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Origin of Chinese spoken languages Part 1. Around the world, spoken languages eventually leaded to development of various writing systems. An exception is Chinese spoken languages. Contrary to other spoken languages, they were generated and evolved from a writing system, called Hanja or Hanzi, and not vice versa. Chinese spoken language is probably unique in that they were evolved from written languages. It is comparable to a hypothetical scenario where a spoken language is evolved from mathematical _expression_s, which is universal. Despite language barriers, scientists and mathematicians around the world can communicate with mathematical equations, although the pronunciations of the mathematical symbols may be radically different depending on their spoken languages. This is why Chinese people can communicate by their unique writing system, but may not understand each other by different spoken languages called Chinese dialects. I have been curious about the origin of Chinese spoken languages, They are radically different from neighbouring languages, especially Altaic. The Chinese grammar is more similar to Indo-European rather than Altaic. How could this have happened? Several years ago, I read a very interesting article on the origin of Chinese language: http://www.discover.com/issues¡©/mar- 96/features/empireofunifo¡©rmi715/ In this article, the author attributed the uniformity of current spoken Chinese languages (low diversity) to the political unification ever first achieved by the Chin emperor (221 BCE). He speculated that there once were far diverse spoken languages in the current Chinese continent. He cited Europe as an example, where far more diverse spoken languages still are existent, despite the similar area comparable with the modern People's Republic of China. I am not saying his idea is entirely wrong. I agree that it may partially explain the uniformity in modern Chinese spoken languages. However, the major factor was the unification by the writing system called Hanja. Hanja has been pronounced differently among groups, but could be understood by writing. This is possible because Hanja has been ideographic. Today, Koreans and Japanese also use Hanja, but pronunciations are different. In summary, the Hanja was a kind of universal symbols in the ancient Far East Asia, which is comparable to modern mathematical symbols, but more complex in the sense that they can be used beyond simple scientific representations to be adopted as a way of representing spoken languages at least partially. I hypothesize that Chinese spoken languages were evolved _base_d on the Hanja writing system, not vice versa. I speculate that once there were so many spoken words in ancient Chinese continent but most of them were perished as the unification proceeded. In modern Korean and Japan languages, there are hundred-thousand onomatopoeic/mimetic words existent. In Chinese spoken languages, they even do not have a character (or word in spoken Chinese) representing basic concepts, not to mentioning lack of onomatopoeic/mimetic words. For example, 'sorry', 'girl', 'boy' are a kind of basic words found around the world, but Chinese characters simply do not have it. Once they had them, but they perished by the unification enforced by the unique writing system. Part 2. Chinese spoken languages are actually written languages, because they were evolved from an ideographic _script_ called Hanja or Kanji. I provided an additional evidence: tones in Chinese spoken languages. Is there anybody who dares to argue that so much diverse tones found in modern Chinese existed before the invention of Hanja? It is obvious to me that tones have been developed to differentiate homonyms of Hanja characters. Chinese people did not develop any writing system or modified Hanja to denote tones, again suggesting that Hanja was not evolved from spoken languages, but that Chinese spoken languages were modified and changed to accomodate the Hanja _script_s by sacrificing their diversity (or entropy in the sense of information capacity). The Hanja has molded Chinese spoken languages into current forms of Chinese dialects. The entropy of spoken Chinese words greatly decreased but the entropy of tones increased proportionally. Part 3 Monosyllabic, isolating spoken language could not exist. Would it be just a coincidence that Chinese spoken language is isolating exactly the same way as the Hanja _script_s? People and so-called linguists want to believe that Hanja _script_s represented so well ancient Chinese spoken languages to be 100% isolating as we see now. This defies our common sense. Spoken languages in the world are typologically categorized as 1) inflectional, 2) agglutinative and 3) isolating languages. Chinese, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Cambodian, and possibly Riau Indonesian belong to the isolating languages. Except the last, the isolating feature is related with Chinese influence. Thus, the Chinese spoken language is the unique isolating language in the world. Because of their enormous population size, linguists probably had no choice but to include their language as a major category of spoken languages. But, it is nearly impossible that 100% isolating language could ever exist. As we see in Vietnamese and Tibetan, a certain degree of inflection is needed to function as a spoken language. Another unique feature of Chinese is being 'monosyllabic' according the definition of a Chinese syllable. Vietnamese also has been traditionally considered to be a monosyllabic isolating languagehttp://www.geocities.com/SoHo/¡©Den/5908/language/intro.html. However, Vietnamese shows a pronounced tendency for using bi- or polysyllabic structures. And some suggest that once Vietnamese were polysyllabic. This Vietnamese example suggest that it is quite possible that at least some of current Chinese dialects were once polysyllabic. Now, Chinese languages have two idiosyncratic features: monosyllabic + isolating. Is it possible that monosyllabic + isolating languages could ever have existed in ancient time before an invention of writing system? My answer is definitely No . But, I agree that it could exist for very, very primitive societies. But, if any society evolved to a degree of sophistication to invent any writing system, monosyllabic, isolating languages were simply unimaginable. Even with just isolating features, it is difficult to figure out syntax structure, but anyway Chinese people now live and speak with that isolating languages. How could ancient people could understand a syntax by monosyllabic AND isolating languages? To express meaning and syntax together, we need a certain degree of entropy in the sense of information capacity such as 16-bit or 32-bit computer processors. You can not edit a movie or songs with 8-bit processors. The entropy in monosyllabic, isolating languages is too low to express meaning and syntax together even for basic daily life in the ancient time. How many words could they express in monosyllabic language? The only solution to this degree of limitation is adopting tones to increase the entropy. Ancient Chinese initially used tonal systems to distinguish various homonyms before the invention of Hanja _script_? The answer is obviously No. Chinese tones were developed ad hoc to distinguish various homonyms in Chinese characters. Instead of developing polysyllabic words, Chinese people applied various tones to each Hanja character to make it function as a polysyllabic word. They adopted polytonal words instead of polysyllabic words. Why have they been so much attached to monosyllabic rule instead of developing polysyllabic words? The answer is that they could not escape from the Hanja _script_ and its isolating feature. Despite of recent Chinese government's effort, Chinese are still attached to the Hanja _script_. It seems that they will never escape from the isolating Hanja _script_. As it is impossible that the so called 'monosyllabic, isolating languages ever existed without help of a writing system and tones, it is certain that Chinese spoken languages were originally neither monosyllabic, nor isolating. The current two features of Chinese spoken dialects are a product of ad hoc adaptation to the Hanja _script_s. This seems obvious if we compare the degree of changes between Chinese spoken languages and the Chinese writing system, at least since the middle Chinese period. Spoken Chinese changed dramatically and dynamically while the writing system has been nearly stagnant. If A changes but B does not change, then A influences B, or B influences A? The answer is too obvious. Let's try to think reversely: Isolating Hanja _script_s molded ancient spoken Chinese dialects into monosyllabic and isolating languages. Part 4 Branches come from a root; a root does not come from branches. I think this evidence alone is enough to support my theory that the common ancestor of modern Chinese spoken languages was the writing system called Hanja. This evidence is too obvious, but human stupidity and stubbornness always prevails to make it difficult to escape from a stereotype and preoccupation. Thus, I need to show excessive list of evidences supporting my theory. There are several dialects in the Sinitic languages such as Mandarin, Wu, Hsiang, Kan, Hakka, Yueh and Min. They differ from each other to about the same degree as today's Romance languages. Most of the differences occur in pronunciation and vocabulary; there are few grammatical differences. But, strangely to most Westerners, they can almost understand each other by the common written languages. This no longer would look strange if they could realize that the very common ancestor language was the written language. Can a baby have more than two biological mothers? Linguists and Chinese are answering to this question by saying 'Yes'. If the Chinese
... więcej »

Part 1. Around the world, spoken languages eventually leaded to development of various writing systems. An exception is Chinese spoken languages. Contrary to other spoken languages, they were generated and evolved from a writing system, called Hanja or Hanzi, and not vice versa. Chinese spoken language is probably unique in that they were evolved from written languages. It is comparable to a hypothetical scenario where a spoken language is evolved from mathematical _expression_s, which is universal. Despite language barriers, scientists and mathematicians around the world can communicate with mathematical equations, although the pronunciations of the mathematical symbols may be radically different depending on their spoken languages. This is why Chinese people can communicate by their unique writing system, but may not understand each other by different spoken languages called Chinese dialects. I have been curious about the origin of Chinese spoken languages, They are radically different from neighbouring languages, especially Altaic. The Chinese grammar is more similar to Indo-European rather than Altaic. How could this have happened? Several years ago, I read a very interesting article on the origin of Chinese language:http://www.discover.com/issues¡©/mar- 96/features/empireofunifo¡©rmi715/ In this article, the author attributed the uniformity of current spoken Chinese languages (low diversity) to the political unification ever first achieved by the Chin emperor (221 BCE). He speculated that there once were far diverse spoken languages in the current Chinese continent. He cited Europe as an example, where far more diverse spoken languages still are existent, despite the similar area comparable with the modern People's Republic of China. I am not saying his idea is entirely wrong. I agree that it may partially explain the uniformity in modern Chinese spoken languages. However, the major factor was the unification by the writing system called Hanja. Hanja has been pronounced differently among groups, but could be understood by writing. This is possible because Hanja has been ideographic. Today, Koreans and Japanese also use Hanja, but pronunciations are different. In summary, the Hanja was a kind of universal symbols in the ancient Far East Asia, which is comparable to modern mathematical symbols, but more complex in the sense that they can be used beyond simple scientific representations to be adopted as a way of representing spoken languages at least partially. I hypothesize that Chinese spoken languages were evolved _base_d on the Hanja writing system, not vice versa. I speculate that once there were so many spoken words in ancient Chinese continent but most of them were perished as the unification proceeded. In modern Korean and Japan languages, there are hundred-thousand onomatopoeic/mimetic words existent. In Chinese spoken languages, they even do not have a character (or word in spoken Chinese) representing basic concepts, not to mentioning lack of onomatopoeic/mimetic words. For example, 'sorry', 'girl', 'boy' are a kind of basic words found around the world, but Chinese characters simply do not have it. Once they had them, but they perished by the unification enforced by the unique writing system. Part 2. Chinese spoken languages are actually written languages, because they were evolved from an ideographic _script_ called Hanja or Kanji. I provided an additional evidence: tones in Chinese spoken languages. Is there anybody who dares to argue that so much diverse tones found in modern Chinese existed before the invention of Hanja? It is obvious to me that tones have been developed to differentiate homonyms of Hanja characters. Chinese people did not develop any writing system or modified Hanja to denote tones, again suggesting that Hanja was not evolved from spoken languages, but that Chinese spoken languages were modified and changed to accomodate the Hanja _script_s by sacrificing their diversity (or entropy in the sense of information capacity). The Hanja has molded Chinese spoken languages into current forms of Chinese dialects. The entropy of spoken Chinese words greatly decreased but the entropy of tones increased proportionally. Part 3 Monosyllabic, isolating spoken language could not exist. Would it be just a coincidence that Chinese spoken language is isolating exactly the same way as the Hanja _script_s? People and so-called linguists want to believe that Hanja _script_s represented so well ancient Chinese spoken languages to be 100% isolating as we see now. This defies our common sense. Spoken languages in the world are typologically categorized as 1) inflectional, 2) agglutinative and 3) isolating languages. Chinese, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Cambodian, and possibly Riau Indonesian belong to the isolating languages. Except the last, the isolating feature is related with Chinese influence. Thus, the Chinese spoken language is the unique isolating language in the world. Because of their enormous population size, linguists probably had no choice but to include their language as a major category of spoken languages. But, it is nearly impossible that 100% isolating language could ever exist. As we see in Vietnamese and Tibetan, a certain degree of inflection is needed to function as a spoken language. Another unique feature of Chinese is being 'monosyllabic' according the definition of a Chinese syllable. Vietnamese also has been traditionally considered to be a monosyllabic isolating languagehttp://www.geocities.com/SoHo/¡©Den/5908/language/intro.html. However, Vietnamese shows a pronounced tendency for using bi- or polysyllabic structures. And some suggest that once Vietnamese were polysyllabic. This Vietnamese example suggest that it is quite possible that at least some of current Chinese dialects were once polysyllabic. Now, Chinese languages have two idiosyncratic features: monosyllabic + isolating. Is it possible that monosyllabic + isolating languages could ever have existed in ancient time before an invention of writing system? My answer is definitely No . But, I agree that it could exist for very, very primitive societies. But, if any society evolved to a degree of sophistication to invent any writing system, monosyllabic, isolating languages were simply unimaginable. Even with just isolating features, it is difficult to figure out syntax structure, but anyway Chinese people now live and speak with that isolating languages. How could ancient people could understand a syntax by monosyllabic AND isolating languages? To express meaning and syntax together, we need a certain degree of entropy in the sense of information capacity such as 16-bit or 32-bit computer processors. You can not edit a movie or songs with 8-bit processors. The entropy in monosyllabic, isolating languages is too low to express meaning and syntax together even for basic daily life in the ancient time. How many words could they express in monosyllabic language? The only solution to this degree of limitation is adopting tones to increase the entropy. Ancient Chinese initially used tonal systems to distinguish various homonyms before the invention of Hanja _script_? The answer is obviously No. Chinese tones were developed ad hoc to distinguish various homonyms in Chinese characters. Instead of developing polysyllabic
... więcej »

Origin of Chinese spoken languages Part 1. Around the world, spoken languages eventually leaded to development of various writing systems. An exception is Chinese spoken languages. Contrary to other spoken languages, they were generated and evolved from a writing system, called Hanja or Hanzi, and not vice versa. Chinese spoken language is probably unique in that they were evolved from written languages. It is comparable to a hypothetical scenario where a spoken language is evolved from mathematical _expression_s, which is universal. Despite language barriers, scientists and mathematicians around the world can communicate with mathematical equations, although the pronunciations of the mathematical symbols may be radically different depending on their spoken languages. This is why Chinese people can communicate by their unique writing system, but may not understand each other by different spoken languages called Chinese dialects. I have been curious about the origin of Chinese spoken languages, They are radically different from neighbouring languages, especially Altaic. The Chinese grammar is more similar to Indo-European rather than Altaic. How could this have happened? Several years ago, I read a very interesting article on the origin of Chinese language:http://www.discover.com/issues¡©/mar- 96/features/empireofunifo¡©rmi715/ In this article, the author attributed the uniformity of current spoken Chinese languages (low diversity) to the political unification ever first achieved by the Chin emperor (221 BCE). He speculated that there once were far diverse spoken languages in the current Chinese continent. He cited Europe as an example, where far more diverse spoken languages still are existent, despite the similar area comparable with the modern People's Republic of China. I am not saying his idea is entirely wrong. I agree that it may partially explain the uniformity in modern Chinese spoken languages. However, the major factor was the unification by the writing system called Hanja. Hanja has been pronounced differently among groups, but could be understood by writing. This is possible because Hanja has been ideographic. Today, Koreans and Japanese also use Hanja, but pronunciations are different. In summary, the Hanja was a kind of universal symbols in the ancient Far East Asia, which is comparable to modern mathematical symbols, but more complex in the sense that they can be used beyond simple scientific representations to be adopted as a way of representing spoken languages at least partially. I hypothesize that Chinese spoken languages were evolved _base_d on the Hanja writing system, not vice versa. I speculate that once there were so many spoken words in ancient Chinese continent but most of them were perished as the unification proceeded. In modern Korean and Japan languages, there are hundred-thousand onomatopoeic/mimetic words existent. In Chinese spoken languages, they even do not have a character (or word in spoken Chinese) representing basic concepts, not to mentioning lack of onomatopoeic/mimetic words. For example, 'sorry', 'girl', 'boy' are a kind of basic words found around the world, but Chinese characters simply do not have it. Once they had them, but they perished by the unification enforced by the unique writing system. Part 2. Chinese spoken languages are actually written languages, because they were evolved from an ideographic _script_ called Hanja or Kanji. I provided an additional evidence: tones in Chinese spoken languages. Is there anybody who dares to argue that so much diverse tones found in modern Chinese existed before the invention of Hanja? It is obvious to me that tones have been developed to differentiate homonyms of Hanja characters. Chinese people did not develop any writing system or modified Hanja to denote tones, again suggesting that Hanja was not evolved from spoken languages, but that Chinese spoken languages were modified and changed to accomodate the Hanja _script_s by sacrificing their diversity (or entropy in the sense of information capacity). The Hanja has molded Chinese spoken languages into current forms of Chinese dialects. The entropy of spoken Chinese words greatly decreased but the entropy of tones increased proportionally. Part 3 Monosyllabic, isolating spoken language could not exist. Would it be just a coincidence that Chinese spoken language is isolating exactly the same way as the Hanja _script_s? People and so-called linguists want to believe that Hanja _script_s represented so well ancient Chinese spoken languages to be 100% isolating as we see now. This defies our common sense. Spoken languages in the world are typologically categorized as 1) inflectional, 2) agglutinative and 3) isolating languages. Chinese, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Cambodian, and possibly Riau Indonesian belong to the isolating languages. Except the last, the isolating feature is related with Chinese influence. Thus, the Chinese spoken language is the unique isolating language in the world. Because of their enormous population size, linguists probably had no choice but to include their language as a major category of spoken languages. But, it is nearly impossible that 100% isolating language could ever exist. As we see in Vietnamese and Tibetan, a certain degree of inflection is needed to function as a spoken language. Another unique feature of Chinese is being 'monosyllabic' according the definition of a Chinese syllable. Vietnamese also has been traditionally considered to be a monosyllabic isolating languagehttp://www.geocities.com/SoHo/¡©Den/5908/language/intro.html. However, Vietnamese shows a pronounced tendency for using bi- or polysyllabic structures. And some suggest that once Vietnamese were polysyllabic. This Vietnamese example suggest that it is quite possible that at least some of current Chinese dialects were once polysyllabic. Now, Chinese languages have two idiosyncratic features: monosyllabic + isolating. Is it possible that monosyllabic + isolating languages could ever have existed in ancient time before an invention of writing system? My answer is definitely No . But, I agree that it could exist for very, very primitive societies. But, if any society evolved to a degree of sophistication to invent any writing system, monosyllabic, isolating languages were simply unimaginable. Even with just isolating features, it is difficult to figure out syntax structure, but anyway Chinese people now live and speak with that isolating languages. How
... więcej »

Origin of Chinese spoken languages Part 1. Around the world, spoken languages eventually leaded to development of various writing systems. An exception is Chinese spoken languages. Contrary to other spoken languages, they were generated and evolved from a writing system, called Hanja or Hanzi, and not vice versa. Chinese spoken language is probably unique in that they were evolved from written languages. It is comparable to a hypothetical scenario where a spoken language is evolved from mathematical _expression_s, which is universal. Despite language barriers, scientists and mathematicians around the world can communicate with mathematical equations, although the pronunciations of the mathematical symbols may be radically different depending on their spoken languages. This is why Chinese people can communicate by their unique writing system, but may not understand each other by different spoken languages called Chinese dialects. I have been curious about the origin of Chinese spoken languages, They are radically different from neighbouring languages, especially Altaic. The Chinese grammar is more similar to Indo-European rather than Altaic. How could this have happened? Several years ago, I read a very interesting article on the origin of Chinese language:http://www.discover.com/issues¡©/mar- 96/features/empireofunifo¡©rmi715/ In this article, the author attributed the uniformity of current spoken Chinese languages (low diversity) to the political unification ever first achieved by the Chin emperor (221 BCE). He speculated that there once were far diverse spoken languages in the current Chinese continent. He cited Europe as an example, where far more diverse spoken languages still are existent, despite the similar area comparable with the modern People's Republic of China. I am not saying his idea is entirely wrong. I agree that it may partially explain the uniformity in modern Chinese spoken languages. However, the major factor was the unification by the writing system called Hanja. Hanja has been pronounced differently among groups, but could be understood by writing. This is possible because Hanja has been ideographic. Today, Koreans and Japanese also use Hanja, but pronunciations are different. In summary, the Hanja was a kind of universal symbols in the ancient Far East Asia, which is comparable to modern mathematical symbols, but more complex in the sense that they can be used beyond simple scientific representations to be adopted as a way of representing spoken languages at least partially. I hypothesize that Chinese spoken languages were evolved _base_d on the Hanja writing system, not vice versa. I speculate that once there were so many spoken words in ancient Chinese continent but most of them were perished as the unification proceeded. In modern Korean and Japan languages, there are hundred-thousand onomatopoeic/mimetic words existent. In Chinese spoken languages, they even do not have a character (or word in spoken Chinese) representing basic concepts, not to mentioning lack of onomatopoeic/mimetic words. For example, 'sorry', 'girl', 'boy' are a kind of basic words found around the world, but Chinese characters simply do not have it. Once they had them, but they perished by the unification enforced by the unique writing system. Part 2. Chinese spoken languages are actually written languages, because they were evolved from an ideographic _script_ called Hanja or Kanji. I provided an additional evidence: tones in Chinese spoken languages. Is there anybody who dares to argue that so much diverse tones found in modern Chinese existed before the invention of Hanja? It is obvious to me that tones have been developed to differentiate homonyms of Hanja characters. Chinese people did not develop any writing system or modified Hanja to denote tones, again suggesting that Hanja was not evolved from spoken languages, but that Chinese spoken languages were modified and changed to accomodate the Hanja _script_s by sacrificing their diversity (or entropy in the sense of information capacity). The Hanja has molded Chinese spoken languages into current forms of Chinese dialects. The entropy of spoken Chinese words greatly decreased but the entropy of tones increased proportionally. Part 3 Monosyllabic, isolating spoken language could not exist. Would it be just a coincidence that Chinese spoken language is isolating exactly the same way as the Hanja _script_s? People and so-called linguists want to believe that Hanja _script_s represented so well ancient Chinese spoken languages to be 100% isolating as we see now. This defies our common sense. Spoken languages in the world are typologically categorized as 1) inflectional, 2) agglutinative and 3) isolating languages. Chinese, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Cambodian, and possibly Riau Indonesian belong to the isolating languages. Except the last, the isolating feature is related with Chinese influence. Thus, the Chinese spoken language is the unique isolating language in the world. Because of their enormous population size, linguists probably had no choice but to include their language as a major category of spoken languages. But, it is nearly impossible that 100% isolating language could ever exist. As we see in Vietnamese and Tibetan, a certain degree of inflection is needed to function as a spoken language. Another unique feature of Chinese is being 'monosyllabic' according the definition of a Chinese syllable. Vietnamese also has been traditionally considered to be a monosyllabic isolating languagehttp://www.geocities.com/SoHo/¡©Den/5908/language/intro.html. However, Vietnamese shows a pronounced tendency for using bi- or polysyllabic structures. And some suggest that once Vietnamese were polysyllabic. This Vietnamese example suggest that it is quite possible that at least some of current Chinese dialects were once polysyllabic. Now, Chinese languages have two idiosyncratic features: monosyllabic + isolating. Is it possible that monosyllabic + isolating languages could ever have existed in ancient time before an invention of writing system? My answer is definitely No . But, I agree that it could exist for very, very primitive societies. But, if any society evolved to a degree of sophistication to invent any writing system, monosyllabic, isolating languages were simply unimaginable. Even with just isolating features, it is difficult to figure out syntax structure, but anyway Chinese people now live and speak with that isolating languages. How could ancient people could understand a syntax by monosyllabic AND isolating languages? To express meaning and syntax together, we need a certain degree of entropy in the sense of information capacity such as 16-bit or 32-bit computer
... więcej »

Origin of Chinese spoken languages Part 1. Around the world, spoken languages eventually leaded to development of various writing systems. An exception is Chinese spoken languages. Contrary to other spoken languages, they were generated and evolved from a writing system, called Hanja or Hanzi, and not vice versa. Chinese spoken language is probably unique in that they were evolved from written languages. It is comparable to a hypothetical scenario where a spoken language is evolved from mathematical _expression_s, which is universal. Despite language barriers, scientists and mathematicians around the world can communicate with mathematical equations, although the pronunciations of the mathematical symbols may be radically different depending on their spoken languages. This is why Chinese people can communicate by their unique writing system, but may not understand each other by different spoken languages called Chinese dialects. I have been curious about the origin of Chinese spoken languages, They are radically different from neighbouring languages, especially Altaic. The Chinese grammar is more similar to Indo-European rather than Altaic. How could this have happened? Several years ago, I read a very interesting article on the origin of Chinese language:http://www.discover.com/issues¡©/mar- 96/features/empireofunifo¡©rmi715/ In this article, the author attributed the uniformity of current spoken Chinese languages (low diversity) to the political unification ever first achieved by the Chin emperor (221 BCE). He speculated that there once were far diverse spoken languages in the current Chinese continent. He cited Europe as an example, where far more diverse spoken languages still are existent, despite the similar area comparable with the modern People's Republic of China. I am not saying his idea is entirely wrong. I agree that it may partially explain the uniformity in modern Chinese spoken languages. However, the major factor was the unification by the writing system called Hanja. Hanja has been pronounced differently among groups, but could be understood by writing. This is possible because Hanja has been ideographic. Today, Koreans and Japanese also use Hanja, but pronunciations are different. In summary, the Hanja was a kind of universal symbols in the ancient Far East Asia, which is comparable to modern mathematical symbols, but more complex in the sense that they can be used beyond simple scientific representations to be adopted as a way of representing spoken languages at least partially. I hypothesize that Chinese spoken languages were evolved _base_d on the Hanja writing system, not vice versa. I speculate that once there were so many spoken words in ancient Chinese continent but most of them were perished as the unification proceeded. In modern Korean and Japan languages, there are hundred-thousand onomatopoeic/mimetic words existent. In Chinese spoken languages, they even do not have a character (or word in spoken Chinese) representing basic concepts, not to mentioning lack of onomatopoeic/mimetic words. For example, 'sorry', 'girl', 'boy' are a kind of basic words found around the world, but Chinese characters simply do not have it. Once they had them, but they perished by the unification enforced by the unique writing system. Part 2. Chinese spoken languages are actually written languages, because they were evolved from an ideographic _script_ called Hanja or Kanji. I provided an additional evidence: tones in Chinese spoken languages. Is there anybody who dares to argue that so much diverse tones found in modern Chinese existed before the invention of Hanja? It is obvious to me that tones have been developed to differentiate homonyms of Hanja characters. Chinese people did not develop any writing system or modified Hanja to denote tones, again suggesting that Hanja was not evolved from spoken languages, but that Chinese spoken languages were modified and changed to accomodate the Hanja _script_s by sacrificing their diversity (or entropy in the sense of information capacity). The Hanja has molded Chinese spoken languages into current forms of Chinese dialects. The entropy of spoken Chinese words greatly decreased but the entropy of tones increased proportionally. Part 3 Monosyllabic, isolating spoken language could not exist. Would it be just a coincidence that Chinese spoken language is isolating exactly the same way as the Hanja _script_s? People and so-called linguists want to believe that Hanja _script_s represented so well ancient Chinese spoken languages to be 100% isolating as we see now. This defies our common sense. Spoken languages in the world are typologically categorized as 1) inflectional, 2) agglutinative and 3) isolating languages. Chinese, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Cambodian, and possibly Riau Indonesian belong to the isolating languages. Except the last, the isolating feature is related with Chinese influence. Thus, the Chinese spoken language is the unique isolating language in the world. Because of their enormous population size, linguists probably had no choice but to include their language as a major category of spoken languages. But, it is nearly impossible that 100% isolating language could ever exist. As we see in Vietnamese and Tibetan, a certain degree of inflection is needed to function as a spoken language. Another unique feature of Chinese is being 'monosyllabic' according the definition of a Chinese syllable. Vietnamese also has been traditionally considered to be a monosyllabic isolating languagehttp://www.geocities.com/SoHo/¡©Den/5908/language/intro.html. However, Vietnamese shows a pronounced tendency for using bi- or polysyllabic structures. And some suggest that once Vietnamese were polysyllabic. This Vietnamese example suggest that it is quite possible that at least some of current Chinese dialects were once polysyllabic. Now, Chinese languages have two idiosyncratic features: monosyllabic + isolating. Is it possible that monosyllabic + isolating languages could ever have existed in ancient time before an invention of writing system? My answer is definitely No . But, I agree that it could exist for very, very primitive societies. But, if any society evolved to a degree of sophistication to invent any writing system, monosyllabic, isolating languages were simply unimaginable. Even with just isolating features, it is difficult to figure out syntax structure, but anyway Chinese people now live and speak with that isolating languages. How could ancient people could understand a syntax by monosyllabic AND isolating languages? To express meaning and syntax together, we need a certain degree of entropy in the sense of information capacity such as 16-bit or 32-bit computer processors. You can not edit a movie or songs with 8-bit processors. The entropy
... więcej »

Part 1. Around the world, spoken languages eventually leaded to development of various writing systems. An exception is Chinese spoken languages. Contrary to other spoken languages, they were generated and evolved from a writing system, called Hanja or Hanzi, and not vice versa. Chinese spoken language is probably unique in that they were evolved from written languages. It is comparable to a hypothetical scenario where a spoken language is evolved from mathematical _expression_s, which is universal. Despite language barriers, scientists and mathematicians around the world can communicate with mathematical equations, although the pronunciations of the mathematical symbols may be radically different depending on their spoken languages. This is why Chinese people can communicate by their unique writing system, but may not understand each other by different spoken languages called Chinese dialects. I have been curious about the origin of Chinese spoken languages, They are radically different from neighbouring languages, especially Altaic. The Chinese grammar is more similar to Indo-European rather than Altaic. How could this have happened? Several years ago, I read a very interesting article on the origin of Chinese language:http://www.discover.com/issues¡©/mar- 96/features/empireofunifo¡©rmi715/ In this article, the author attributed the uniformity of current spoken Chinese languages (low diversity) to the political unification ever first achieved by the Chin emperor (221 BCE). He speculated that there once were far diverse spoken languages in the current Chinese continent. He cited Europe as an example, where far more diverse spoken languages still are existent, despite the similar area comparable with the modern People's Republic of China. I am not saying his idea is entirely wrong. I agree that it may partially explain the uniformity in modern Chinese spoken languages. However, the major factor was the unification by the writing system called Hanja. Hanja has been pronounced differently among groups, but could be understood by writing. This is possible because Hanja has been ideographic. Today, Koreans and Japanese also use Hanja, but pronunciations are different. In summary, the Hanja was a kind of universal symbols in the ancient Far East Asia, which is comparable to modern mathematical symbols, but more complex in the sense that they can be used beyond simple scientific representations to be adopted as a way of representing spoken languages at least partially. I hypothesize that Chinese spoken languages were evolved _base_d on the Hanja writing system, not vice versa. I speculate that once there were so many spoken words in ancient Chinese continent but most of them were perished as the unification proceeded. In modern Korean and Japan languages, there are hundred-thousand onomatopoeic/mimetic words existent. In Chinese spoken languages, they even do not have a character (or word in spoken Chinese) representing basic concepts, not to mentioning lack of onomatopoeic/mimetic words. For example, 'sorry', 'girl', 'boy' are a kind of basic words found around the world, but Chinese characters simply do not have it. Once they had them, but they perished by the unification enforced by the unique writing system. Part 2. Chinese spoken languages are actually written languages, because they were evolved from an ideographic _script_ called Hanja or Kanji. I provided an additional evidence: tones in Chinese spoken languages. Is there anybody who dares to argue that so much diverse tones found in modern Chinese existed before the invention of Hanja? It is obvious to me that tones have been developed to differentiate homonyms of Hanja characters. Chinese people did not develop any writing system or modified Hanja to denote tones, again suggesting that Hanja was not evolved from spoken languages, but that Chinese spoken languages were modified and changed to accomodate the Hanja _script_s by sacrificing their diversity (or entropy in the sense of information capacity). The Hanja has molded Chinese spoken languages into current forms of Chinese dialects. The entropy of spoken Chinese words greatly decreased but the entropy of tones increased proportionally. Part 3 Monosyllabic, isolating spoken language could not exist. Would it be just a coincidence that Chinese spoken language is isolating exactly the same way as the Hanja _script_s? People and so-called linguists want to believe that Hanja _script_s represented so well ancient Chinese spoken languages to be 100% isolating as we see now. This defies our common sense. Spoken languages in the world are typologically categorized as 1) inflectional, 2) agglutinative and 3) isolating languages. Chinese, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Cambodian, and possibly Riau Indonesian belong to the isolating languages. Except the last, the isolating feature is related with Chinese influence. Thus, the Chinese spoken language is the unique isolating language in the world. Because of their enormous population size, linguists probably had no choice but to include their language as a major category of spoken languages. But, it is nearly impossible that 100% isolating language could ever exist. As we see in Vietnamese and Tibetan, a certain degree of inflection is needed to function as a spoken language. Another unique feature of Chinese is being 'monosyllabic' according the definition of a Chinese syllable. Vietnamese also has been traditionally considered to be a monosyllabic isolating languagehttp://www.geocities.com/SoHo/¡©Den/5908/language/intro.html. However, Vietnamese shows a pronounced tendency for using bi- or polysyllabic structures. And some suggest that once Vietnamese were polysyllabic. This Vietnamese example suggest that it is quite possible that at least some of current Chinese dialects were once polysyllabic. Now, Chinese languages have two idiosyncratic features: monosyllabic + isolating. Is it possible that monosyllabic + isolating languages could ever have existed in ancient time before an invention of writing system? My answer is definitely No . But, I agree that it could exist for very, very primitive societies. But, if any society evolved to a degree of sophistication to invent any writing system, monosyllabic, isolating languages were simply unimaginable. Even with just isolating features, it is difficult to figure out syntax structure, but anyway Chinese people now live and speak with that isolating languages. How could ancient people could understand a syntax by monosyllabic AND isolating languages? To express meaning and syntax together, we need a certain degree of entropy in the sense of information capacity such as 16-bit or 32-bit computer processors. You can not edit a movie or songs with 8-bit processors. The entropy in monosyllabic, isolating languages is too low to express meaning and syntax together even for basic daily life in the ancient time. How many words could they express in monosyllabic language? The only solution to this degree of limitation is adopting tones to increase the entropy. Ancient Chinese initially used tonal systems to distinguish various homonyms before the invention of Hanja _script_? The answer is obviously No. Chinese tones were developed ad hoc to distinguish various homonyms in Chinese characters. Instead of developing polysyllabic words, Chinese people applied various tones to each Hanja character to make it function as a polysyllabic word. They adopted polytonal words instead of polysyllabic words. Why have they been so much attached to monosyllabic rule instead of developing polysyllabic words? The answer is that they could not escape from the Hanja _script_ and its isolating feature. Despite of recent Chinese government's effort, Chinese are still attached to the Hanja _script_. It seems that they will never escape from the isolating Hanja _script_. As it is impossible that the so called 'monosyllabic, isolating languages ever existed without help of a writing system and tones, it is certain that Chinese spoken languages were originally neither monosyllabic, nor isolating. The current two features of Chinese spoken dialects are a product of ad hoc adaptation to the Hanja _script_s. This seems obvious if we compare the degree of changes between Chinese spoken languages and the Chinese writing system, at least since the middle Chinese period. Spoken Chinese changed dramatically and dynamically while the writing system has been nearly stagnant. If A changes but B does not change, then A influences B, or B influences A? The answer is too obvious. Let's try to think reversely: Isolating Hanja _script_s molded ancient spoken Chinese dialects into monosyllabic and isolating languages. Part 4 Branches come from a root; a root does not come from branches. I think this evidence alone is enough to support my theory that the common ancestor
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