invented the hexagram.

as for adaptation of cultures, people of the central plains will not accept the culture and lifestyle of the surrounding 'barbarians' cos they think its a shameful thing to learn from the 'barbarians'. it was only until king wuling of the state of zhao(zhao wuling wang) during the warring states sees the mass introduction of 'barbaric' lifestyles into the central plains(yeah, he introduced the trousers and pants into chinese culture, good for calvary troops). by then chinese already had their own writings for a long time.

i posted on this thread yesterday but my post was lost today, wonder why...

anyway, i rewrite again in response to peter,

1, the bone and shell inscriptions, or jaiguwen, is not found only in shang kingdom area. the chinese also discovered them in xi'an area, since 1954. and may i know what are the evidences to show that shang ppl are koreans? i agree that there is such a possibility but i would like to know why. koreans used chinese characters until they came up with their own writings around 1444ad.

---------------------------------

PPK, the Koreans inherited these characters from the Chinese after the beginning of the Common Era. Thus these oracle bones could not be Korean.

---------------------------------

2, chinese has 1 syllubus per characters. the korean language, like the japanese, belonged to the mongolian ural altaric system. they only borrows single syllubus from chinese. the word u mentioned, baek, is a loaned pronouciation. just like the japs have 'haku', 'shira' or 'shiroi' for 'white', probably 'haku' is loaned from chinese and 'shiroi' is their own pronouciation before chinese influence, their altaric origins. there are many other examples. the korean pronouciation of loaned chinese words were said to be from chinese pronouciation of shandong area during the song dynasty, which sounded probably like hokkien(fujian) and teochew(chaozhou) dialects nowadays. in these dialects 'white' is 'baeh'. 'bai' in modern chinese probably came around 1400s.

----------------------------------

Uh... I think you meant syllable. Instead of "mongolian ural altaric system", I think you meant "Ural-Altaic language family" (this grouping is highly controversial, generally it is best to say Altaic because although they can both be linked grammatically, there is no hard vocabularical evidence). You can tell in most dictionaries which kanji reading is the ON (chinese-origin) reading and which is the KUN (japanese-origin) reading. Haku is On, Shira and Shiroi are Kun. Again I think you mean "altaic" origins. From what I have found, Sino-Korean and Sino-Japanese readings are similar to Chaozhou and Fujian readings today.

------------------------------------

3, early chinese and other ancient people have livestock in their houses. chinese have legends of crow in the sun too, and the koreans probably borrowed that from the chinese. in the chinese legend, there were 10 suns in the sky, each came up for a day to bring light to the world. one day they decided to come out together, and they scorched the earth. the hero houyi shot down 9 of them with his magical bow and arrows, and the fallen ones turned into 3-legged crows. the sun is sometimes regarded as the 'golden crow'(jin wu) in ancient chinese language.

-------------------------------------

Uh... no comment here

-------------------------------------

in ancient chinese, surname and clans' name were both used, so 'xing' and 'shi'(©mand ¤󬠳implified chinese encodings). the 'xing' or surname came from matronymic tribes in ancient times so it has a '¤k' to denote its origin. '¤󧠯r clans's name, came only after men took over the leadership in the tribe. just like ancient western civiliasation, they have names like 'AB, son of C'. chinese also have 'AB, surname A, of clan C'. its just that modern chinese no longer used clans' name anymore. example, the first leader of the chinese, the yellow emperor, surname 'xuanyuan', clans' name 'bear', cos the bear was the name/totem/mascot for his tribe.

--------------------------------------

Unforunately this changed over time...

--------------------------------------

4, in chinese legends, fuxi only invented the hexagrams. its was changjie who later invented early chinese writings(which is said to looked something like egyptian drawings). that why the taiwanese had their input system called 'changjie'. the legend of fuxi as a half human and half snake was probablly bcos the mascot for his tribe is a snake, just like the one for the yellow emperor is a bear, and the one for the manchus is a bird. we see a peacock feather on the headress of qing dynasty officials signifying the tail of a bird. in chinese legends fuxi and nuwa were brother and sister, much like apollo and athena in greek mythology. and recent discoveries also doubt that fuxi actually invented the hexagram.

as for adaptation of cultures, people of the central plains will not accept the culture and lifestyle of the surrounding 'barbarians' cos they think its a shameful thing to learn from the 'barbarians'. it was only until king wuling of the state of zhao(zhao wuling wang) during the warring states sees the mass introduction of 'barbaric' lifestyles into the central plains(yeah, he introduced the trousers and pants into chinese culture, good for calvary troops). by then chinese already had their own writings for a long time.

--------------------------------------

Yep...

I've always wondered, if Changjie did indeed invent hanzi, did he just create the radicals? or did he create all of them with the exception of the tens of thousands of variations used by later scholars/poets/&c.?

oops, yes, syllable. yeah, as james have said, grammatically korean and chinese is different, more similiar to japanese. in chinese it s-v-o, so 'have u taken your meal' in english will literally be 'you taken your meal?' in chinese, and probably be 'you your meal taken?' in jap and korean, following its s-o-v style. this shows that they are from the same origin but different from chinese.

changjie probably only invented some painting-like characters (proto-chinese words?!). he definitely did not invented all the chinese characters cos up till han dynasty, the dictionary 'shuowen jiezi' did not include all the chinese characters used later, not to mention during changjie's time.

sorry, I am not expert here but so far from what i read from the newsgroup , no chinese able to deny the fact that the chinese language was invented during Yin dynasty and the ppl in dynasty Yin is mainly Dong Yi and Dong Yi is refer to korean.

bye...

well peter, i am a chinese and i can prove that dongyi is not korean, but the other way round: koreans are partially dongyi. the origins of dongyi is in henan/shandong area, spreading northward to manchuria and southward to zhejiang province in china. what they called 'dawenkou' culture in chinese. the shang dynasty fought a war with the zhou people and were chased away, northwards to korea, took over the local koreans, and stayed there for the rest of their life. and i must tell you that you made a mistake. cos fuxi is not from dongyi. his homeland is tianshui, in shannxi province, the land of the state of qin. anicient chinese have 3 mainstream of totem/mascot for their tribes. the central plains people(xi xia) and northern land(bei di) preferred snake(includes frogs,fishes and turtles), which later bcame the dragon. their famous leaders includes the yellow emperor and his successors all the way to 'yao' and 'gu'(father of 'yu'. yu is the founder of xia dynasty). the dongyi preferred birds and swallows, which later became the phoenix in chinese legends(so now u know why manchus like birds to be their mascot). their leaders includes zhuanxu(forefather of the 'sanmiao', the people of canton, hokkien and hainam), emperor ku, emperor xun, gaotao, boyi, chiyou(fought with the yellow emperor), and houyi, the guy who shot the 9 suns. the nomadic tribes to the north preferred the deer, which later became the kirin in chinese legends. together they formed the 3 mythological creatures in china. the dragon, phoenix and kirin.

from the archaeology sites in korean, ancient koreans 7000 yrs ago make plain flat based pots and containers, with no pictures or diagrams. similiar to those found in mongolia. whereas dongyi at that time make 3 legged pots with pictures of birds and fishes. the ancient koreans later came out with parellel lightning patterns on their pots, whereas dongyi came up with 3 legged containers in the shape of a fat bird(yeah, probably the 3 legged crow legend). at this time dongyi started to have simple pictographs on their pots(early writings?), but none on the korean pots.

oh, and the korean king, dangun('tan jun' in chinese) around 2333bc, according to their legend he married a girl from the bear clan(heh, no point for guessing who the bear clan was). so, is the picture clear enough?

interested people can read up at the official korean site, by the ministry of culture and tourism, korea.

http://www.mct.go.kr:8080/english/K_abo ... ory01.html
http://www.mct.go.kr:8080/english/K_abo ... ory02.html

Hi PPK,
Sorry, I dunno how to answer your question,it will be an interesting debate if u willing to share this msg in that newsgroup
soc.culture.china.
Few guys there are uni professor.