Scientific Chinese Language & Computing

From Paul Wang,

According to Duncan, man forms his own experience through the creation of symbols. The study of the forms these symbols take becomes, then, the study of man. Approaching action in society as a socio-drama makes it possible to regard man as an actor who creates his own symbolic strategies for social action.[7C]. Natural language is a very special and refined symbol in this interpretation. We feel the earlier evolution of the Chinese language deserves a very rigorous and serious investigation by the best mind of the society. The reason is very simple; not only we have responsibility to preserve the only major ideographic language still in use, thanks to the sheer of the population and its longevity in historical evolution. Nevertheless, it is very clear that most scholars have lamented the vanishing of unique tribal natural languages on at least yearly basis. This phenomena indeed causes our concern. The best way to prevent these  unwanted phenomena to continue is simply to improve, not mentioning the real mounting pressure coming from the information revolution.

Recent Lin-sanity frenzy brought out the issue of the basketball sport verses the Chinese culture or Asian culture issue. Associated news on another 5 feet 3, rather than 6 feet 3 Chinese also called Jeremy Lin in the same university. I bet less than 0.1 percent of folks ever pay attention to this Jeremy Lin. To us, this Jeremy Lin is at least as exciting or even more so if one calm down and think about him. This Jeremy Lin is a scholarship student studying the relevant of natural language’s impact on the morality of a nation. Well, what is the point than? It is perhaps an irony that the improvement on natural language would not get any where without the support of only 0.01 per cent of the users. Any way, our point is that when big H speaks, it deserves everyone’s attention. This is particularly true and hence even more deserving for Chinese language speakers to realize the intention of the big brother big H!

Western culture has decided that language as the “Holy Word” can become a “final cause”. For as we read in the Bible. “In the beginning was the word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)  Language itself develops generalizations atop generalizations, until we come to some “final”use of language which is both the cause and effect of meaning. For unless we believe in some kind of “perfect communication, and consider a given literary style or genre of literary expression in terms of some “perfected model of its kind, aesthetic criticism is impossible. Duncan correctly tells the important and the impact of our natural language.[7C]. What is entirely unexpected—the information revolution has really cause most of us by surprise!Surely, the information revolution is not just another nomenclature that we must confront with, its deep implications, especially the economic issue in the sense of Adam Smith has literally throw us in imbalance!

Reference;

[7C]Hugh Dalziel Duncan ,”Symbols in Society”, 1968, Oxford University Press, Inc.

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From Paul Wang,

Part I — At the height of the information revolution, we have no choice but being forced to look much closer on the quality of the Chinese – English dictionary. In our opinion, a dictionary ought not to be only a place to find out the meaning  of any words. In a wide sense, the dictionary supposedly ought to give us all things known or learned, all facts and states relating to all matters and minds. However, there are so many disciplines, so many classes dealing with all matters and minds, hence an organized knowledge tree is a natural desirable approach to have. We have discovered also most dictionaries are given you the meanings of each words without taking into account their intricacies relationships among different words. We are all aware of the importance of the so called semasiology as an important area of inquiries, but we have not done enough to show we really care about this issue. Ideally, we would like all the words to be univocal, but this turns out to be a tremendous difficult thing to accomplish. Through out the history, we have heard enough such as the distinguished physicist like Alberta Einstein would like to have their own language for the science of physics and many other distinguished scientists feel the same way.

The problems are compounded with the process of the translation. The good news is we can and definitely should take the advantage of a vast amount of the knowledge accumulated over so long of time in the course of the reforming Chinese language and we can start afresh also making a good use of the knowledge tree which we believe so crucial in the movement of the Trinity. It is equally important such an effort should have a sound theoretical foundation to back up our work and we feel the best source we are able to identify, so far, is the work of P.W Anderson [7B]. Anderson feels the workings of our minds and bodies, and of all the animated or inanimate matter of which we have detailed knowledge, are assumed to be controlled by the same set of fundamental laws, which except under certain extreme conditions we feel we know  pretty well. Even thorough he investigation started with physics, he was able to extended eventually covering the discussion of many other disciplines. Therefore, the relevant to the discussion of the dictionary, the very basic of the knowledge-base, would be in correct order.

In order to have a better grip of the Anderson’s theory, we need to define some nomenclature due to V.F.Welsskopf. [7C].  Weisskopf was looking at the development of science in the Twentieth Century, he was able to distinguish two trends, which he called “intensive” and “extensive” research. In short: intensive research goes for the  fundamental laws, extensive research goes for the explanation of phenomena in terms of known fundamental laws. As always is the case, distinctions of this kind are not unambiguous, nevertheless, they are clear in most cases.

Part II — The frontier of science extends all along line from the newest and most modern intensive research of yesterday to the broad and well developed web of of extensive research activities based on intensive research activities based on intensive research of the past decades. Anderson [7B] keenly observed a roughly linear hierarchy can be established as follows [the first one is the lowest in the hierarchy] :

elementary particle physics –>solid state or many-body physics –>chemistry–>molecular biology –>cell biology –>………………..–>physiology –>psychology –social sciences.

It is important to note that each higher stage requires entirely new laws, concepts, and generalizations. What does Anderson’s theory has led us to conclude we ought to seriously cultivate our own valley, but also to recognize the quickest shortcut to another part of our own science are not visible from the viewpoint of one science alone. How does Anderson’s theory crucial to build a successful dictionary?

After examine many dictionaries,we have come to recognize a simple fact that most dictionaries have been constructed by many scholars distinguished in their own valley. Some concise ones have been constructed by 12 or 20 isolated valleys. A more comprehensive ones may be more,mush more, but still in relative isolation. For a very well planned dictionary, especially involved two or more languages, it appears prudent to keep the cross references of a more comprehensive knowledge tree in the back of our mind. As the universe of knowledge rapidly expanded, so is the knowledge base.It is the time to take advantage of the Anderson’s theory to improve the situation.

References;

[7B] P.W.Anderson,”More Is Different”, Science, 4 August 1972, pp.393-396. American Association for the Advancement of Science.

[7C]V.F.Weisskopf ,Physics Today, 20 (No.5) ,23 (1767).

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From Paul Wang,

Dear Anthony:

I was very happy when I received your kind invitation, as we always did for your party. Regrettably, we must had to be out of town. Nevertheless, I did try to participate remotely. Here is what I found out interested me greatly;

1)In 1850, the game of Mah-joung, originated in China, will be a fad in England, USA, and Australia in the middle of 1920′s.

2)American Express was formed on March 18,1950 as well.

3)Central Park of N.Y.City began its construction in 1953.

4)GOP had first meeting at Jackson, Michigan in 1854.

5)Fillmore had been eying Oriental trade possibilities and in 1852 he started Commodore Mathew Perry on a voyage to Japan,—opening of Japanese ports. Commodore Mathew Perry who did appear on March 31,1854 in Edo (Modern Tokyo) Bay in a show of force with nine ships!He also concluded the first trading treaty between USA and Japan. Consequently, Japan was forced to sign similar treaties with other Western nations.

6)Through a series of bills known as Compromise of 1850 were passed and signed by Fillmore, slavery was abolished in DC, California was admitted to the union as a free state, Utah and NM Territories were organized with no specification as to their ultimate “slave” or “free” status.

To me,the most striking event during that period of time is the “Taiping Rebellion” in China. This event, as it turns out would be the largest civil wars in human history, but not many people event pay any attention to this unfortunate tragedy in human history!

7)During the course of this conflict which has been so complicated, enhanced by the problems of natural language barriers, especially the problems of too many dialects in China.

8)Taiping Rebellion caused an estimated 20 million deaths, was led by Hong Xiuquan (1814-64). Feng Yunshan, formed a new religions group, the God Worshipers Society (Bai Shangdi hui) in 1847, Hong joined the God Worshipers, and 3 years later led them in rebellion, Jan 1,1851, Hong proclaimed his new dynasty, the Taiping Tianguo (Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace) and assumed the title of Tianwang or Heavenly King.He captured Nanking in 1853.

An important book just published recently; Stephen R.Platt ,”Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom” by Alfred A.Knopp, First Edition,2012. has documented this fascinating details about the Taiping Rebellion. Another book published long  ago also has many photos and illustrations; Jean Chesneaux, “Peasant Revolts in China ,1840-1949″ by Norton, in 1973.

9)Most Americans did not known about Taiping Rebellion as part of standard education, according to the book published. This war, the most destructive war of the 19th century, remains little known in USA, not just because our own civil war naturally occupies the center of our histories of the period, but also because of a long standing misconception that China in the 19th century was an essentially closed system.

10)In terms of U.S. Civil War,with which it coincided in its final years, the death toll of the Chinese Civil War at least 30 times as high!

11)According to Jonathan Spencer, Platt shows how the fates of China’s rulers and many millions of their subjects were manipulated by British diplomatic and commercial interests, as well as colored by the rebel’s own unorthodox religious and political beliefs. It is a real tragic!

12)Finally, why this revolution failed?

a)Internal rivalries that led to the assassinations of several leaders.

b)Surviving generals fled for their lives,taking their troops with them.

c)Attempt by Taiping to take Shanghai was stopped by the western-trained ‘Ever-Victorious Army’ under General Charles Gordon.

d)The Tapping’s anti-Confucianism alienated the gentry,who united under Zeng Guofan, a Chinese official of the Manchu government.

Hong finally committed suicide, but Taiping resistance continued in other parts of the country until 1868.

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Here we present the findings on SPSM, Single Pinyin-Single Meaning Chinese Words.

This is the last Part of SPMM Chinese Words data base. The result of our finding indeed is quite shocking as we shall see! The tabulation is based on the beginning of the alphabets, arranged in an orderly manner!

A : 8                M : 12

B :14                N : 25

C :35                O :  5

D :11                P : 19

E : 3                Q : 20

F : 6                R : 13

G :13                S : 35

H :20                T : 20

I : -                U :  -

J : 1                V :  -

K :11                W :  6

L :22                X :  5

Y :  5

Z : 20

Conclusion: The total number of unique [Single Pinyin - Single Meaning] Chinese words in PINYIN System, as it turns out, is only 332. In other words, for the size of daily usage dictionary by Collins of 3,135 Chinese Pinyin Words,there are only 10.59 %. The implication is a deal of AI, Artificial Intelligence assistance is urgently required to obtain a functional system of operation on Chinese language!

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From Paul Wang,

Each Chinese character is pronounced as a one-syllable word. A word usually has one of these four tones; high, rising, dipping, and falling. As presented in previous talking points, the Chinese Language suffers a serious set back being monosyllables. These four tones came in to rescue which allows us to accommodate a whole lot more unique personalities for a lots more words in Pinyin.

Notions on Syllables, unit of pronunciation with a single vocal sound.

[-] : First tone (high even pitch )

['] : Second tone (rising pitch )

[v] : Third tone (falling and then rising )

[`] : Fourth tone (falling pitch )

[ ] symbol is for the letter immediately to the right position.

In our opinion, these four tones are responsible to raise the extra dimension being musical such as the French Language enjoys in Latin system language. In fact, one can see this in the book entitled “Chinese Language For Beginners by Lee Cooper. [7A]. Lee Cooper has come up with an innovative method of illustrating the power of these four tones via musical score with “Bean Sprouts” symbols in page 12 of the book.

We feel these four tones must reveal some characteristics of Chinese cultural traits and heritages because it is not coincident that the traditional essay required by the evolutionary of the Imperial court examinations were structured as “introduction”,”arguments”,”**counter argument” and “conclusion”. In our opinion, these are the metaphors of the “high”,”rising”,”dipping” and “falling”.

To sum it up,we feel it is perhaps difficult to deny,at very least,that the Chinese Language does possesses some hidden implications which are quite artful as well as colorful. In addition, we also discover some interesting statistics on the four tones based upon the SPMW data-base. For 4 multiple meaning-words with a single unique pinyin,up to 25 words,we have discovered the following distribution of the four tones;

• high : 7.4%
• rising : 6.2%
• dipping : 20%
• falling : 66.4%

What does this distribution tell you?

Chinese people likes the conclusion and the results the foremost,counter arguments next and the least in the beginning and the developments. Surely, there can be many viewpoints, please throw to us!

Nevertheless,the love for the results and conclusions can further be confirmed via the highest multiple meanings [20 to 25] , of words with a single pinyin turns out to be also the “falling”. This can be interpreted that Chinese usually and easily accept the ways the things are and willingness to “Eat Bitterness”.

Reference;

[7A] Lee Cooper ,”Chinese Language For Beginners,” Tuttle Publishing ,Tokyo,Rutland,Vermont,**Singapore,1971, ISBN-10 0 -8048-0918-6.

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