Navneet Kumar's Blog on China

[Ray]

An idian visiting engineer's impression on Gaogang ( I don't even know where this place is, might be a small port town somewhere in Zhejiang
according to his description)

My China Dairy.........Living In Gaogang Part 1 | Sulekha Creative

Some interesting quotes from the blog:

"Chinese don't need to rely on a foreign language for racing ahead of the world. There own language is complete, so complete that they can excel in all fields of life without needing to know English or German or French. There leaders proudly speak Chinese no matter where they are and to whom they speak to."

If that is correct, then why are the Chinese rushing to learn English?

 

[Ray]

Isn't Mandarin based on remembering complex symbols ?.

It is more complex than that.

The same symbol will have four tonal accentuation.

Each tonal accentuation will have a different meaning.

Mandarin uses four tones to clarify the meanings of words. Since many characters have the same sound, tones are used to differentiate words from each other.

The four tones in Mandarin are:

high level – first tone
rising – second tone
falling rising – third tone
falling – fourth tone


Pinyin Chinese Character Meaning Sound Clip
mā 媽 mother audio http://mandarin.about.com/library/audio/tones/1.mp3
má 麻 hemp audio http://mandarin.about.com/library/audio/tones/2.mp3
mǎ 馬 horse audio http://mandarin.about.com/library/audio/tones/3.mp3
mà 罵 scold audio http://mandarin.about.com/library/audio/tones/4.mp3

 

[Ray]

This one says its five tones for the same character/ symbol.

 

[cloud_9]

^^ Anyway how many percent can communicate in Mandarin in Mainland China.



Why do people want to learn Sanskrit for the sake of Nationalism learn it as a language.Sanskrit wasn't the language of common people....I'm pretty sure it was more like a status symbol and Hip to speak Sanskrit back in tha day

Instead of reviving Sanskrit................How about we revive our native languages because most people have started mixing it with other languages mostly English and it's freaking annoying.

Meet my mates from high school a few months back

Me: Hor veer kiddan (How's it going brother/bro)
My Mate : Yo Yo veer! (Yo Yo brother/bro)

I was like Yo-Yo.......hmm that doesn't make sense.Then I thought maybe he wanted to say Yo! and he's suffering from one of those disorders where you repeat your own words and it ended up like Yo! Yo!

Apparently it was neither the Yo! from Philly (source:urban dictionary) or the disorder but a fad of calling Yo Yo instead of Hi/Hello/Hey because of some music artist named Yo Yo Honey Singh

 

[civfanatic]

Why do people want to learn Sanskrit for the sake of Nationalism learn it as a language.Sanskrit wasn't the language of common people....I'm pretty sure it was more like a status symbol and Hip to speak Sanskrit back in tha day

It was not just a 'hip' thing to do; Sanskrit was the link language of Ancient and Classical India. All discourse and communication between members of the social elite across India took place in Sanskrit. This was made possible because Sanskrit grammar was standardized at a very early stage by Panini (around 6th century B.C.E.), so people all over India learnt the same language regardless of where they were form. Thus, someone from Kerala (like Adi Shankaracharya) was able to communicate and transmit his ideas to someone on the other end of Aryavarta (like Kalhana, the Kashmiri author of Rajatarangini). It basically served the same purpose as English today, except it was indigenous.

 

[venkat]

Set Priorities Right To Match China


Set Priorities Right To Match China | Sulekha Creative

I ask those of you who are living in this rejuvenated state of the country what do you say about these tall claims of Puratchi Thalaivi the new mesiah of the poor? Have you found any change in the state or the state of affairs or the dismal state in which the things were when Mr. Karunanidhi was ruling the state? Since most of you from TN who are blogging here live in the premier cities of the State about which there are tall claims of grand achievements in the last one year of her reign, let me ask you about the very basic necessities of life.

1. What is the state of power cuts in your town? POOR

2. What is the state of water supply in your town?POOR

3. What do you say about transport and travel facilities?POOR

4. What do you say about cleanliness in your locality?POOR

5. What is the condition of the roads, sanitation, health services?POOR

6. Has the response to the call for help to Police, Fire department, Ambulance etc. improved?POOR

7. Has the corruption come down? NO! NO! NO!

8. Do you feel more safe and are you happier than you were before she took over from Karunanidhi?

dont care


with all that still I love my country that is INDIA!!!!!

 

[Tronic]

For all the bruuhaa about languages, even Chinese and Japanese research journals are today printed in English. Like it or not, English is the future. They have won this race. It's time to move on rather than waste time backtracking over things which mean nothing for human progress.

 

[Yijiuliuer]

It is more complex than that.

The same symbol will have four tonal accentuation.

Each tonal accentuation will have a different meaning.

Mandarin uses four tones to clarify the meanings of words. Since many characters have the same sound, tones are used to differentiate words from each other.

The four tones in Mandarin are:

high level – first tone
rising – second tone
falling rising – third tone
falling – fourth tone


Pinyin Chinese Character Meaning Sound Clip
mā 媽 mother audio http://mandarin.about.com/library/audio/tones/1.mp3
má 麻 hemp audio http://mandarin.about.com/library/audio/tones/2.mp3
mǎ 馬 horse audio http://mandarin.about.com/library/audio/tones/3.mp3
mà 罵 scold audio http://mandarin.about.com/library/audio/tones/4.mp3

No, it is the otherway around, a symbol will only have one fixed sound with some excpetions while a sound can be assigned to many different symbols.

 

[Yijiuliuer]

For all the bruuhaa about languages, even Chinese and Japanese research journals are today printed in English. Like it or not, English is the future. They have won this race. It's time to move on rather than waste time backtracking over things which mean nothing for human progress.

Reminds me of the time all diplomatic documents were written in French and all liberal arts research ones in Latin and Medical ones in German.
Prominent languages faded and ruled like prominent empires..

 

[hit&run]

People do not understand one thing and they try jump the fence which is very high for us given we were invaded by foreign influences for a very long time and then to defeat them first we felt the need to learn their own language/game and then it became a commodity and a link language with rest of the world and within indians too.

We were out powered and out resource and unstable throughout our history because of many factors including our geographical placement in proximity with many other civilizations like persian and european.

To save our heritage, culture and language we need resources and a new long period of incubation. Then our nation is so diverse that this effort has to be done by different states individually thus we need more resources and more an effort to do so, its a big mammoth task. The other risk we can take is make our nation homogeneous and kick start a cultural revolution like China did which is impossible and 100% counter productive for our nation.

To cut it short, we need to become more rich and prosperous to invest in having a luxury of preserving our languages. To communicate in one language in India other than English will always be a daunting task, may be Hindi in future has some chance.

Indians do not need to exclaim 'sigh' on every Chinese glitters, especially when we don't know their dirty secrets or when our own situation is totally different than what they have or faced.

To save or promote 'hindi' we need to learn english, please figure it out if you can.

Australians started learning Mandarin now they will learn Hindi, this should give a clue how things work with language. English is global language, period.

 

[cloud_9]

It was not just a 'hip' thing to do; Sanskrit was the link language of Ancient and Classical India. All discourse and communication between members of the social elite across India took place in Sanskrit. This was made possible because Sanskrit grammar was standardized at a very early stage by Panini (around 6th century B.C.E.), so people all over India learnt the same language regardless of where they were form. Thus, someone from Kerala (like Adi Shankaracharya) was able to communicate and transmit his ideas to someone on the other end of Aryavarta (like Kalhana, the Kashmiri author of Rajatarangini). It basically served the same purpose as English today, except it was indigenous.

How would it help the mango man.So you want to bring in Sanskrit instead of English (will only effect Upper middle class and Upper clas) but maybe you need to convince people why they should learn Sanskrit which only the Indians will speak.....

All those citing China as an example should visit China and see how big the complex is about speaking English that too with a American accent

 

[Yijiuliuer]

How would it help the mango man.So you want to bring in Sanskrit instead of English (will only effect Upper middle class and Upper clas) but maybe you need to convince people why they should learn Sanskrit which only the Indians will speak.....

All those citing China as an example should visit China and see how big the complex is about speaking English that too with a American accent

Well, I think the issue should be viewed from a premise first. China has a national official language at the first place, its overheating english fever is for enrichment. India has English as an official language but it is foreign and only people with education can clubbing with this communication tool.

I don't know where the american accent preferrence is coming from, actually, Chinese colleges have this strange cling on british accent. maybe this makes a person sound more Royal or more nobleman as English gents are, strange, China misinterprets many western cultures, you will find it very laughable.

 

[Yijiuliuer]

How would it help the mango man.So you want to bring in Sanskrit instead of English (will only effect Upper middle class and Upper clas) but maybe you need to convince people why they should learn Sanskrit which only the Indians will speak.....

All those citing China as an example should visit China and see how big the complex is about speaking English that too with a American accent

Isreal for example revived Hebrew. Most Isrealis speack perfect English but they still took the effort to unify their language, don't tell me they are monogenetic in culture, they came from every corner of the world.

 

[Yijiuliuer]

People do not understand one thing and they try jump the fence which is very high for us given we were invaded by foreign influences for a very long time and then to defeat them first we felt the need to learn their own language/game and then it became a commodity and a link language with rest of the world and within indians too.

We were out powered and out resource and unstable throughout our history because of many factors including our geographical placement in proximity with many other civilizations like persian and european.

To save our heritage, culture and language we need resources and a new long period of incubation. Then our nation is so diverse that this effort has to be done by different states individually thus we need more resources and more an effort to do so, its a big mammoth task. The other risk we can take is make our nation homogeneous and kick start a cultural revolution like China did which is impossible and 100% counter productive for our nation.

To cut it short, we need to become more rich and prosperous to invest in having a luxury of preserving our languages. To communicate in one language in India other than English will always be a daunting task, may be Hindi in future has some chance.

Indians do not need to exclaim 'sigh' on every Chinese glitters, especially when we don't know their dirty secrets or when our own situation is totally different than what they have or faced.

To save or promote 'hindi' we need to learn english, please figure it out if you can.

Australians started learning Mandarin now they will learn Hindi, this should give a clue how things work with language. English is global language, period.

long and thoughtful points, thank you for sharing,

An other example, english hasn't boosted Japanese economy and Japanese economy does not help much of promotion of Japanese language.
so sometimes, things does not workout with your way either.

Speaking of cultural revolution, MHO, India should have gotten a real revolution first place to reshuffle your status quo in caste defined society.
but this is out of question in a thermo-nuclear era. Your way out, may rely on a deep and painful retro-flection on post colonial system.
in this case, call it a cultral revolution or a cultral renaissance.

 

[cloud_9]

Well the only thing that makes us different from the rest of the world is the Diversity.India can never be bound by language,religion,race.....there is a reason why India doesn't have an official language and most of the regional languages are as old as Sanskrit.

Anyway the debate is replacing English with Sanskrit not the native language.

How about giving children a choice between English,Sanskrit and Hindi.For e.g until year Six we were taught Punjabi,Hindi and English;after sixth I had the option to choose between Hindi, Portuguese or none.I took none of them as a third language

Isreal for example revived Hebrew. Most Isrealis speack perfect English but they still took the effort to unify their language, don't tell me they are monogenetic in culture, they came from every corner of the world.

They are bound by religion and Hebrew is an after effect of that strong Jewish identity (similar case is with Pakistan the religion bit was propagated correctly but the language bit ran into trouble,maybe they should have tried Arabic instead of Urdu).I'm not sure where did you get the "Israelis speak perfect English part"

 

[Yijiuliuer]

Well the only thing that makes us different from the rest of the world is the Diversity.India can never be bound by language,religion,race.....there is a reason why India doesn't have an official language and most of the regional languages are as old as Sanskrit.

Anyway the debate is replacing English with Sanskrit not the native language.

How about giving children a choice between English,Sanskrit and Hindi.For e.g until year Six we were taught Punjabi,Hindi and English;after sixth I had the option to choose between Hindi, Portuguese or none.I took none of them as a third language

Forgive my frankness, the diversity is nothing to be proud of, deversity suggests lacking of common value and efforts, the more diverse a society is, the more under developed this society will be, just take a look of how an African tribe is deverse in everything, even two villages speak different languages.

No, the debate is about if a common native language is needed to be reinstalled or revived besides English. English still can serve its purpose, but people should root their culture into something native to them.

No one ever said you should abaddon English.

 

[Yijiuliuer]

Well the only thing that makes us different from the rest of the world is the Diversity.India can never be bound by language,religion,race.....there is a reason why India doesn't have an official language and most of the regional languages are as old as Sanskrit.

Anyway the debate is replacing English with Sanskrit not the native language.

How about giving children a choice between English,Sanskrit and Hindi.For e.g until year Six we were taught Punjabi,Hindi and English;after sixth I had the option to choose between Hindi, Portuguese or none.I took none of them as a third language


They are bound by religion and Hebrew is an after effect of that strong Jewish identity (similar case is with Pakistan the religion bit was propagated correctly but the language bit ran into trouble,maybe they should have tried Arabic instead of Urdu).I'm not sure where did you get the "Israelis speak perfect English part"

Well I should reword it into somehing like most islralis speak perfect English since a major part of their population is American jewish with double nationality.

 

[hit&run]

long and thoughtful points, thank you for sharing,

An other example, english hasn't boosted Japanese economy and Japanese economy does not help much of promotion of Japanese language.
so sometimes, things does not workout with your way either.

Sorry I haven't understood your point. Please be a bit more specific. I have found you contradicting yourself or not making any sense especially by giving example of Japan which is rather vindicating my point.

What I was trying to say before is that native language is dependent on prosperity and being unaffected from insult of foreign influences. Having your separate language is a luxury not necessity in today's world. The world will speak any language best suited for connectivity and explaining phenomenons of modern sciences. If Chinese can do so which I doubt they will, then world will speak their language.

 

[Yijiuliuer]

Sorry I haven't understood your point. Please be a bit more specific. I have found you contradicting yourself or not making any sense especially by giving example of Japan which is rather vindicating my point.

What I was trying to say before is that native language is dependent on prosperity and being unaffected from insult of foreign influences. Having your separate language is a luxury not necessity in today's world. The world will speak any language best suited for connectivity and explaining phenomenons of modern sciences. If Chinese can do so which I doubt they will, then world will speak their language.

I mean economy is not the decisive factor that promotes a language. By saying so, I still agree with you that prosperity is vital for any culture.
Correct me if I am wrong, our debate lies in the question of which is the cart which is horse.

Should a society unify its language to thrive or should it thrive first to unify its language.

 

[cloud_9]

Forgive my frankness, the diversity is nothing to be proud of, deversity suggests lacking of common value and efforts, the more diverse a society is, the more under developed this society will be, just take a look of how an African tribe is deverse in everything, even two villages speak different languages.

I thought you were a ABC.Maybe to a Chinese diversity maybe be nothing to be proud of because you were never born in one.
Now take off your Shanzhai glasses and get the desi ones then you will understand what I'm talking about....

No, the debate is about if a common native language is needed to be reinstalled or revived besides English. English still can serve its purpose, but people should root their culture into something native to them

na·tive [ney-tiv] Show IPA
adjective
1.being the place or environment in which a person was born or a thing came into being: one's native land.
2.belonging to a person by birth or to a thing by nature; inherent: native ability; native grace.
3.belonging by birth to a people regarded as indigenous to a certain place, especially a preliterate people: Native guides accompanied the expedition through the rain forest.
4.of indigenous origin, growth, or production: native pottery.
5.of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the indigenous inhabitants of a place or country: native customs; native dress.


We don't have a common native language,although most North/Central Indian languages are derived from Vedic Sanskrit but South Indian languages are derived from Dravidian...Sanskrit was spoken by the elite ruling class/Philosophers/Educationists/Blah Blah!(cite Norman rule over England).Most of the native languages are as old as Sanskrit itself

PS - How's China's experience of teaching Mandarin to Tibetans and Uyghurs