![]() But in the following pages, I shall outline some basic facts about the Chinese language. To examine these unhelpful myths thoroughly would require greater scope than this short essay will permit. Each of them is in its own way outrageous, since taken together they suggest that the capacity for language among the world's largest national-ethnic group is somehow different from that of all other human groups, a suggestion for which there is no evidence. In addition, some believe that the Communist government has wiped out the various Chinese dialects.Įach of these beliefs and assumptions is false. It is further believed that this supposed change has been tantamount to abandonment of the Chinese language itself. Regarding modern Chinese, a common myth holds that the Communist government has done away with Chinese characters and has substituted a brand new alphabet that all people now use instead of characters. Many assume that because of their language, the Chinese think in a way that is radically different from our way of thinking. Many believe that, because they write similarly (in part), Japanese, Korean, and Chinese people are related. Many believe that Chinese is a monosyllabic language, which presumably means that every word in Chinese consists of a single syllable, like the English words but, aim, quick, work, crime, laugh, and unlike the words although, objective, rapid, employment, transgression, guffaw. Indeed, people often say that the Chinese write in pictures. Even to the untutored eye, Chinese characters are not an alphabet, though many Americans who want to ask about them do not know what term to use for them, and questions are often asked such as, "Is it true that the Chinese alphabet … well, writing … I mean pictures, well … you know what I mean … they're very pictorial, aren't they?"īecause of the obvious radical difference between the way that the Chinese write and the way that we write, many myths have grown up, not just around China's writing system, but around its language as a whole and around China's people. The Chinese write very differently from us and indeed from all other literate societies in today's world except for Japan and Korea (which continue to make partial use of writing borrowed from China long ago). Few things in Chinese culture are more widely misunderstood outside of China than the Chinese language.
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