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newstar wrote:dear speedhump,it seems you have been in china?

Hi dear. No I did not go to China yet, but I have Chinese friends (no comment needed RedKite!) and also do business with Chinese companies in Shanghai.

New star,
Thanks for the information. However, languages are different from dialects.
Take Western Europe. The two MAIN language groups are GERMANIC and ROMANCE.
Germanic is split into "North Germanic"........Danish, Swedish and Norwegian.

And "West Germanic"........English, German, Dutch, Friesian, Flemish

All of these languages are related, having common roots. The closest language to English is Friesian.

Dutch and Deutsch are the same ...from "brothers"

The ROMANCE group of southern Europe stems from Latin......hence Catalan[ said to be closest to Latin by Catalans] ; Spanish; French;Italian;Portugese; Romansch and Romanian.

A smaller group is my own....CELTIC comprising two branches ...QCeltic { Scots Gallic;Gaelic; Manx[dead}
and P Celtic [ Welsh, Breton, Cornish {a revivified language} ]

P Celtic comes from BRITONNIC OR BRITISH. So Early Welsh was the language of England and most of Scotland for 1000 years.

Hence, Dover, Malvern, Avon, Glasgow, Lanark, Perth , Morecambe, Caledonia, Cumbria etc are all place names deriving from Early Welsh or British.

Now GEORDIE is a dialect of English. It is MAINLY plain English, but with a smattering of old dialect words used in the north.

Whereas, Welsh and English don't even belong to the same FAMILY OF LANGUAGES.

All of the above languages are INDO-EUROPEAN languages stemming from Sanskrit in India.
The oldest language in Western Europe is BASQUE, which is pre-Indo european.

Are the Chinese languages dialects or different languages? I can see they come from the same language FAMILY , like the West Germanic languages do. But English and German are SEPARATE languages now.


English underwent an inclusion of 10000 FRENCH WORDS after the Norman conquest in 1066 ......so it now COMBINES Romance and Germanic words on a Germanic Grammatical base.

RedKite wrote:New star,
Thanks for the information. However, languages are different from dialects.
Take Western Europe. The two MAIN language groups are GERMANIC and ROMANCE.
Germanic is split into "North Germanic"........Danish, Swedish and Norwegian.

And "West Germanic"........English, German, Dutch, Friesian, Flemish

All of these languages are related, having common roots. The closest language to English is Friesian.

Dutch and Deutsch are the same ...from "brothers"

The ROMANCE group of southern Europe stems from Latin......hence Catalan[ said to be closest to Latin by Catalans] ; Spanish; French;Italian;Portugese; Romansch and Romanian.

A smaller group is my own....CELTIC comprising two branches ...QCeltic { Scots Gallic;Gaelic; Manx[dead}
and P Celtic [ Welsh, Breton, Cornish {a revivified language} ]

P Celtic comes from BRITONNIC OR BRITISH. So Early Welsh was the language of England and most of Scotland for 1000 years.

Hence, Dover, Malvern, Avon, Glasgow, Lanark, Perth , Morecambe, Caledonia, Cumbria etc are all place names deriving from Early Welsh or British.

Now GEORDIE is a dialect of English. It is MAINLY plain English, but with a smattering of old dialect words used in the north.

Whereas, Welsh and English don't even belong to the same FAMILY OF LANGUAGES.

All of the above languages are INDO-EUROPEAN languages stemming from Sanskrit in India.
The oldest language in Western Europe is BASQUE, which is pre-Indo european.

Are the Chinese languages dialects or different languages? I can see they come from the same language FAMILY , like the West Germanic languages do. But English and German are SEPARATE languages now.


English underwent an inclusion of 10000 FRENCH WORDS after the Norman conquest in 1066 ......so it now COMBINES Romance and Germanic words on a Germanic Grammatical base.

I know you didn't address your question to me RK, but as I'm here.....

Newstar may correct me, but as there is only one written Chinese language, the difference is only in pronunciation of the words and so it's wholly a dialectic thing. The pronunciations (intonations) in different parts of the country are so markedly different that the spoken words may be wholly unrecognisable from one region to the next. The different ways of writing Chinese characters (Pinyin, traditional, simplified) are only different styles of writing the same word. The Chinese word tattoo I have on my wrist looks different in different scripts (styles), and may even be spoken differently in Mandarin and Cantonese dialects, I don't know, but the written characters are basically the same and the word has the same meaning.

So for example any dvd you buy will only have one set of Chinese written subtitles, but a Chinese language dvd may have sound in either Mandarin or Cantonese.

No expert me, it's a complex subject, but that's how I believe it to be!

Speedhump wrote:

newstar wrote:dear speedhump,it seems you have been in china?

Hi dear. No I did not go to China yet, but I have Chinese friends (no comment needed RedKite!) and also do business with Chinese companies in Shanghai.

hi,speedhump,may i know what type of business you do with that shanghai company?i am doing export business with dubai buyer ,most of my items are daily use item.

RedKite wrote:New star,
Thanks for the information. However, languages are different from dialects.
Take Western Europe. The two MAIN language groups are GERMANIC and ROMANCE.
Germanic is split into "North Germanic"........Danish, Swedish and Norwegian.

And "West Germanic"........English, German, Dutch, Friesian, Flemish

All of these languages are related, having common roots. The closest language to English is Friesian.

Dutch and Deutsch are the same ...from "brothers"

The ROMANCE group of southern Europe stems from Latin......hence Catalan[ said to be closest to Latin by Catalans] ; Spanish; French;Italian;Portugese; Romansch and Romanian.

A smaller group is my own....CELTIC comprising two branches ...QCeltic { Scots Gallic;Gaelic; Manx[dead}
and P Celtic [ Welsh, Breton, Cornish {a revivified language} ]

P Celtic comes from BRITONNIC OR BRITISH. So Early Welsh was the language of England and most of Scotland for 1000 years.

Hence, Dover, Malvern, Avon, Glasgow, Lanark, Perth , Morecambe, Caledonia, Cumbria etc are all place names deriving from Early Welsh or British.

Now GEORDIE is a dialect of English. It is MAINLY plain English, but with a smattering of old dialect words used in the north.

Whereas, Welsh and English don't even belong to the same FAMILY OF LANGUAGES.

All of the above languages are INDO-EUROPEAN languages stemming from Sanskrit in India.
The oldest language in Western Europe is BASQUE, which is pre-Indo european.

Are the Chinese languages dialects or different languages? I can see they come from the same language FAMILY , like the West Germanic languages do. But English and German are SEPARATE languages now.


English underwent an inclusion of 10000 FRENCH WORDS after the Norman conquest in 1066 ......so it now COMBINES Romance and Germanic words on a Germanic Grammatical base.

hello,Redkite,thanks for you carful explain,you must be expert language researcher.i learn a lot from you words.where are you from?Europe?

newstar wrote:

Speedhump wrote:

newstar wrote:dear speedhump,it seems you have been in china?

Hi dear. No I did not go to China yet, but I have Chinese friends (no comment needed RedKite!) and also do business with Chinese companies in Shanghai.

hi,speedhump,may i know what type of business you do with that shanghai company?i am doing export business with dubai buyer ,most of my items are daily use item.

read my private message.

Speedhump wrote:

newstar wrote:

Speedhump wrote:

newstar wrote:dear speedhump,it seems you have been in china?

Hi dear. No I did not go to China yet, but I have Chinese friends (no comment needed RedKite!) and also do business with Chinese companies in Shanghai.

hi,speedhump,may i know what type of business you do with that shanghai company?i am doing export business with dubai buyer ,most of my items are daily use item.

read my private message.

Thanks speedhump.Nice to know you.

hello, all, i am also chinese girl, and can speak not only chinese, now all chinese can speak english, pls treat as not jokes, all here can understood very well, come on, go on this topic.................

can you share your country beautiful music?

Very happy to see you here,Chinese girl!
Advertise yourself,maybe we can be friend,hehe

linbonwoods wrote:can you share your country beautiful music?

You want Chinese music?
Chinese rock,pop,or classic,naition music?
Plz add my M S N: rzqswt (a)hotmail. com

Newstar
I am from Wales , United Kingdom which, of course is in western Europe.

I merely explained that the site, www.visit-dubai.co.uk had a lot of information about Dubai in Chinese. Are you able to understand it? I don't know whether it is written in Mandarin or Cantonese.
It might be a help to you.

That's simplified Chinese.

No spam!

WhiteJade wrote:That's simplified Chinese.

No spam!

Any Chinese could read this.

Speedhump wrote:

WhiteJade wrote:That's simplified Chinese.

No spam!

Any Chinese could read this.

Not exactly.

WhiteJade wrote:

Speedhump wrote:

WhiteJade wrote:That's simplified Chinese.

No spam!

Any Chinese could read this.

Not exactly.

Can you explain a little please? I'm interested to know why. I think RedKite also probably.

Simplified, traditional and pinyin characters are all I know, and I know that they are interchangeable (for example newspapers can use traditional characters for headlines but simplified for the story).

Wish I worked harder on linguistics.

Edit: eh... l is totally different thing.

This is a combination of translated googled/searched information and my own knowledge:

The earliest simplification of chinese characters dates back to year of 1864, during the Taiping rebellion. The movement aimed to get more of the working class become civilized. Before that, I just consider there was only one written language, the traditional chinese characters.

At the turn of the 19th century to 20th century, despite the political misery of Qing dynasty, many knowledged people tried to improve the written language by PINYINIZE chinese or discard the chinese characters, keep only PINYIN(basically english letters in shape). However, the tempted movement perished together with the last empire of China.

Then the REPUBLIC OF CHINA...from 1912 to 30th of September, 1949...The Chinese People made lots and lots of efforts to save and support their beloved country, including those in the field of language.

The simplized chinese came to use in 1964.

This list of SIMPLIFIED CHARACTERS was an achievement of 9 years work(from 1955) by a committee, appointed to simplify the traditional characters by the government of PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA, which may I say the RULER of mainland China.

Since Hong Kong was "let" to Britain from 1897 to 1997, it has not implemented simplified chinese; and Hong Kong was actually a part of Canton Province before Opium War(between Qing Dynasty and Britain),1842.

While Taiwan, may I call it current REPUBLIC OF CHINA, certainly did not implement simplified chinese, either.

Thus Taiwanese and Cantonese write in traditional Chinese and mainland Chinese write in simplified Chinese.

So not all Chinese can read both traditional and simplified Chinese.

And simplified/traditional chinese refers to written Chinese; while Madarin/Cantonese refers to spoken Chinese. As far as spoken Chinese, that's another story.

WhiteJade wrote:This is a combination of translated googled/searched information and my own knowledge:

The earliest simplification of chinese characters dates back to year of 1864, during the Taiping rebellion. The movement aimed to get more of the working class become civilized. Before that, I just consider there was only one written language, the traditional chinese characters.

At the turn of the 19th century to 20th century, despite the political misery of Qing dynasty, many knowledged people tried to improve the written language by PINYINIZE chinese or discard the chinese characters, keep only PINYIN(basically english letters in shape). However, the tempted movement perished together with the last empire of China.

Then the REPUBLIC OF CHINA...from 1912 to 30th of September, 1949...The Chinese People made lots and lots of efforts to save and support their beloved country, including those in the field of language.

The simplized chinese came to use in 1964.

This list of SIMPLIFIED CHARACTERS was an achievement of 9 years work(from 1955) by a committee, appointed to simplify the traditional characters by the government of PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA, which may I say the RULER of mainland China.

Since Hong Kong was "let" to Britain from 1897 to 1997, it has not implemented simplified chinese; and Hong Kong was actually a part of Canton Province before Opium War(between Qing Dynasty and Britain),1842.

While Taiwan, may I call it current REPUBLIC OF CHINA, certainly did not implement simplified chinese, either.

Thus Taiwanese and Cantonese write in traditional Chinese and mainland Chinese write in simplified Chinese.

So not all Chinese can read both traditional and simplified Chinese.

And simplified/traditional chinese refers to written Chinese; while Madarin/Cantonese refers to spoken Chinese. As far as spoken Chinese, that's another story.

Thanks for the information WhiteJade. It's interesting. A language with so many characers has to be interesting! Yes, spoken Chinese is a totally different matter, so many tonal dialects that don't understand each other.

But considering the written word on Chinese mainland (Koreans and Taiwanese aside) the fact that newspapers mix traditional and simplified text (I know often headlines are in traditional type and story in simplified) surely means that Chinese can read both? Or is it not the case? Also HK Chinese use traditional I understand, but is it not easy for them also to read ad understand simplified characters?

Tell me if I'm boring you, we can close this discussion!

Speedhump wrote: Thanks for the information WhiteJade. It's interesting. A language with so many characers has to be interesting! Yes, spoken Chinese is a totally different matter, so many tonal dialects that don't understand each other.

But considering the written word on Chinese mainland (Koreans and Taiwanese aside) the fact that newspapers mix traditional and simplified text (I know often headlines are in traditional type and story in simplified) surely means that Chinese can read both? Or is it not the case? Also HK Chinese use traditional I understand, but is it not easy for them also to read ad understand simplified characters?

Tell me if I'm boring you, we can close this discussion!

Thanks for helping me review the relative history/knowledge. I do not think it boring at all.

As the kind of cases you mentioned, if you could provide relative samples, it would be easier for my reference. Unfortunately I do not remember reading similar stuff. In fact, The Law of the People's Republic of China on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language has expressed clearly that the Simplified Chinese Characters is the only legal type of chinese characters to be circulated in mainland China.

However, due to political reasons, those Chinese major newspapers/readers do publish editions in Traditional Chinese for the convenience of Taiwanese/HK Chinese/Overseas Chinese, as so far, majority of these populations still feel their connections with China. And this move of Chinese government, to some extent, answers your questions. That is, yes, quite a lot of mainland Chinese do read traditional Chinese characters(otherwise we would not be able to publish papers in traditional Chinese Characters). And this is also understandable because before that list of simplified Chinese characters, which was issued just around 40 years ago, when chinese people who currently are at their 50th or above had already had their language acquisition started, the whole chinese people was writing in traditional Chinese characters. But as for the young, I do think most of us have not good knowledge about the traditional Chinese characters as we were not taught much about it. I consider it a loss of us.

Simpler case for Taiwanese/HK Chinese/overseas Chinese, they've never started to learn to write in simplified Chinese, little knowledge can they gain about it. But, as the interaction between mainland China and above mentioned Chinese population grows stronger, more of simplified/traditional Chinese knowledge is gained by both parties.

Hopefully it can display my example here, for that best word in the world "love", in traditional Chinese it writes 愛, while in simplified Chinese it writes 爱, the simplification goes taking out 心, which is also in itself an independent Chinese charater with the meaning of HEART. A heartless change. That is why in my own opinion, traditional Chinese characters are more delicate and affectionate while simplified Chinese characters are simply...simple.

WhiteJade wrote:

Speedhump wrote: Thanks for the information WhiteJade. It's interesting. A language with so many characers has to be interesting! Yes, spoken Chinese is a totally different matter, so many tonal dialects that don't understand each other.

But considering the written word on Chinese mainland (Koreans and Taiwanese aside) the fact that newspapers mix traditional and simplified text (I know often headlines are in traditional type and story in simplified) surely means that Chinese can read both? Or is it not the case? Also HK Chinese use traditional I understand, but is it not easy for them also to read ad understand simplified characters?

Tell me if I'm boring you, we can close this discussion!

Thanks for helping me review the relative history/knowledge. I do not think it boring at all.

As the kind of cases you mentioned, if you could provide relative samples, it would be easier for my reference. Unfortunately I do not remember reading similar stuff. In fact, The Law of the People's Republic of China on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language has expressed clearly that the Simplified Chinese Characters is the only legal type of chinese characters to be circulated in mainland China.

However, due to political reasons, those Chinese major newspapers/readers do publish editions in Traditional Chinese for the convenience of Taiwanese/HK Chinese/Overseas Chinese, as so far, majority of these populations still feel their connections with China. And this move of Chinese government, to some extent, answers your questions. That is, yes, quite a lot of mainland Chinese do read traditional Chinese characters(otherwise we would not be able to publish papers in traditional Chinese Characters). And this is also understandable because before that list of simplified Chinese characters, which was issued just around 40 years ago, when chinese people who currently are at their 50th or above had already had their language acquisition started, the whole chinese people was writing in traditional Chinese characters. But as for the young, I do think most of us have not good knowledge about the traditional Chinese characters as we were not taught much about it. I consider it a loss of us.

Simpler case for Taiwanese/HK Chinese/overseas Chinese, they've never started to learn to write in simplified Chinese, little knowledge can they gain about it. But, as the interaction between mainland China and above mentioned Chinese population grows stronger, more of simplified/traditional Chinese knowledge is gained by both parties.

Hopefully it can display my example here, for that best word in the world "love", in traditional Chinese it writes 愛, while in simplified Chinese it writes 爱, the simplification goes taking out 心, which is also in itself an independent Chinese charater with the meaning of HEART. A heartless change. That is why in my own opinion, traditional Chinese characters are more delicate and affectionate while simplified Chinese characters are simply...simple.

A wonderful explanation and gives me a lot more insight. Thanks for that. I will do some research on the mixing of characters in magazines/newspapers and see what it shows. I want to know for what reason traditional characters would be used for headlines and not for the body of the article, as I have read does occur. I'll try to show you examples also.

'A heartless change to the word love', denuding it of some of its heartfelt meaning, that was a poetic phrase!

Whitejade ,
This is fascinating. I would like to understand more about your alphabet and grammar.
I have taken an example here from the first few lines of www.visit-dubai.co.uk in its Chinese form.


Visit-Dubai.co.uk

畅游迪拜

迪拜是[阿拉伯联合酋长国] [U.A.E] 众多酋长国之一. 其他酋长国还有阿布扎比，沙扎， 阿治曼，欧姆古温 、拉斯-阿尔卡麦和富查伊拉等酋长国。 他们又被称作特鲁西尔酋长国。

迪拜依绕着迪拜湾 繁衍成长。 迪拜湾是一个天然的海水入口，它从阿拉伯海湾穿过迪拜中心, 把迪拜一分为二： 德拉杜拜 在海湾北边而新兴的巴杜拜在南侧。




阿拉伯联合酋长国 位于阿拉伯半岛 ,与卡塔尔 ,阿曼接壤，当然了，还有最大的邻国,沙特阿拉伯。

阿布扎比酋长国[Abu Zaby], 迪拜 [Dubayy], 沙扎， 阿治曼，欧姆古温[Umm al Qaywayn]和拉斯-阿尔卡麦[Ra's al Khaymah] 沿半岛的北海岸延伸直至 阿拉伯湾[波斯湾]。而富查伊拉[Al Fujayrah]位于阿曼海湾的东海岸，延绵进入阿拉伯海，成为印度洋的一部分。


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



长期的磨砺使迪拜湾成为一条古老的海路，远达印度和非洲东海岸，她是整个城市的心脏和灵魂。

迪拜湾可作为运河。因为受这条海湾的庇护，所以早期迪拜人的定居点建立于此。

最初,迪拜湾的水深只能通行较小的船支。因此货物在出口时会在海湾入口处转移到阿拉伯传统的独桅帆木船上。


[1]Does the above Chinese script make perfectly good sense to you?
[2] What sort of Chinese writing is that?
[3] Look at the first Chinese symbols. They are meant to represent "Visit-dubai.co.uk". But do they mean that LITERALLY?
[4] What symbol or Chinese letters represent DUBAI in that phrase and WHY?
NEWSTAR........Does it also make sense to you ? Do you understand the same written Chinese as White Jade??

RedKite wrote:Whitejade ,
This is fascinating. I would like to understand more about your alphabet and grammar.
I have taken an example here from the first few lines of www.visit-dubai.co.uk in its Chinese form.


Visit-Dubai.co.uk

畅游迪拜

迪拜是[阿拉伯联合酋长国] [U.A.E] 众多酋长国之一. 其他酋长国还有阿布扎比，沙扎， 阿治曼，欧姆古温 、拉斯-阿尔卡麦和富查伊拉等酋长国。 他们又被称作特鲁西尔酋长国。

迪拜依绕着迪拜湾 繁衍成长。 迪拜湾是一个天然的海水入口，它从阿拉伯海湾穿过迪拜中心, 把迪拜一分为二： 德拉杜拜 在海湾北边而新兴的巴杜拜在南侧。




阿拉伯联合酋长国 位于阿拉伯半岛 ,与卡塔尔 ,阿曼接壤，当然了，还有最大的邻国,沙特阿拉伯。

阿布扎比酋长国[Abu Zaby], 迪拜 [Dubayy], 沙扎， 阿治曼，欧姆古温[Umm al Qaywayn]和拉斯-阿尔卡麦[Ra's al Khaymah] 沿半岛的北海岸延伸直至 阿拉伯湾[波斯湾]。而富查伊拉[Al Fujayrah]位于阿曼海湾的东海岸，延绵进入阿拉伯海，成为印度洋的一部分。


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



长期的磨砺使迪拜湾成为一条古老的海路，远达印度和非洲东海岸，她是整个城市的心脏和灵魂。

迪拜湾可作为运河。因为受这条海湾的庇护，所以早期迪拜人的定居点建立于此。

最初,迪拜湾的水深只能通行较小的船支。因此货物在出口时会在海湾入口处转移到阿拉伯传统的独桅帆木船上。


[1]Does the above Chinese script make perfectly good sense to you?
[2] What sort of Chinese writing is that?
[3] Look at the first Chinese symbols. They are meant to represent "Visit-dubai.co.uk". But do they mean that LITERALLY?
[4] What symbol or Chinese letters represent DUBAI in that phrase and WHY?
NEWSTAR........Does it also make sense to you ? Do you understand the same written Chinese as White Jade??

Certainly doesn't make a lot of sense to me, lol

sage & onion wrote:
Certainly doesn't make a lot of sense to me, lol

At least you didn't say 'it's all Greek to me...'

SpeedHump,
As soon as you have a Chinese GF, why did you ask all those questions?

A good question Because we don't read Chinese newspapers together. I will ask, that will be the 'research' I mentioned above, but I am too busy with work this week

He-he. No doubts. A lot of Japanese can't read fiction after secondary school (they also use similar characters as in China).

I wish I didn't have a Chinese GF, but IMO it's weird to have a GF due to language only...

Red Chief wrote:He-he. No doubts. A lot of Japanese can't read fiction after secondary school (they also use similar characters as in China).

I wish I didn't have a Chinese GF, but IMO it's weird to have a GF due to language only...

Thats one hell of a theory

S. Onion,
What is your experience show? Share plz.

Red Chief wrote:S. Onion,
What is your experience show? Share plz.

I don't quite understand your question, please elaborate.

Sorry, Sage.

First time I translated "one hell of a" incorrectly...

It's really the only way outside China...