dialects or languages?

I don't want to pick your errors, but I have to choose some of Cisa, Kafetzou and Guilon's,

I will review these posts day after day and reply at random:

quote from Kafetzou's

My understanding about Chinese, ..., is that the sound system changes quite a bit from area to area, to the point where the speakers of different varieties of Chinese cannot understand one another, but the written representation is quite standard. Is that correct?



Partly true, but almost wrong. The Chinese spoken languages are different not only in phones, but in all the three baselines of western linguistics: phones, grammars and vocabularies.

You see? Are they different languages? but I tell you, they are same languages, because China is too ancient, and too long time as a united country and nation, although many dialects develop almost isolated or closed, and almost develop into what you define as independent languages according to the newborn linguistics, however, these stupid Chinese people just don't want to divide themselves, they hold that they belong to Chinese, not only race but also lanaguages. Why? That is what linguists cannot understand, but it is history and reality, because too long time of union instead of separation or division as in fragmented Europe.

Do you agree?

And second, Chinese writting styles, not saying the characters simplified or traditional, but saying the style of articles guiding people to write something in this characters (shit, I know that I couln't not explain very clearly to you in any phonetic languages to you with phonetic minds, are you clear? We deem characters as our language, but you deem your tougue as your language, see? I know you don't understand....) also change with times, ancient articles are not written in the same styles or methods or skills as modern ones, that is because of 1910s, in the same time as latinization and simplification of Chinese language, the linguists at that time promoted a thought and practiced it, that is, "to write what you speak", that idea apparently followed the linguistic baseline which was created by your western ancestors, right?

But we can still not communicate between different places, because our own mother tongues are too different in all the three baselines of shit linguistics, you know? so we must have a new style of wrtting which is standard and official, so the linguists tried and experimented, they made new style poems, new style articles, and new everything, later after 1949, the Communist regime practise these new things all over the country, that is what you see in today's Chinese literature, but I tell you that ancient Chinese language style is slightly different from today's, because the latter is following the shit linguistic baselines, that is, howsoever you speak, how you write.

Is it shit?

Pick out Cisa's

I admit I don´t know much about Vietnamese, but not every tonal language is Chinese, isn´t it? Then Punjabi and Thai would also be Chinese? Or Malay a Romance language because it uses Latin letters? Or Mongolian Slavic with its Cyrillic alphabet?....

From a linguistic point of view, yes you are right, but does linguistics represent a fair and equitable judgment as God in your westerners' minds? What is ironic (learn from Guilon), even God believers fight and killed or massacred each other, thinking of Christianism, Catholicism, Oxthodoxism, Judaism, Islam and so, do they believe in the same God? Are you sure the linguistics is purer than virgin? But what about your Virgin? She gave birth to Jesus who had no father, and from a genetic point of view, she was lying, that fact must be she stole loves from one or even more unknown male who sew the seed which later became Jesus, am I right?

As we say in China (I don't know if you hear of it): Science is a new round of superstition, religion and stupid belief, especially if we believe in it unconditionally.

return to the point, I was not saying of tonal language being Chinese, but do you know the fact that many Chinese dialects are not tonal language at all! And it is more publicly and generally believed and accepted by the linguists that Chinese in far ancient times was in fact proto-altaic language having no tones at all.

A top linguists will not think in terms, because terms are coined by minds, and minds always go wrong or deviated from reality.

Let's chat and discuss in "terms" of actual language conditions, instead of "terms" that define them, ok?

Also as to Kafetzou's

In my experience, linguists do not support anything, except for the preservation of languages that are dying out because their speakers have become assimilated into some mainstream. Field linguists go to places where there are only a few speakers left of a language or dialect and record them so that their language will not be forgotten.

If what you said is true, yes, you tell the truth, but in our minds, to record Chinese in Roman letters has other meanings than just recording its voice, we can use recorders to do so. Chinese ideograms are deemed weak in phonetic indications, but Roman letters are strongest for that. That is two different styles in languages, that difference decides the division of Western and Eastern Linguistics, if you can accept the latter term.

I cannot imagine that any linguist would support the latinization of Chinese. The only people who would support that would be those who wanted to facilitate the communication between Chinese people and others, who cannot understand the Chinese characters, such as when Atatürk brought the alphabet reform to Turkey.

pinyin was not created for foreigners, woman! It was created to be applied and taught and given to public Chinese! Do you know that from 1956 to 1960s, the phonetic system was deemed to replace simplified Chinese, it was taught in preschool, from primary school to university! And people were encouraged to write in this stuff, and it was glory to record in this! It was not only political move, but also linguistic artwork.

As to Turkish language reform, woman! I must admit, you are the monk in mountain (chinese saying, means you are too deeply in it, so you cannot get out of it), don't be naive, Turkey is turko, he wants to deviate from arabic influences and join europe! do you hear that Michael Jackson? He bleached his skin from black to white, just because he wanted to sing songs to white region in north american states.

Linguistics contains racism, that is solidly true.

If anything, the linguists would be those who would fight against such a movement, as they support the preservation of languages, not the assimilation of them.

But these small bunch of linguists were and still are taking great power of Chinese language and linguistic planning and movement, woman! They are linguistic Authority! I am not linguist at all, not even amateur, you can imagine who decides the diections of language. It is not public voice, but power, this power is weaved by politics and scholarly superstition which is widely believed by its founders and believers that it is science!

This belief makes me laugh. Kafetzou, may I ask you one more question, please?

since you are saying "linguistics is a descriptive science, not prescriptive", yeah yeah, I totally agree, but can I infer from your words that: "God belief is a descriptive science, not prescriptive"? oonononono, God belief is not a belief but a real science--theology?

Pluiepoco, we have all tried to be civil and polite, but you insist on being rude and basically calling us stupid. If you feel this way about us, why do you spend so much time with us?

NOTE: You are wrong when you make the assumption that all "Westerners" are Christian, but I still don't understand what that has to do with linguistics, anyhow. Why do you keep talking about "God belief"?

Linguistics is a belief built on assumed facts.

I saw turkish expert here like serba got very angry about my "racist" discussions, but if I did not know what is racism, how could you define my wrongdoings?

An -ism is a theory, it is just like any theory else, you can disagree with it, but you can not be blind to it, and say, there is no such theory or it does not exist. If you do so, it is like to say "the world has no war"!!! Cheating

I myself is not racist. But linguistics does contain racism.

Since serba is watching this message too, I would like to talk about a point. That do turkish people know what their ancestors believed in before Islam? Just a question. Sorry, if it is religious, let it disappear.

I hate people who have sex and claim they are virgins.

@ Kafetzou, take it easy, I wasn't saying anyone foolish. I thought linguistics is too easy to be a science. Is theology a science? Maybe, I am a fool to bring such a question, as it is disregard, disrespect, disbelief and discontent to this mentalistic science.

They (the linguistics and godbelief) have many similarities. That is why I placed them together.

ok I think I should say: oh great "God pluiepoco" .Thanks for you for your being so intellectual and sorry for our ignorance.And thanks that you said about the ancestors of Turks otherwise how we (Turkish people)should learn about ourselves ohh thanks again.
thanks God for you sending us "pluiepoco The Great".

No thanks, I just wanted to point out that, your ancestors had changed their languages (both spoken and written) as well as religions and believes for more than once. So, please don't jump up angrily when I happened to pick out a fact from many.

I was wrong to talk with you about your ancestors, because turk has no ancestor-worships, but we do. So it was like talking to stone, when I tried to remind you of your ancestors.

"God pluiepoco" knows everything and has everything.sorry I do have nothing.and I am worthless...

You have your God who will bring you everything and teach you everything and will guide you to Paradise, but I have nothing except myself who is living on the Earth during less than 100 years, and my body will be assimilated into the Earth that gave birth to me.

what will be will be. no belief can change what wil happen.everybody is equal when the death comes whatever happens to you happens to others as well.

your sentence sounds famous, especially "what will be will be". Are you philosopher? You are more intellectual than me! I am bumpkin brains.

AS to Turkish, since serba is here, I want to verify one thing. Since some turkish natives have this kind of centralism:

Kazakh, uigur and other languages are Turkish dialects

I know you will say, it should be replaced by another word "Turkic", but since this is the discussion specialized in "dialects and languages", I think your suggestions can be very representative and constructive. (I will leave for a moment, next day I will reply you)

If it is verfied, I have many other examples, so can we call this "linguistic centralism"?

And why I talked about a new term "Western linguistics" is because I "believe" linguistics is built on that kind of "western centralism".

pluiepoco, you go too far, I don't want this kind of sterile discussion on cucumis. I didn't read it all but your latest messages are almost insulting towards the turkish people. I think that everydoy is bored by the way this topic has turned. So take some rest and come back in a couple of days with fresh ideas and maybe apologizes.
serba, I'm really sorry for this, I suggest that you and everybody stop posting here because this will end nowhere.

OK, JP. I can only agree...

I understand all your linguistic ideas very well, but it does support my obedience to it. As well as I understand God belief very well, but it does not indicate that I believe in it.

In my opinion and in history as well as reality, Modern Linguistics is based on phonetic languages, or the phonetic aspects of all languages, I could not say, it does not apply to Chinese, but at least, it cannot totally be applicable to Chinese, or we admit that it is partly applicable to the phonetic aspects of Chinese language, if not so, google translations would not have been working.

But do you know that latin and greek letters survive and pass to many countries, they use it to form different languages, because alphabet is for constructing phone (even if in the very beginning long long time ago, they might be used for meaning, Let's ignore here, but I can tell you, just some famous linguists on the basis of this tell that alphabetic language is more advanced or at least developed than ideographic language, isn't it linguistic chauvinism), in stead of containing phone themselves nor giving a meaning, but you know, every Chinese characters have a meaning, have its grammar, and have one or more phones, this is substantially different, so even this ideographs survive and pass to many countries, they use it to form the same language, in stead of different language, because the ideographs give logics (grammar) and meanings. Are you clear now?

So what is language in our eyes, does mean what we are writting, instead of what we are speaking, so even if British wrote their English "language" (yours) in Chinese "language" (ours), we can also deem english is Chinese language.

The foregoing is to say, Chinese is not a spoken language in reality, it conveys grammar, and meanings, and building standard voice of each image, so when people learn the images, they begin to learn the language, regardless of what their mother tongue is. And our Chinese eveyone must learn how to correct his mother tongue and adjust it to the standard voice of words, from the beginning of our knowing how to read a book, because, only speaking mother tongue is deemed illiterate, to write is deemed educated, because language has more functions of recording than speaking. We don't linguize our mother tongues so often as you westerners, who use alphabet which give consonants and vowels to form their speaking, so their speaking is certainly formed a language, but we don't, we inherit the images from far ancient times, and we don't change them so often, that is why we can read through all books ever known to the earth if written in whatever Chinese, except Oracle that only a few experts know how to read this scripts in bones. But many people can recognize some of them.

all this is to remind you, that chinese is to form one language, not to form different languages, because it is not alphabet, ok? alphabet is only one form to "form" languages, do you agree? but linguistics is just formed on the building of alphabets, do you agree?

And whatsoever, in fact, in history, Chinese characters also were used by mongols when their basba alpahebt was not invented ever, so they mongols used chinese characters like today's Japan used (though they used in different ways, because japan use the grammar and meaning as well as voice the phone, mongol used it purely for syllables) to form their alphabetic mongol language, and they would select a group of standard characters, each indicates a syllable, so they form their Chinese alphabet to form their mongol language, and what is the result?

Can you imagine? It is a great work! indeed!

They used this language to write the very first and totally important history books of mongol imperial history!!

but later, a mongol man named basba had an idea to creat their own alphabet, so basba alphabet was invented, and this alphabet is used by manchu too.

So if I could define, I would foresee that, Eastern Linguistics will contain what Western Linguistics does not contain. And WEstern linguistics lack a nerve for something, or maybe the problem of how to survive a language and last longer.

pluiepoco, you claim that "just some famous linguists on the basis of this tell that alphabetic language is more advanced or at least developed than ideographic language".

Who are these "famous linguists"? I have never heard this theory.

Who are you fighting with? Nobody here is supporting the ideas that you say we are supporting. This is very strange, pluiepoco. You seem to be defending Chinese, but nobody is attacking it!

But it is true in China, there are some authoritative linguists who direct the movement of Chinese language, claiming that, according to LINGUISTICS, it is a natural evolution that Chinese ideographs must be romanized, because according to LINGUISTIC THEORIES, ideographic langugages including Chinese which is one and most complicated of the only several living ideographic languages, are obsolete.

A head of these linguists is a 100years-old-guy named Zhou You Guang (周有光), is his claim or himself a shit?

But if you are in China, you will find every linguistic books will tell that, there is a theory of language development and reform, which tells that and this what I have said,

and especially, they claim an important idea of modern linguistics (semiotics): (文字是记录语言的符号) letters is the sign to record languages.

Well, does the letters include Chinese characters?

The books say yes, but some one including me, would say no.

Or, is this claiming fraud or true?

Maybe linguistics is innocent, but just transformed through translation.
Because in italian, translation is distortion.

So it's a Chinese linguist who says you should change the Chinese characters to an alphabet? And that's why you're so angry at Western linguistics? Where's the logic in that? What do Western people have to do with that?

I think linguistis is milk to such kind of linguists. And I believe, it is not his ideas, but the ideas from linguistics.

Why do you believe that? If linguists in the West have never heard of his theories, how can you accuse Western linguists of somehow planting his theories? This sounds like an internal Chinese argument to me.