The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy"DeFrancis's book is first rate. It entertains. It teaches. It demystifies. It counteracts popular ignorance as well as sophisticated (cocktail party) ignorance. Who could ask for anything more? There is no other book like it. ... It is one of a kind, a first, and I would not only buy it but I would recommend it to friends and colleagues, many of whom are visiting China now and are adding 'two-week-expert' ignorance to the two kinds that existed before. This is a book for everyone." --Joshua A. Fishman, research professor of social sciences, Yeshiva University, New York "Professor De Francis has produced a work of great effectiveness that should appeal to a wide-ranging audience. It is at once instructive and entertaining. While being delighted by the flair of his novel approach, the reader will also be led to ponder on some of the most fundamental problems concerning the relations between written languages and spoken languages. Specifically, he will be served a variety of information on the languages of East Asia, not as dry pedantic facts, but as appealing tidbits that whet the intellectual appetite. The expert will find much to reflect on in this book, for Professor DeFrancis takes nothing for granted." --William S.Y. Wang, professor of linguistics, University of California at Berkeley |
What people are saying - Write a review
User Review - Flag as inappropriate
momo ?
User Review - Flag as inappropriate
Good.
Contents
| 37 | |
| 41 | |
| 53 | |
Rethinking Chinese Characters | 69 |
Whats in a Name? | 71 |
From Pictographs to What? | 74 |
How Do Chinese Characters Represent Sounds? | 89 |
How Do Chinese Characters Convey Meaning? | 116 |
The Monosyllabic Myth | 175 |
The Indispensability Myth | 187 |
The Successfulness Myth | 202 |
Chinese Language Reform | 219 |
Speech Reform | 221 |
Writing Reform | 238 |
Notes | 287 |
Glossary | 295 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
actually adopted alphabetic already appear approach aspect attempt basic basis called century chatactets China Chinese characters Chinese language Chinese writing classical committee communication complex compound concept considered countries created culture dialects difficulty discussion English example exist expressed fact figures forms of speech four French function further idea ideographic important indicated initial involved Japanese language reform Latin learning less letters limited lines linguistic literacy major matter meaning Myth names nese noted official original orthography percent perhaps phonetic element Pinyin possible present problem ptonunciation Putonghua question radical readers reading referring represent result schemes scholars script semantic signs simple single situation sound speakers speaking specific speech spoken standard style suggest syllables symbols taken tegionalects term things thousand tion tone universal various whole writing system written wtiting Zhou
Popular passages
Page 39 - Chinese" spoken by close to a billion Han Chinese is an abstraction that covers a number of mutually unintelligible forms of speech'.15 The multiple other languages often known subordinately as 'dialects' - that are spoken by Chinese populations in China and elsewhere in the world clearly render the monolithic nature of such a standard untenable.16 In the West, meanwhile, this untenable standard...
Page 35 - I think that the scholars who have almost let themselves be drawn into forgetting that Chinese is a spoken language have so exaggerated the influence of Chinese writing that they have, so to say, put the writing in place of the language.
References to this book
Bibliographic information
| Title | The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy |
| Author | John DeFrancis |
| Edition | reprint |
| Publisher | University of Hawaii Press, 1986 |
| ISBN | 0824810686, 9780824810689 |
| Length | 330 pages |
| Subjects | › › Foreign Language Study / Chinese Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |