| Is the Chinese language dead? | |
|---|---|
| Sep 3, 2007 04:00 | #41   |
 | I sometimes use English words together with my daily chinese dialogue. But never think Chinese language will die! |
| Sep 3, 2007 12:38 | #42 |
| Yes this is very true !! The written language is inextricably tied to the culture, life and soul of China. |
| Sep 4, 2007 19:24 | #43 |
| I don't know what I shall think about what I just read... Pure language doesn't mean living language. A language is lively as soon as it is used in community so that it can evolve and progress throughout time. But a lively langage isn't a language enclosed on itself. The meaning of using a language is to communicate, so it creates interactions between people. It is absolutely normal that a language influences another, it is not a matter of purity. If we take the example of English, it comes first from Prot-germanic, then it was mixed with Latin (and Greek at the same time but in smaller proportion), then came old French since William the Conqueror, a Normand king who invaded England (all the words about law, all the terms linked with a certain way of life, rich usually, but also all the words used for already cooked meat: pork, porc; beef, boeuf; mutton, mouton... contrarily to uncoocked ones: pig, cochon; ox, boeuf; sheep, mouton... since at that time the Aristocracy spoke French and used to eat a lot, not like the people on the countryside rearing animals). And later on Amercian English influenced the British English changing pronunciation, and creating new words. Even in France, which is quite repulsive to changes from the outside (foreign countries) because of some Academicians in love with 19th century's French, we introduced 3 different words for the people we send in space according to their country: "Astronautes" for Americans, "Cosmonautes" for Russians and "Taïkonautes" for Chinese people more recently. Language contains the soul of the people who use it, I agree, but this people evolves so does the language. So a living language is a language that can adapt its period, so is Chinese as most of the languages spoken on Earth. |
| Sep 30, 2009 19:37 | #44 |
| GUEST25140 | I went looking after this subject because I am concerned that my public school district in Oxford Michigan has taken up chinese education at the second grade level. I thought it was a dead language but seems it's not; but considering it is non-alphabetic and very liquid it just seems like a waste of money. |
| Nov 11, 2009 13:16 | #45 |
| does not english express these in the same way? network - net / work airplane - air / plane chinese characters are already enough to express thess words we also assign new meaning to word such as 囧, but it's now offically admitted |
| Jun 20, 2010 12:43 | #46 |
| GUEST79126 | Yes, Chinese is a dead language. |
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