Scientific Chinese Language & Computing

From Leonid Perlovsky, principal research physicist and technical advisor Air Force research laboratory visiting scholar, Harvard University Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging

Separation of oral and writing forms in Chinese language(s), superiority and disadvantages of this, future of Chinese language – are fascinating subjects. I do not know Chinese and can only ask questions based on those languages I know, mostly English and Russian.

From theoretical considerations, we know that sounds of a language affects us emotionally. This is a direct affect perceived by ancient emotional brain areas (unlike other emotions that might perceive after understanding conceptual contents of various situations). Thus we might conclude that in Chinese language connections between emotional and conceptual contents is less strong than in some other languages (like Russian).

The cognitive functions of these emotions specific to language sounds are not well understood. In animals emotional and conceptual content of vocalization is fused, not separated. Animals cannot separately think and vocalize. Emergence of human language and ability for deliberate thinking required separation of emotions and concepts. In this regard separation of writing and sound forms helps evolution of conceptual thinking in Chinese language.

From this point on, there are more questions than answers:

1) An important function of a language is to use sounds (of words) for pointing to objects and events in the world. Emotionality of language sounds unfies conceptual contents of words with objects in the world. But emotionality of languages could be an ambivalent quality. “Too low” emotionality may lead to disconnect between language and the world. “Too high” emotionality may lead to “strong” connections and to a loss of adaptivity of language, loss of ability to perceive new contents. What is the “optimal” emotionality of a language? What is the optimal “strength” of connection between language and the world?

2) This could be studied by psycholinguistics and cultural anthropology. By looking at the world languages we can see different evolutionary paths of cultures with “too emotional” and “unemotional” languages. We should keep in mind that connections between the mind and the world are dynamic evolving processes.

3) This direction of research could also be studied by simulating language and cultural evolution.

4) What is a cognitive function of “tonality” of Chinese language? Whereas in English and Russian pitch variations are only used for expressing emotions, in Chinese it is used for both, emotional and conceptual contents. Currently there is no scientific answer to the question of cognition and tonality

5) Of course, connections between language sounds and the world are not the only factors directing cultural evolution. What are the other factors? How do they interact with language?

I am looking forward to hearing answers from people who know Chinese and its cultural history.

From Lin Hong

This is a good lesson for me to know more about psycho-linguistics. I knew emotion is an indispensable part of intelligence. Now I know more elaborations on this. I have long perceived that language affects culture. Leonid’s words attests that this is true. This also explains why contemplation on a culture often end in criticizing the language. I do believe studies on emotional and conceptual functions in languages are very important. Could they even tough the roots of religions? I would like to find out whether models can be built to measure the emotional and conceptual components in a language.

The tones in Chinese play a central role in Chinese classic poetry. I don’t know anything other than the rhythmic functions they play in the tonal patterns of poems.

As a layman to linguistics, I would like to see more studies on the questions issued here.

From Leonid Perlovsky

Thank you for telling me about the role of tones in Chinese classic poetry. There are beautiful translations of Chinese classic poetry to Russian made by the best Russian poets. But it is impossible for me to say how well the rhythmic functions of tones are translated into Russian.

From Lin Hong

I am not sure how poems can be translated well, especially poems that rely on tonal patterns like Chinese poems. Once I tried to translate some Chinese poems. I found some good Chinese poems no long sound good (by meaning) in English. I had a colleague who was a good poet. He told me there are two types of poems: poems that convey a thought and poems that express a mood. He said English doesn’t convey feelings (which means English poems more convey thoughts) but French conveys feelings. According to him, in terms of poetry writing, languages may not be exchangeable. At this point, a thought is emerging in my mind: Are languages barriers to human’s cognitive functions?

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From Paul Wang,

What kind of message should we send to all Chinese language speakers? Language is changing and  is evolving constantly, even we don’t feel it!

WATSON has proved that AI, if you do it right, can even beat human for limited usage. Therefore, there appears to have an urgency in reforming Chinese language, unless you just want it dead!? For a different reason as compared with Hu Shihzhi and other historical reforms, this time the overwhelming urge would be the digital computer and information revolution, which, by the way, is way much larger and its impact huge!

What do you think? We need a cohesive united front to win this battle.

From Hong Lin,

While I am not fully aware of exactly what problems Chinese language is facing in the modern age, I did hear some sayings from linguists that Chinese language has separate oral and writing forms and thus it is an obsolete language. I also heard counter arguments from scholars who advocate Chinese language that it does have superior features other languages don’t have. While I cannot present my opinions in theory, I do have bilateral feelings about Chinese language: on one hand, I cannot appreciate the writing efficiency of Chinese characters on computers (partially because I am not a good typist). On the other hand, as a lover of Chinese language, I am always ready to argue for Chinese, especially classical Chinese language’s succintness, flexibility, and expressiveness, and that most importantly, I don’t think China’s modernization has to come with abusing its own language. Therefore, in an altitude of a novice in linguistics, I do want to learn what problems Chinese language is facing and what possible solutions can be developed.

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From Paul Wang

On 13th Feb.1913, Bertrand Russell wrote to his friend Goldie “….I expect you will find China much more interesting—much more civilized and more aware of the subtler values –at least if you could get in touch with the educated people…..”

Bertrand Russell had lived in China for years because he had genuine deep feelings and strong desire to understand Chinese civilization. From the tone of his writing, it is quite clear most British folks did not know too much about Chinese and their culture. I feel today the situation has not improved that much.

Bertrand was so genuine that he wrote a whole book about his impression, even some suggestions. He cared so much about his book on China that he has documented in detail how hard he has tried to get the feedback to his book on China. His friend Conrad wrote to him about the feedback.”The Heathen Chinese, is all I know about the Chinese. But after reading your extremely interesting view of the Chinese Problem I take a gloomy view of the future of their country. He went on to say that my views
[Bertrand Russell] of the future of China “strike a chill into one’s soul” the more so, he said, as I pinned my hopes on international socialism.

One of the very first observation by Bertrand Russel on Chinese is that Chinese are callous. With Bertrand’s genuine feeling toward Chinese, I do recommend strongly for Chinese people to study carefully not only the strong characteristics, but the negative as well. Very often, most people would not tell you the truth and simply to be silent. This actually is quite harmful at long run. No criticism, no progress! Very simple!

Reference: The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell {1872-1914}, An Atlantic Monthly Press Book,Little,Brown and Company, Boston, London, 1967

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From Paul Wang

Do you know the island of Taiwan was a part of the Asian mainland during Pleistocene times? During that time, the coastline ran through present island roughly from southern west to northern east.

What if the coastline remains intact, there is no island. What if that was the case, there will be no political division, no traffics of money, political discourse, visitations, missile or military threats, debate on how to teach kids to pronounce Mandarin properly, to simplifying Chinese characters, independent or dependent, Japanese culture is better or worse than Chinese? To say the least, the chance of the coastline does create huge number of the jobs for Chinese people!

Do you also know the chain of islanders’ language all came from Taiwanese three the most original native languages? The evolution of all languages of Borneo, Java, Sumatra, New Guinea,…all the way to Tahiti…

References:Jared Diamond’s The Fates of Human Societies and the file library of SMU,

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From : Stefan Stefanov

Is not the Chinese calendar one of the computational keys to the Trinity? Bulgarians and Chinese had and perhaps have a similar philosophy of life. Indeed, the oldest Bulgarian calendar became the official Chinese calendar in 2637 B.C. or 2697 B.C. So I dare to write to you.

Please excuse me, if my interference is inappropriate.

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In the beginning of another new year, we, once again call for a research institute for Chinese Language Reform, SCL Trinity, to be created by all Chinese Speakers in the world.

In social studies, historical data is absolutely indispensable. Here we present some historical fact taken from Jacques Barzun’s master piece entitled “From Dawn to Decadence—-500 years of Western Cultural Life.”

“…Besides, the hand written roll or sheaf(codex), on vellum or primitive paper, makes for awkward reading and for clumsy handling and storing. Indexing, too, was long absent or unsatisfactorily, because the medieval mind rejected the alphabetical order—it was “artificial,” “irrational”,since no principle governs the sequence a,b,c,d,and the rest….”

Medieval time is long ago in view of our lengthy history. It is difficult to comprehend the thinking in medieval mind. Even today, we find medieval mind in most of the globe. Humane being’s mind has always been very difficult to understand. Give the benefit of the doubt and think about the

SCL and Trinity and visit the web site   http://sites.duke.edu/cscl/….

and

dream of the realization of such a research institute !

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From Paul Wang

Looking up a concise English dictionary [1], the entry on the word “culture” says” a state or form of civilization”. It would then appear one would need not to worry too much about “culture” and then to focus on the elucidation of the word “civilization” could be sufficient. Not to fast! The distinction of these two words for our task on hand dealing with Scientific Chinese Language, its follow up issue of the Scientific Chinese Civilization can be acute, even sensitive!

Since the definitions  of both culture and civilization for English language are quite controversial themselves,the definition for Chinese language,especially with the comparative studies as we intend to accomplish could be doubly unsettling. Hence, it is hard press to simply ignore these issues. Let us attempt here to peel some layers of onion with a limited goal for clarification.

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language [2] has the following interpretation for the definition of the civilization; An advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society; marked by progress in arts and sciences, the extensive use of record-keeping, including writing and the appearance of complex political and social institutions. Wikipedia’s the latest posting is dated February,2010. In which it does add some explanation why it is sometime a controversial term that has been used in several related way. Primarily, the term has been used to refer the material and instrumental of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally hierarchical and urbanized. As you can see, this issue has inadvertently touched a nerve that a whole university or higher learning think tanks are trying to debate, to search some in depth understanding concerning the whole knowledge tree and all the intricate relationships among different leaves and branches hierarchically. Niall Ferguson’s vision about civilization, in our opinion, is the best example of attempting to generalize the definition from a global viewpoint.[3] Clearly, however, one city does not makes a civilization, A civilization is the single largest unit of human organization, higher though more amorphous than even an empire. Civilizations are partly a practical response by human populations to their environments–the challenges of feeding, watering, sheltering and depending themselves–but there are also cultural in character; often, though not always, religious; often, though not always, communities of language.

As the etymology of the word “culture” suggests, the culture means the arts, beliefs, customs, institution and other product of human work and thought considered as a unit, especially with regard to a particular time or social group.[2] Therefore, the utility of this word can not be more pragmatics because, in a wide sense, it represents a temporal and spatial varying pattern so easy in understanding and communication. It appears to us this talking point really separate it from that of the etymology of the word civilization.

Aside from the core elements singled out by Wikipedia, a civilization is often marked by any combination of a number of secondary elements,including a developed transportation system, writing, standardized measurement, currency, contractual and tort-based legal systems, characteristic art and architecture, mathematics, enhanced scientific understanding, metallurgy, political structures and organized religion.

With somewhat attempted rigorous definitions out of our way, we are now ready to shed light on the definition of the Trinity. The connection or causality of the words and language with culture probably might have been clear based upon all the above definitions. Nevertheless, it is of paramount importance to stress the inseparability  of the information, web technology and Chinese language reform, i.e. sanctification! Equally significant is the intimate relation between language and culture, especially in Chinese culture. One may recall the definition of one of the core elements of the civilization is the ability for extensive record keeping and the essence of the communities of language. After all, the evolution of the Chinese language is fine arts as well as scientific so far as the meanings and etymology of the Chinese language is concerned.

Ref. [1] Random House Websters Dictionary, Large Print, 1998.

Ref. [2] American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition, 2012.  HMH.

Ref. [3] Niall Ferguson ,”Civilization—The West and the Rest”, Penguin Books, Published by Penguin Books Group, London, 2011.

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The creation of Pinyin has not been a single simple reason, but it ought not to be a surprise!One evidence may be seen from the celebrated book by Lu Hsun entitled “The True Story of Ah Q.”and we quote here,

“…Since I am afraid the new system of phonetics has not yet come into common use, there is nothing for it but to use the Western alphabet, writing the same according to the English spelling as Ah Quei and abbreviating tit to Ah Q. This approximates to blindly following the New Youth magazine,…”[9B].

Reference [9B]

Chen Tu-hsiu (1880-1942),A professor of Peking University at this time,he edited the monthly New Youth.Later he became a renegade from the Chinese Communist Party.

The True Story of Ah Q, by Lu Hsiun,Translated by Ying Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang,published by Foreign Languages Press,Peking 37,China. Page 5.

Comment: It is interesting there is little possibility of bridging the ideographic writing pattern between Chinese and Western language, but the connection in phonetics has always been very strong, hence the birth of the Pinyin!

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Consciousness, ability to feel and think, apparently has several level or grade. It’s relationship with natural language has always been a fascinating topic of discourse. Since Chinese language is a specialized language, we call for a deeper scientific research project investigating the process of its evolution. Here, we quot what Antonio Damasio has to say about the issue in general;

“No one can prove satisfactorily that nonhuman, nonlanguaged beings have consciousness, core or otherwise, although it is reasonable to triangulate the substantial evidence we have available and conclude that it is highly likely that they do……….

Core consciousness does not require language and must have preceded language,obviously in nonhuman species but also in humans.In fact,language would likely not have evolved in individuals devoid of core consciousness. Why would they have needed it? On the contrary,at the highest grades on the scale,autobiographical consciousness relies extensively on language.”

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