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Thread: Is the Chinese language dead?
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[quote=CHRISWAUGHBJ,36733] "How would the Chinese language invent new words?" As you yourself have demonstrated, one method is the same as that used in any other language- rearranging or recombining old words to form new words. "Wouldn't new characters need to be created?" Not always, but yes, sometimes. When paper was invented, the Chinese people needed a word for it, and that word needed a character, and that's how we wound up with 纸. "Is the lack of such a mechanism an indication that the Chinese language is dead? Or is there such a mechanism in place and I simply do not know of it." Well, you've answered your own question: You clearly don't know enough about the Chinese language. As Rogerinca pointed out, Chinese does have a mechanism for creating new characters. All but the simplest characters are made up of 'radicals'. Radicals are basically simple characters, sometimes stripped down or altered to fit comfortably in a more complex character. Radicals are combined to form new characters. Chinese has been doing this since the days of the oracle bones. A good example would be the Table of Chemical Elements. Obviously many elements required a new character as the were unknown to the Chinese (indeed, to everybody around the world) only 100 or 200 years ago. If you look at the table, you will see many (most? all?) the metals contain the radical 金 in their character. Why? 金 (meaning metal or gold) indicates that this character is the name of a metal. The other radical is usually there for it's phonetic value. "What happens when China - which is educating far more citizens in the sciences than the United States - over takes American dominance of technology and begins to be the creator of new technologies... How will those Chinese inventors pick new words for their inventions?" Well, clearly, the world will stop spinning on its axis, the Earth's magnetic field will reverse, the laws of thermodynamics will no longer apply, and we'll be reduced to grunting like Neanderthals or chimpanzees. Or, more likely, English will start to take on a lot more words from Chinese (and you'd be surprised how many we already have), words that were 'invented' in all the usual ways new words are coined, words that will have new characters or new combinations of characters just like all the previous words that have at some stage been new to Chinese, and life will continue on as it always has. [/quote]
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