New Message (aryan invasion)

[bpj at netg.se]

At 19:11 16.12.1996 +0000, Peter D Banos wrote:

>My understanding is that modern spoken Chinese is not truly monosyllabic.
>It _looks_ like it because of the writing system, but in fact many of the
>"character combinations" they have evolved to get around the homonymy
>problem are now regarded as having become true polysyllabic words. This is
>especially true of the "Mandarin dialect;" Cantonese and other Southern
>speechforms have retained more phonetic distinctions (eg more tones, final
>stop consonants), therefore less homonymy, therefore more retention of
>simple monosyllables.
>
>(I'm not an expert, but if anyone wants I can probably dig up a source or
>two for the above.)

That was the oft-repeated view of no lesser a Chinese linguist than Y.R.
Chao, and I guess we can take his word for it. The same script-artifact
"monosyllabism" is also found in Tibetan, btw. The facts are:

(1) most _morphemes_ (not words) in  these languages are monosyllabic.

(2) the scripts delimit syllables, but not words.

I.can.eas.I.ly.write.Eng.lish.in.a.si.mi.lar.way.as.Tib.is.writ.ten. ||
Does.that.make.Eng.lish.mo.no.syl.lab.ic. ? Not.to.my.mind. |
though.most.na.tive.Eng.lish.mor.phemes.and.a.fair.num.ber.of.words.are.in.d
eed.mo.no.syl.lab.ic. ||

Re.gards.Phi.lip. ||


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B.Philip Jonsson <bpj at netg.se>

"Peace is not simply the absence of war.
It is not a passive state of being.
We must wage peace, as vigilantly as we wage war."
(XIV Dalai Lama)

"A coincidence, as we say in Middle-Earth"