Bach in Hebrew, 2-char terms in Chinese

[henh...@gmail.com]

i found the BACH with a Dot here:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/he/8/8d/%D7%92%D7%93%D7%9C%D7%90%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%90%D7%9A.jpg


iirc you (Arnaud Fournet) are the person who knew a little Chinese....
i picked up this factoid.... that 2-char terms in Chinese (or "words") were
actually more of a Japanese invention in the 1800s.


On Thursday, March 23, 2023 at 1:39:01 AM UTC-7, Arnaud Fournet wrote:
> Le mercredi 22 mars 2023 à 15:57:10 UTC+1, henh...@gmail.com a écrit :
> > BACH in Hebrew is באך
> > (Kaf Aleph Bet)
> >
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaph
> > > Kaf without the dagesh (khaf) -- When this letter appears
> > as כ‎ without the dagesh ("dot") in its center it represents [χ], like
> > the ch in German "Bach".
> >
> >
> > The following BACH has a Dot within Bet -- what does this Dot do?
> >
> > בּאך
> the dagesh ("dot") means "non fricative": ב=v vs בּ=b

[Ruud Harmsen]

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 12:02:58 -0700 (PDT): "henh...@gmail.com"
<henh...@gmail.com> scribeva:

>i found the BACH with a Dot here:
>https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/he/8/8d/%D7%92%D7%93%D7%9C%D7%90%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%90%D7%9A.jpg

I think it says "Gödel, Escher, Bach:"
The rest is probably Hebrew, which I cannot read.

>> > BACH in Hebrew is ???
>> > (Kaf Aleph Bet)

You mean Bet Aleph Kaf, of course. Listed as entered, regardless or
writing direction.

--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com

[henh...@gmail.com]

>>> The Hebrew alphabet has no vowel letters. The letters only mark consonants, which means that when you look at a word you would have no idea how it is pronounced. Such alphabets are known as "abjads".


---------- omg.... the Aleph in [Bet Aleph Kaf] seems like a Vowel to me!!! w w w

[Ruud Harmsen]

fMon, 27 Mar 2023 10:04:19 -0700 (PDT): "henh...@gmail.com"
<henh...@gmail.com> scribeva:

Yes, long vowels are written, and even short one are often marked in
modern hebrew, using alef, waw and yod.

[Ross Clark]

On 24/03/2023 8:02 a.m., henh...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> i found the BACH with a Dot here:
> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/he/8/8d/%D7%92%D7%93%D7%9C%D7%90%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%90%D7%9A.jpg
>
>
> iirc you (Arnaud Fournet) are the person who knew a little Chinese....
> i picked up this factoid.... that 2-char terms in Chinese (or "words") were
> actually more of a Japanese invention in the 1800s.

No word from Arnaud, so I (non-Chinese-expert) will try to answer.
I don't think so.
Even Classical Chinese (~2000 years ago) had only 90% monosyllabic
(single-character) words, so 10% 2-character or more. That figure would
have increased steadily of course, until apparently > 50% today. This is
a result of continuing formation of new (compound) words, partly under
pressure from increasing homophony because of sound changes esp. in
Mandarin.
Where would the idea have come from that this was "more of a Japanese
invention"? The big changes that took place in both countries in the
19th century (modernization, Westernization) would have required a lot
of new vocabulary. These changes started somewhat earlier in Japan, and
some new words coined in Japan (from the lexicon that they had borrowed
from Chinese centuries before) were borrowed into Chinese.
But multi-character words themselves were not a Japanese invention.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_grammar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters#cite_note-7
http://bild-lida.ca/educationalsociolinguistics/uncategorized/japanese-loanwords-in-modern-chinese/

[henh...@gmail.com]

thanks! the last link is great!!!

>>> According to the work by Wang Binbin on the subject of Japanese-word borrowings into Chinese (1998), 70 percent of the modern Chinese words relating to sociology, humanities and natural science originate from Japanese.
Representing new ideas, advanced thoughts and scientific knowledge from the west, those “Japan-made” words have been assimilated into Chinese so smoothly and naturally that most Chinese don’t really notice their Japanese origin.

[Helmut Richter]

On Tue, 28 Mar 2023, Ross Clark wrote:

> Even Classical Chinese (~2000 years ago) had only 90% monosyllabic
> (single-character) words, so 10% 2-character or more.

When talking about polysyllabic words, one has to discern compositions from
root morphemes. A composition may have attained a new meaning as a special
word where the new meaning is literally wrong, but it is still a composition
which may either be understood immediately or only after studying the
etymology.

Examples:

German "Bleistift" (pencil) is composed of "Blei" (lead) and "Stift" (pen),
which is literally wrong because pencils are not made of lead but it is
immediately understood as a composition.

Chinese "sōngshǔ" (squirrel) is composed of "sōng" (pine tree) and "shǔ"
(rat), which is literally wrong because squirrels are not a kind of rats but
it is immediately understood as a composition.

These two words both fit in a monosyllabic language but their English
translations "pencil" and "squirrel" do not.

> That figure would have
> increased steadily of course, until apparently > 50% today. This is a result
> of continuing formation of new (compound) words, partly under pressure from
> increasing homophony because of sound changes esp. in Mandarin.

These words are still compounds of monosyllabic words even if their meaning
is different from an immediate interpretation based only on the constituents.
The question is: how many Chinese words are there that are polysyllabic
without being a composition? How many characters are in the Chinese script
that are not a word of their own but only used for writing polysyllabic
words? Even if English were written in a syllabic script there would be lots
of syllable characters that are no words of their own. I suppose, in Chinese
this case would be much less common.

--
Helmut Richter

[henh...@gmail.com]

On Monday, March 27, 2023 at 11:53:07 PM UTC-7, Helmut Richter wrote:

> ...

> Chinese "sōngshǔ" (squirrel) is composed of "sōng" (pine tree) and "shǔ"
> (rat), which is literally wrong because squirrels are not a kind of rats but
> it is immediately understood as a composition.
>

Chinese "sōngshǔ" (squirrel) (Pine-Mouse) may be old, .... (how old is it?)


but this method of 電話, 電池, ... 電気, 電車, ... is something of a Jp [invention],
which the Chinese borrowed to coin their word for "Computer"


http://bild-lida.ca/educationalsociolinguistics/uncategorized/japanese-loanwords-in-modern-chinese/

电话[diàn huà] meaning “telephone” comes from the Japanese 電話(でんわ) [denwa]

电池[diàn chí] meaning “battery” comes from the Japanese 電池(でんち) [denchi]


For instance, ‘telephone’ was directly translated into three syllables at first, 德律风 dé lǜ fēng, which was difficult to remember and understand the meaning. Democracy was translated into 德谟克拉西 dé mó kèlā xī (Wang, 1998).

[Ross Clark]

That may be the question that interests you, but it is not the original
question to which I was replying.

If you want to call Modern Chinese a "monosyllabic language", you would
have to mean that _morphemes_ are typically monosyllabic. There are some
polysyllabic morphemes in Modern Chinese, but not many. What I was
talking about were polysyllabic _words_ -- what you call "compositions".

Even if English were written in a syllabic script there would be lots
> of syllable characters that are no words of their own. I suppose, in Chinese
> this case would be much less common.

Putting it another way -- there would be more possible syllables that
are not actual morphemes in English than in Chinese. I think the reason
would be that the number of possible syllables in Mandarin is
exceptionally small.

Wiki again:
"In modern Mandarin, there are now only about 1,200 possible syllables,
including tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese
(still largely monosyllabic) and over 8,000 in English."

[Ross Clark]

Yes, the reason is that this is a special type of borrowing, based on
having a common core of characters in both writing systems, and common
ways of forming compounds. Taking an example from the last link: the
Japanese combine the elements 系 [kei] and 統 [tō] to form a new compound
word 系統 [keitō] meaning 'system'. The Chinese have the same two
characters, so writing the new word is no problem; in speaking it,
rather than try to approximate the Japanese pronunciation, they give the
characters their normal Chinese pronunciation, so [xìtǒng]. There's
nothing "foreign" about the pronunciation or the written form.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Tuesday, March 28, 2023 at 6:16:43 AM UTC-4, Ross Clark wrote:
> On 28/03/2023 7:53 p.m., Helmut Richter wrote:

> > These words are still compounds of monosyllabic words even if their meaning
> > is different from an immediate interpretation based only on the constituents.
> > The question is: how many Chinese words are there that are polysyllabic
> > without being a composition? How many characters are in the Chinese script
> > that are not a word of their own but only used for writing polysyllabic
> > words?
>
> That may be the question that interests you, but it is not the original
> question to which I was replying.

The words for these concepts are not well known in Chinese -- they
tend to use _zi_ for several English words.

> If you want to call Modern Chinese a "monosyllabic language", you would
> have to mean that _morphemes_ are typically monosyllabic. There are some
> polysyllabic morphemes in Modern Chinese, but not many. What I was

The "butterfly" word is the standard example. George A. Kennedy has a
beautiful essay on the topic. (Not on line; can't even find the title.)

> talking about were polysyllabic _words_ -- what you call "compositions".

Just a faux ami. Komposita = compound.

> > Even if English were written in a syllabic script there would be lots
> > of syllable characters that are no words of their own. I suppose, in Chinese
> > this case would be much less common.

"Syllabic" is not "morphographic."

> Putting it another way -- there would be more possible syllables that
> are not actual morphemes in English than in Chinese. I think the reason
> would be that the number of possible syllables in Mandarin is
> exceptionally small.
>
> Wiki again:
> "In modern Mandarin, there are now only about 1,200 possible syllables,
> including tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese
> (still largely monosyllabic) and over 8,000 in English."

English has an immense number of homophonous words/morphemes,
Sometimes they're spelled differently, sometimes they're not. It's what
makes puns and crossword puzzles possible.

[Ruud Harmsen via Google Groups <google@rudhar.com>]

Isn’t that what for other language pairs is called a calque? Even in the
absence of a common ideographic script?

The Dutch word for calque is leenvertaling, literally borrow-translation.
That is, the words are native, and preexisting, but were never combined
this way before.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 08:53:03 +0200: Helmut Richter <hr.u...@email.de>
scribeva:

>German "Bleistift" (pencil) is composed of "Blei" (lead) and "Stift" (pen),
>which is literally wrong because pencils are not made of lead but it is
>immediately understood as a composition.

Yes. Similarly in Dutch: potlood, where lood = lead, and the pot
element I would have to look up. Even though [nl] pot = [en] pot, in
many or most senses.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/potlood
==
From pot (“pot”) +? lood (“lead”). Originally it was a name for
graphite, used for glazing pots, which was misidentified as a form of
lead. Compare English black lead.
==

I had no idea, even though of course I know the word from age 3, 4 or
6.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Yup.

> The Dutch word for calque is leenvertaling, literally borrow-translation.
> That is, the words are native, and preexisting, but were never combined
> this way before.

"Calque is a loanword, loanword is a calque" (Lehnwort came first).

[Ruud Harmsen]

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 10:26:34 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@verizon.net> scribeva:

>On Tuesday, March 28, 2023 at 10:34:51?AM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen via Google Groups <goo...@rudhar.com> wrote:

>> On Tuesday, March 28, 2023 at 12:31:37?PM UTC+2, Ross Clark wrote:
>
>> > Yes, the reason is that this is a special type of borrowing, based on
>> > having a common core of characters in both writing systems, and common
>> > ways of forming compounds. Taking an example from the last link: the

>> > Japanese combine the elements ? [kei] and ? [t?] to form a new compound
>> > word ?? [keit?] meaning 'system'. The Chinese have the same two

>> > characters, so writing the new word is no problem; in speaking it,
>> > rather than try to approximate the Japanese pronunciation, they give the

>> > characters their normal Chinese pronunciation, so [xìt?ng]. There's

>> > nothing "foreign" about the pronunciation or the written form.
>>
>> Isn’t that what for other language pairs is called a calque? Even in the
>> absence of a common ideographic script?
>
>Yup.
>
>> The Dutch word for calque is leenvertaling, literally borrow-translation.
>> That is, the words are native, and preexisting, but were never combined
>> this way before.
>
>"Calque is a loanword, loanword is a calque" (Lehnwort came first).

In Dutch, leenwoord en leenvertaling are not the same thing.

[Ross Clark]

On 29/03/2023 3:34 a.m., Ruud Harmsen via Google Groups

Yes, it's a kind of calque, but the shared script is less important than
a shared body of formatives which are actually cognate. (I think
Vietnamese, which no longer uses the Chinese characters, can still do
this kind of calquing from Chinese or Japanese.)

I think the same thing goes on between European languages, though still
thought of as just "borrowing". For example, a word like
"déconstruction", coined in French in the late 20th century, then
borrowed into English as "deconstruction". The English has a number of
phonological differences which show that it has not been directly
borrowed (e.g. DEE- rather than DAY- for the prefix); rather, an
isomorphic English word has been made up from cognate elements which
already existed in English.

> The Dutch word for calque is leenvertaling, literally borrow-translation.
> That is, the words are native, and preexisting, but were never combined
> this way before.

Yes, "loan-translation" is sometimes used in English.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 09:24:53 +1300: Ross Clark <benl...@ihug.co.nz>
scribeva:

>Yes, it's a kind of calque, but the shared script is less important than
>a shared body of formatives which are actually cognate. (I think
>Vietnamese, which no longer uses the Chinese characters, can still do
>this kind of calquing from Chinese or Japanese.)
>
>I think the same thing goes on between European languages, though still
>thought of as just "borrowing". For example, a word like
>"déconstruction", coined in French in the late 20th century, then
>borrowed into English as "deconstruction". The English has a number of
>phonological differences which show that it has not been directly
>borrowed (e.g. DEE- rather than DAY- for the prefix); rather, an
>isomorphic English word has been made up from cognate elements which
>already existed in English.

This is actually the basis of the Interlingua lexicon.

https://rudhar.com/lingtics/intrlnga/introIED/intrenia.htm