首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Will Chinese Replace English? Chinese language has many advantages over European languages and the speaker thinks Chines
Will Chinese Replace English? Chinese language has many advantages over European languages and the speaker thinks Chines
admin
2022-05-26
55
问题
Will Chinese Replace English?
Chinese language has many advantages over European languages and the speaker thinks Chinese is possible to replace English as the global language.
I. Chinese is 【T1】______
Examples:
a) A Chinese high-school student can read what’s written 2,000 years ago
b) A PhD. of native England can hardly read what’s written 【T2】______ ago
Reasons:
a) Chinese language: characters are true to their 【T3】______
b) European language: words are true to their pronunciations
c) Pronunciations change over time but writings remain almost the same
II. Chinese is more compatible
— Different kinds of Chinese, after years of changing, are still compatible Example: In speaking, Mandarin and Cantonese are different, but they share the same 【T4】______
— Different kinds of English are incompatible with each other Example: Americans are hard to understand 【T5】______, etc.
— False pride of English people about "global language"
III. Written Chinese is more informative
— Chinese characters carry 【T6】______ than any other language
— The entropy of languages:
a) Chinese (9.65 bits)→【T7】______ (4.35 bits)→English (4.03 bits)
→Spanish (4.01 bits)→French (3.98 bits)
b) Chinese uses only 【T8】______ pieces of paper to cover the content of a 100-page English novel
IV. Chinese runs faster
— English students take 【T9】______longer to read and to memorize time table
— Reading Chinese is faster, because it is suitable for 【T10】______
— Reading Chinese is 【T11】______ faster than reading English
V. Chinese is more 【T12】______ in face of information explosion
— 【T13】______ will be a challenge
— New words in Chinese are not a problem because
a) A Chinese new word contains two or three characters which imply its 【T14】______
b) A Chinese person 【T15】______ in understanding the words he/she has never seen
【T13】
Will Chinese Replace English?
Good morning everyone. Today, we are going to talk about the possibilities of Chinese taking the place of English as the global language. As we all know, Chinese has been widely used in East Asia for thousands of years. It was supposed to be the leading global language, but an accident happened. English quite by chance took its place. Will Chinese seize the place? For me, I would say it is possible! Because Chinese has many advantages over European languages including English. Let me share my reasons with you.
First of all, Chinese, especially Chinese characters, is more stable than European languages. An average student of higher schools in China can easily read the books, say The Analects, which were written 2000 years ago. But a Ph.D. of native England can hardly read the books their ancestor wrote 500 years ago. In China, a pupil of primary school can easily read The Romance of Three Kingdoms which was written more than 600 years ago. Because Chinese is an ideographic language in which the characters are generally true to their ideas while European languages including English are phonetic languages in which the words should be principally true to their pronunciations. For hundreds of years the pronunciation changed, as a result words of English changed; but characters of Chinese remained almost the same. In the next five hundred years, God alone knows what English will become. But Chinese, I predict confidently, will not change so much, especially its writing.
Next in order, Chinese is more compatible especially the writing Chinese. Some experts in the ISO (international standard organization) classify Chinese as a language family which contains Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese Chinese, Minnan Chinese, Wu Chinese etc. In the speaking sense it’s definitely right, but in writing sense it’s absolutely wrong. We should admit that the difference between Mandarin and Cantonese is greater than that between English and German. But that is just in speaking. In writing they are almost the same. No matter what kind of Chinese you speak, you can easily communicate with others by writing, because all kinds of Chinese are compatible in the way of using Chinese characters. So Chinese should be identified as one language. But English is different. Although English is considered as one language, an American is quite hard to understand Indian English and African English. Within just 100 years of changing, Americans have difficulties to understand Indian English and African English. In another 100 years Indian English may be identified as an independent language, not English any more. So may African English, Singaporean English, and even Chinese English. But different kinds of Chinese, which underwent thousands of years of changing, are still well compatible. People in the UK have a pride of their language. “English—A global language; English—A global language!” Everyday everywhere they say this. But this is a false pride. Indians speak and write in English, but in their own English, not the global one. So do Chinese, Singaporeans and Africans.
Thirdly, written Chinese is more informative. Chinese characters carry far more information than any other language. In the five official languages of the United Nations, Chinese is the most informative. According to the report by Benjamin K. Tsou in the Language Information Sciences Research Centre of City University of Hong Kong, the Entropy of Alphabets or Characters is Chinese 9.65 bits, followed by Russian 4.35 bits, then English 4.03 bits, Spanish 4.01 bits and French 3.98 bits. We can put it in another way to understand the report like this: if we use 100 pieces of paper to write a novel in English, it needs only 42 in Chinese, which is nearly 60 percent less than English. If the US uses Chinese as its official language, it will save at least half of its forest that is used to produce paper. So do computer disk and anything that is related to writing. The United States is always trying to save resources and protect the environment. One of the best ways, I suggest here, is to let Chinese become the official language, because Chinese is more informative and will save a lot of resources.
Fourthly, Chinese runs faster. Take memorizing time table for an example. English students take 1.5 times longer to read the table than Chinese student do, and correspondingly take 1.5 times longer to memorize it, according to the essay Aspects of Chinese Sociolinguistics by Yuen-Ren Chao, a Chinese American linguist. It was also found that reading Chinese is also much faster than reading English, because Chinese is an ideographic language that is very suitable for silent reading. When a Chinese student reads three books, an American student may just read one. No wonder why Chinese students of high schools get more Olympic prizes in science.
Finally, Chinese is more vigorous in front of the challenge what is called the information explosion. Everyday lots of English words or terms are coined. There is going to be a vocabulary explosion of English, which really become a big challenge. Lots of new words or terms are created in Chinese as well. But this does not become a problem, because a Chinese new word typically composes of two or three characters which imply its meaning.
A Chinese person can easily understand a new word which he/she has never seen. Let’s take a look at one example. China didn’t have wine until the westerner brought it to China. In Chinese “wine” is translated as pu tao jiu in which pu tao means grape and jiu means a kind of beverage which contains alcohol. Every Chinese speaker can easily understand the meaning of pu tao jiu without any explanation or looking up a dictionary.
All right. Here are all my reasons to entertain the possibilities of Chinese as a global language. A point of warning, though. I am not trying to say that Chinese is superior to English or vice versa. I am just saying that we should not take it for granted that English will be the solely possible global language in the world.
选项
答案
Coined English words
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://www.kaotiyun.com/show/HEBK777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
A、Anexperiencedteacher.B、Afriendofthetargetlanguage.C、Aregularlearningprogram.D、Aninborntalentoflanguage.C对话中,
HowtoWriteaBookReviewI.ThedefinitionofabookreviewA.adescriptiveandcriticalorevaluativeaccountofabookB.a
Properarrangementofclassroomspaceisimportanttoencouraginginteraction.Today’scorporationshirehumanengineeringspec
A、Around24%ofpeopleunderstandtheimportanceofsleep.B、Around15%ofpeopleareabletofallasleepeasily.C、Aroundonet
(1)ConsideringhowjazzistranscribedinChinese(jueshi),youmaybemisledintoassumingthatitisanaristocraticcultural
TheoriesofHistoryI.Howmuchweknowabouthistory?A.【T1】______existforonlyafractionofman’stime【T1】______B.Thea
TheoriesofHistoryI.Howmuchweknowabouthistory?A.【T1】______existforonlyafractionofman’stime【T1】______B.Thea
DifferentTypesofLearningI.ThedefinitionoflearningA.AprocessofpeopleexperiencingrelationshipbetweeneventsB.【T1】
A、Ithasfieldsandtreesnearby.B、Everythingisconvenient.C、Ithasanornamentalfishpond.D、It’seastofuptown.B谈到位于Colc
TheAmericanTwo-partySystemI.IntroductionA.theoldestpolitical【T1】______aroundtheworld【T1】______B.theclassicalexam
随机试题
背景天津某工程由A建筑集团公司总承包,土方由B基础公司分包,现场正在进行深基坑土方开挖。18点15分,B基础公司项目经理将11名普工交给现场工长;19点左右,工长向11名工人交代了生产任务,11人全部下基坑,在⑦轴至⑧轴间平台上施工(领班未到现场,电工未
传热速率是由工艺生产条件决定的,是对换热器换热能力的要求。()
A.《滇南本草》B.《本草品汇精要》C.《白猿经》D.《本草衍义》我国封建社会最后一部大型官修本草是
患者,男,53岁。晨起吃两个油煎荷包蛋后突发右上腹阵发性绞痛4小时来急诊。胆道疾病手术后,患者饮食要求为
1990年盖洛普民意调查表明:美国人民心目中最诚实和最道德的职业排序,列第一位的是
残疾人社会工作者通常在专门的组织机构开展工作,他们所运用到的专业方法有()。
考试的核心环节是()。
由于运动动作的多样性,动作示范要注意“示范面”的问题。示范面有正面、背面、侧面和镜而。其中,()是武术的套路教学常采用的示范面。
新中国成立以来,中国外交取得了举世瞩目的成就。下列说法符合20世纪70年代中国外交状况的是()。①中国对外关系出现全新局面②中国外交没有受到“文革”的干扰③中日邦交正常化④中美正式建立了外交关系
你刚进入工作单位,有两位同事小张和小李,小张工作严谨但不善于沟通,而小李个性鲜明、创新性强,他们之间存在的矛盾并越来越深,领导让你去解决,你会怎么办?
最新回复
(
0
)