Dylan Sung and HKB,
No one had ever destroyed the writing script of the chinese people, only chinese invaders did that to the vietnamese people. The ancient vietnamese writing script were mostly destroyed by these invaders during that 1000 years of occupation. I would say that the chinese have an upper hand than the vietnamese on this debate because china still has its writing script as evidence to back up their point but the vietnamese is another story since most of their writing script was destroyed by chinese invaders.
Off topic question?
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Hung Dao Dai Vuong
Re: Off topic question?
Dong Son culture started earlier than 1000 B.C
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/taman.sari/util ... ongson.htm
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/taman.sari/util ... ongson.htm
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Thomas Chan
Re: Off topic question?
Hung Dao Dai Vuong wrote:
> No one had ever destroyed the writing script of the chinese
> people,
I think the other states of the Warring States period whose development
was cut short by the conquest of the Qin state would differ with you.
> only chinese invaders did that to the vietnamese
> people.
Are you really so sure about that? Maybe they were lost due to neglect,
like the chu nom writings that are now rotting away in the tropical climate
and being eaten by insects in the museums and libraries. Neglect has also
happened to Chinese writing--stone carvings on tombstones are lost
because some illiterate has used the tombstone as a washboard, or
writing on oracle bones was thought to be magical and the bones ground
up to be used in medicinal recipes.
> The ancient vietnamese writing script were mostly
> destroyed by these invaders during that 1000 years of
> occupation. I would say that the chinese have an upper hand
> than the vietnamese on this debate because china still has
> its writing script as evidence to back up their point but the
> vietnamese is another story since most of their writing
> script was destroyed by chinese invaders.
Written evidence is not the only evidence, but must be corroborated or
supported with archaelogical evidence (and vice versa, archaelogical
evidence must be interpreted in the context of written evidence).
Otherwise, ancient "sci-fi" (or modern falsified "history") can be used to
claim all sorts of nonsense.
Can you show us examples of this pre-Chinese Vietnamese script, e.g.,
archaelogical evidence? You say that "most" of the writing was
destroyed, so there must be something that can be shown.
Or descriptions or mentions of it by a culture that still has its written
records intact? The Chinese records do not necessarily support a
pro-Chinese argument (although I really don't think there is anything
to argue). e.g., ethnographical data by Chinese authors of the time
about how the "barbarians" on the southern frontier dress, write,
speak, look like, eat, etc.? At the very least, you would find something
like "Those Viets have barbaric writing that looks like worm squiggles and
chicken scratches--let's replace it with ours in schools and government
administration.", and that mere mention that the Vietnamese already
have a writing system would add fuel to the pro-Vietnamese position.
For example, the state of Chu, a non-Chinese one, was one of many rival
states that were oblitherated by the Qin state in Qin's conquest. Yet,
we still have at least a handful of Chu words that we can extract from
Chinese sources:
http://www.umass.edu/wsp/results/languages/chu/
Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu
> No one had ever destroyed the writing script of the chinese
> people,
I think the other states of the Warring States period whose development
was cut short by the conquest of the Qin state would differ with you.
> only chinese invaders did that to the vietnamese
> people.
Are you really so sure about that? Maybe they were lost due to neglect,
like the chu nom writings that are now rotting away in the tropical climate
and being eaten by insects in the museums and libraries. Neglect has also
happened to Chinese writing--stone carvings on tombstones are lost
because some illiterate has used the tombstone as a washboard, or
writing on oracle bones was thought to be magical and the bones ground
up to be used in medicinal recipes.
> The ancient vietnamese writing script were mostly
> destroyed by these invaders during that 1000 years of
> occupation. I would say that the chinese have an upper hand
> than the vietnamese on this debate because china still has
> its writing script as evidence to back up their point but the
> vietnamese is another story since most of their writing
> script was destroyed by chinese invaders.
Written evidence is not the only evidence, but must be corroborated or
supported with archaelogical evidence (and vice versa, archaelogical
evidence must be interpreted in the context of written evidence).
Otherwise, ancient "sci-fi" (or modern falsified "history") can be used to
claim all sorts of nonsense.
Can you show us examples of this pre-Chinese Vietnamese script, e.g.,
archaelogical evidence? You say that "most" of the writing was
destroyed, so there must be something that can be shown.
Or descriptions or mentions of it by a culture that still has its written
records intact? The Chinese records do not necessarily support a
pro-Chinese argument (although I really don't think there is anything
to argue). e.g., ethnographical data by Chinese authors of the time
about how the "barbarians" on the southern frontier dress, write,
speak, look like, eat, etc.? At the very least, you would find something
like "Those Viets have barbaric writing that looks like worm squiggles and
chicken scratches--let's replace it with ours in schools and government
administration.", and that mere mention that the Vietnamese already
have a writing system would add fuel to the pro-Vietnamese position.
For example, the state of Chu, a non-Chinese one, was one of many rival
states that were oblitherated by the Qin state in Qin's conquest. Yet,
we still have at least a handful of Chu words that we can extract from
Chinese sources:
http://www.umass.edu/wsp/results/languages/chu/
Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu
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Thomas Chan
Re: Off topic question?
HKB wrote:
> the central culture. as it is, the vietnamese is highly
> influenced by the chinese-almost identical clothing (you just
> call it aiya and we call it cheong-sam)
The Chinese have undeniably influenced others a lot, but let's not
get so arrogant. What the Cantonese call cheungsaam isn't that old--
why do you think the northern Chinese call it a qipao, a (Manchurian)
Bannerman's dress?
> vocabulary is Chinese loan-words, etc. some examples of same
> words are: word on left are viet, right are chinese (cantonese)
>
> hong ha(red river) hong ho(red river)
Good point, and a pro-Vietnamese rebuttal would have been that
while ho (Mand. he) isn't of Vietnamese origin, gong (jiang) is an example
of a word that isn't of Chinese origin. Look at pre-modern rivers in China--
the ones in the north are called he's, while the ones in the south are
called jiang's, cf., the Zhujiang (Pearl River) down by Canton. The Mekong
River also contains the same 'river' word. The only cases where he's and
jiang's are not distributed neatly between north and south are in the
rivers named later, such as in places later added to Chinese control and
settlement, such as in Manchuria (cf., the Heilongjiang--black dragon river;
what the Russians call the Amur), or in Yunnan.
Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu
> the central culture. as it is, the vietnamese is highly
> influenced by the chinese-almost identical clothing (you just
> call it aiya and we call it cheong-sam)
The Chinese have undeniably influenced others a lot, but let's not
get so arrogant. What the Cantonese call cheungsaam isn't that old--
why do you think the northern Chinese call it a qipao, a (Manchurian)
Bannerman's dress?
> vocabulary is Chinese loan-words, etc. some examples of same
> words are: word on left are viet, right are chinese (cantonese)
>
> hong ha(red river) hong ho(red river)
Good point, and a pro-Vietnamese rebuttal would have been that
while ho (Mand. he) isn't of Vietnamese origin, gong (jiang) is an example
of a word that isn't of Chinese origin. Look at pre-modern rivers in China--
the ones in the north are called he's, while the ones in the south are
called jiang's, cf., the Zhujiang (Pearl River) down by Canton. The Mekong
River also contains the same 'river' word. The only cases where he's and
jiang's are not distributed neatly between north and south are in the
rivers named later, such as in places later added to Chinese control and
settlement, such as in Manchuria (cf., the Heilongjiang--black dragon river;
what the Russians call the Amur), or in Yunnan.
Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu
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Hung Dao Dai Vuong
Re: Off topic question?
thomas chan, archaelogical diggings and remainings do show that ancient vietnamese have their own writing script that look like tadpole or worm-like if you want to call it. Some 22 characters of it still remain today in some regions in northern vietnam. About the chinese influenced the vietnamese language to the point that vietnam borrows up to 70 % of its vocabs from china is such nonsense; only linguists ( especially from western hemisphere) would believe in this "sci-fi". Chinese scholars have the tendency to claim everything in Asia is "made-in China" so i wouldn't surprise when they claim the bronze drum of Dong Son culture was originated from China either!
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HKB
Re: Off topic question?
Calligraphy
Chinese calligraphy, like Chinese painting, ranks among the most important of traditional Chinese fine arts. We may divide the developmental history of Chinese cal-ligraphy into three periods. The Pre-Qin Period (before 221 B. C.) may be called the ancient, or the period of early beginnings. From the Western Han Dynasty (206 B. C . Ñ24 A. D.) to the end of the Tang Dynasty (618Ñ907 A. D.) is the second period, or the period of maturity. From the Five Dynasties (907Ñ960 A. D.) to the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644Ñ1911 A. D.) is the modern period, or the period of individualistic development. The discovery of jiaguwen (oracle bone inscriptions) is a very important event in the Chinese language research. Jiaguwen was seen as the most ancient characters in China. Therefore, they were the earliest pieces of Chinese calligraphy. ZhongdiÕngwen, which have many similarities with jiaguwen and can be seen as the development of jiaguwen, are inscriptions on bronze vessels in the late Shang Dy-nasty (c. 1600Ñ c. 1100 B . C.). Zhongdingwen is also called jinwen (inscriptions on ancient broze objects). According to statistics, characters of zhongdingwen in the Shang Dynasty numbered up to more than four thousand. At this time, there was anoth-er form of writing called kedouwen (tadpole script), which was painted on bamboo slips.
source: http://student.acu.edu/~jxl99b/art3.html
the tadpole script was a form of caligraphy used in pre-imperial China. I'm not sure that these are the worm'like script that you mentioned though. Even if it isn't, "ancient" people in the Vietnam region didn't speak "vietnamese" and these archaelogical evidence that you speak of only shows that ancient peoples of that area possessed some form of written language. But this doesn't prove that words such as "hong ha" aren't loan words from Chinese.
Everything in Asia made in China? Not quite but pretty much. Asian culture, technology, and thought came from two recognized great sources: India and China. Just like Western thought and culture stemmed from Greece and Rome. Everything in Europe is basically originally "made by the Hellenic and Roman Peoples"
Chinese calligraphy, like Chinese painting, ranks among the most important of traditional Chinese fine arts. We may divide the developmental history of Chinese cal-ligraphy into three periods. The Pre-Qin Period (before 221 B. C.) may be called the ancient, or the period of early beginnings. From the Western Han Dynasty (206 B. C . Ñ24 A. D.) to the end of the Tang Dynasty (618Ñ907 A. D.) is the second period, or the period of maturity. From the Five Dynasties (907Ñ960 A. D.) to the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644Ñ1911 A. D.) is the modern period, or the period of individualistic development. The discovery of jiaguwen (oracle bone inscriptions) is a very important event in the Chinese language research. Jiaguwen was seen as the most ancient characters in China. Therefore, they were the earliest pieces of Chinese calligraphy. ZhongdiÕngwen, which have many similarities with jiaguwen and can be seen as the development of jiaguwen, are inscriptions on bronze vessels in the late Shang Dy-nasty (c. 1600Ñ c. 1100 B . C.). Zhongdingwen is also called jinwen (inscriptions on ancient broze objects). According to statistics, characters of zhongdingwen in the Shang Dynasty numbered up to more than four thousand. At this time, there was anoth-er form of writing called kedouwen (tadpole script), which was painted on bamboo slips.
source: http://student.acu.edu/~jxl99b/art3.html
the tadpole script was a form of caligraphy used in pre-imperial China. I'm not sure that these are the worm'like script that you mentioned though. Even if it isn't, "ancient" people in the Vietnam region didn't speak "vietnamese" and these archaelogical evidence that you speak of only shows that ancient peoples of that area possessed some form of written language. But this doesn't prove that words such as "hong ha" aren't loan words from Chinese.
Everything in Asia made in China? Not quite but pretty much. Asian culture, technology, and thought came from two recognized great sources: India and China. Just like Western thought and culture stemmed from Greece and Rome. Everything in Europe is basically originally "made by the Hellenic and Roman Peoples"
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KP
Re: Off topic question?
Its funny that you guys used visual evidence to claim that pronunciations are Chinese in origin. So what if the Chinese have visual evidence of these words being used? Does that evidence tell you what those words/characters sound like? It is also well known that the Chinese language is extremely diverse and has changed many many times over the past couple thousand years. Many of the Chinese in these forums claim that ancient Chinese sounds more like Cantonese than Mandaring. Yet, today, over a billion Chinese worldwide have accepted Mandarin as their "Official Chinese Language". Is this not accepting the language of the "Northern Barbarians"?
"it is not probable that land conquered by an empire with a central culture already in place for the conquered land to influence the central culture"
How do you explain such Southern "Barbarian" inventions such as the crossbow and rice cultivation? Chinese claim to invent the stirrups as well, though there is plenty of evidence the stirrups were invented by the Northern "Barbarians".
Can anyone tell me where the modern-day Vietnamese words for numbers 1-10 come from? I'm sure there was plenty of animosity for the Chinese after the occupation ended, but why would the Vietnamese change words so significant and higly used if they already had Chinese words for numbers?
"it is not probable that land conquered by an empire with a central culture already in place for the conquered land to influence the central culture"
How do you explain such Southern "Barbarian" inventions such as the crossbow and rice cultivation? Chinese claim to invent the stirrups as well, though there is plenty of evidence the stirrups were invented by the Northern "Barbarians".
Can anyone tell me where the modern-day Vietnamese words for numbers 1-10 come from? I'm sure there was plenty of animosity for the Chinese after the occupation ended, but why would the Vietnamese change words so significant and higly used if they already had Chinese words for numbers?
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HKB
Re: Off topic question?
I wouldn't call Manadarin a "barbaric" language but I don't doubt that it might have assimilated northern phonetics and vocabulary. Cantonese is closer in some ways to classical Chinese than Mandarin. I'll use an example someone else used :the conjunction "but"in classical chinese is "dansi". the cantonese "but" is "danhai" while mandarin prefers "keshi" or "ke." there are many others but in order not to make this too long I'll go straight to phonetics. classical chinese influenced many neighboring cultures, words like "eat", "school," "time," "glasses" "country", "gold" "sword"to name a few all sound similar in neighboring states such as , Korea, and Japan but different in Mandarin. "eat" is "sik"in both Korean and cantonese but "chi"in mandarin. "school" is "hakgyo" in Korean, "Hokhaao" in cantonese, and "gaku" in japanese (notice the similar "-ak-" portion) but "xue-xiao" in mandarin. time is "si-kan" in Korean, "si-gan" (g's r always hard )in cantonese, and "thoi gian" in vietnamese but "shi-jian" in mandarin(notice the difference of k/g and j). glasses is "an-kyong" in korean and "an-gang" cantonese but "yan-jing" in mandarin (again the g and j difference). country is korean "guk" cantonese "gwok" japanese "goku" and vietnamese "quoc" but mandarin "guo" which missed the "k" sound. sword is "kim" korean "ken"japanese "gim"cantonese "gim" vietnamese but "jian" mandarin (again the favored use of j over k/g in mandarin) Japan, korea were highly influenced by China during classical times, and vietnamese was also controlled in ancient times, ffrom this it can be concluded that ancient chinese possess these sounds that are different from mandarin but similar to cantonese. This means cantonese is indeed closer to classical chinese than mandarin (most apparent in its phonetics)
Rice is eaten mainly in central to southern areas of China and the "stirrup" indeed appeared in the north where horse-riding was much more needed. But the people weren't barbarians.
the modern day vietnamese numbers from 1-10 is probably well...of vietnamese origins I suppose. animosity can do a lot but even if it didn't in the case of vietnam, it's normal for the vietnamese people to discard a language not their own.
plus, if a language has a written word and an original pronunciation of it already a long time ago, why would it adopt a different pronunciation of it from another language much later? the sound of the word might change through time but it wouldn't be totally replaced by a different sound. only languages that had no or relatively subordinate written systems get their words completely replaced, like English-more than half of it is Latin. But Latin, which had a stronger power, has no English words in it. But now that English has become much more powerful in modern times, other languages all over the world begin to assimilate English words. China was much more powerful than its surrounding states for millenia, there was no reason for it to assimilate foreign words when there were no other culture more powerful than it, especially when it suppressed the use of other languages in conquered areas.
Rice is eaten mainly in central to southern areas of China and the "stirrup" indeed appeared in the north where horse-riding was much more needed. But the people weren't barbarians.
the modern day vietnamese numbers from 1-10 is probably well...of vietnamese origins I suppose. animosity can do a lot but even if it didn't in the case of vietnam, it's normal for the vietnamese people to discard a language not their own.
plus, if a language has a written word and an original pronunciation of it already a long time ago, why would it adopt a different pronunciation of it from another language much later? the sound of the word might change through time but it wouldn't be totally replaced by a different sound. only languages that had no or relatively subordinate written systems get their words completely replaced, like English-more than half of it is Latin. But Latin, which had a stronger power, has no English words in it. But now that English has become much more powerful in modern times, other languages all over the world begin to assimilate English words. China was much more powerful than its surrounding states for millenia, there was no reason for it to assimilate foreign words when there were no other culture more powerful than it, especially when it suppressed the use of other languages in conquered areas.
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HKB
Re: Off topic question?
If I gave any wrong evidence or made any overt logical flaws please crrect me. CONSTRUCTIVELY please 