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
39
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
【T11】
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
two times
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://www.kaotiyun.com/show/WEBK777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Properarrangementofclassroomspaceisimportanttoencouraginginteraction.Today’scorporationshirehumanengineeringspec
(1)ConsideringhowjazzistranscribedinChinese(jueshi),youmaybemisledintoassumingthatitisanaristocraticcultural
A、Goodeconomicenvironment.B、Goodmajorsincolleges.C、Thenewpolicyoneconomy.D、Expansionofsomelargecorporations.A对话
TheoriesofHistoryI.Howmuchweknowabouthistory?A.【T1】______existforonlyafractionofman’stime【T1】______B.Thea
TheoriesofHistoryI.Howmuchweknowabouthistory?A.【T1】______existforonlyafractionofman’stime【T1】______B.Thea
(1)ItwassaidbySirGeorgeBernardShawthat"EnglandandAmericaaretwocountriesseparatedbythesamelanguage."Myfirst
(1)ItwassaidbySirGeorgeBernardShawthat"EnglandandAmericaaretwocountriesseparatedbythesamelanguage."Myfirst
StoryTellingI.StatusofstorytellingA.Inthepastprovidedcultural【T1】______【T1】______providedmoraleducation
DifferentTypesofLearningI.ThedefinitionoflearningA.AprocessofpeopleexperiencingrelationshipbetweeneventsB.【T1】
随机试题
法律关系的客体
14、教育制度就是指学校教育制度。
脑缺血超早期治疗时间窗为
[资料三]方先生为某公司雇员,每月工资3000元。2011年该公司开始实施雇员持股激励,实行股票期权计划。2011年6月28日,该公司授予方先生股票期权5万股,授予价2.5元/股;该期权无公开市场价格,并约定2011年12月28日起方先生可以行权
A、 B、 C、 D、 B注意到这五个图形中都有一个封闭的区间。因为A项没有封闭区间,C、D项分别是两个封闭区间,于是得出正确答案为B项。
中国古代建筑以木框架为主要的结构方式,此结构方式由()主要构件组合而成。
下列图形分别是:《黄河船夫曲》《长江之歌》《浏阳河》《洪湖水,浪打浪》的第一句旋律线,形象地刻画了我国不同地域河流的特征。请根据图形谱判断曲名,并写出旋律谱。
①服饰形式主要采用上衣下裳制,衣用正色,裳用间色②这种形式一直延续到春秋战国时期,直到一种名为“深衣”的连体服饰出现,才得以改变③当时的服饰依据穿着者的身份、地位,各有分别④中国的衣冠服饰制度,大概在夏商时期初见端倪,到了西周渐趋完善,并被纳入礼制范
某二叉树有5个度为2的结点,则该二叉树中的叶子结点数是()。
Theotherdayanacquaintanceofmine,asociableandcharmingman,toldmehehadfoundhimself【C1】______aloneinNewYorkfora
最新回复
(
0
)