There's a Korean thread, let's form a Classical Chinese-like thread

[berserkfan]

Seeing that Korean thread in action and how many responses it has gotten, I have been inspired to ask if there are people capable of expressing themselves in classical/ literary Chinese.

I can read that with difficulty, but the concision and poetic nature of classical Chinese has always fascinated me. It has zero value nowadays, but I've always thought that if I wanted a scientific language it would be Spanish/Latin, and if I wanted something literary or richly symbolic it would be classical Chinese.

I've longed to see modern thoughts and concerns expressed in literary Chinese but this is something that simply can't be achieved using Google Translate.

Since I don't want to exclude people who don't know this language, I propose that non-Chinese speakers express themselves in Classical Chinese style here. This basically means, if you want to say 50 English words, try expressing yourself in just a few words instead. You may use Shakespearean English or very obscure English words from Chaucer, but you may not use many words.

It should not be surprising to all you readers that I can't do it, since I am so wordy myself!

[tp4tissue]

The learning curve for classical-Chinese is generally too steep, EVEN for the Chinese..

It's very unlikely you'll find many people who could do this.. -(on an english forum)-

[SpAmRaY]

Dragons

[inanis]

Classical Chinese I know nothing of, but I've oft been told I'm quite taciturn. Perhaps that counts?

[berserkfan]

OK, here’s my effort. Let’s hear from GhostofHarry and other people. This might turn out really fun, despite the sad topic!

熹宗二年幼儒集于港添马求直选

天子不动令匪攻儒

旗人压之扣儒捕幼艺女屡发泪弹

谏士散矣媒体大喜庆曰洋阴谋败

In the second year of the emperor Xi (note that this is not the same character Xi as in Xi Jinping’s name; as per ancient Chinese custom the characters of the Emperor’s name is taboo. This custom was changed by Emperor Kangxi, who established the precedent of Emperors switching to rarely used characters for their names on ascension so as to avoid inconveniencing the public.)

Youthful students gathered at the Tianma area in Hong Kong to supplicate the Emperor for direct elections

The Emperor was unmoved and ordered thugs to attack the students

He employed his bannermen to suppress the gathering (bannermen refers to the Manchu troops of the last dynasty, popularly seen nowadays as oppressors. My choice of words also reads like a homonym of ‘people were bullied and oppressed’.)

Students were detained and young artist girls arrested (a 14 year old girl was arrested for drawing chalk flowers)

Tear gas was repeatedly fired

Those petitioning the emperor were forced to disperse

The media was delighted and exulted that a foreign plot was defeated.

[berserkfan]

The learning curve for classical-Chinese is generally too steep, EVEN for the Chinese..

It's very unlikely you'll find many people who could do this.. -(on an english forum)-

I've posted my effort for fun, let everyone go ahead.

Besides if I were to post my content on a mainland Chinese forum, it would be immediately censored and the moderators arrested.

[zennasyndroxx]

cao ni ma de bi? lolol

anyways, hi.

[berserkfan]

cao ni ma de bi? lolol

anyways, hi.

Are you aware that you just said: "Long Live The Great Chinese Communist Party"?

This phrase is used to Mock the CCP; if you were to put it on a mainland website it would be censored immediately!

[zennasyndroxx]

cao ni ma de bi? lolol

anyways, hi.

Are you aware that you just said: "Long Live The Great Chinese Communist Party"?

This phrase is used to Mock the CCP; if you were to put it on a mainland website it would be censored immediately!

isn't cao ni is something like f you and bi is ****? @@

[berserkfan]

This is a tonal language and there are more than 10 characters possible for each tone on average. There are 4 tone per romanized phoneme.

By the fact that you can't type in Chinese I suspected that you didn't know the language.

[henz]

卑则骄之

[zennasyndroxx]

This is a tonal language and there are more than 10 characters possible for each tone on average. There are 4 tone per romanized phoneme.

By the fact that you can't type in Chinese I suspected that you didn't know the language.

okay my bad.

操你妈的逼

i know chinese, i just don't have the ime installed in windows. I have no idea why.

[tp4tissue]

The trouble with chinese, is it's time consuming to learn, and provides very little benefit except physical space saving on paper..   <- a property which is obsolete in modernity because we have virtually unlimited space as far as text support.

[berserkfan]

The trouble with chinese, is it's time consuming to learn, and provides very little benefit except physical space saving on paper..   <- a property which is obsolete in modernity because we have virtually unlimited space as far as text support.

Should blame the Cowards for this lack of progress with language reform. It should have been done 2200 years ago.

I was reading fables from 2300-2700 years ago recently for the kids, and felt very irritated that there were so many homonyms and nouns from characters that are long since outdated/ unused. It doesn't make sense to have to literally learn 1000 more characters just to read some basic children's stories. These characters are almost never used now and merely refer to names of people and places long in the past.

Have never understood why the Nerds never thought about pushing language reform during the Ming. They should have swallowed their pride and adopted Han Gul. Alternatively the Manchus should have forced everyone to adopt their alphabet, which would have greatly improved education and increased the number of nerds so the scholars have no reason to object.

(BTW I am playing with the same character when I use the words Coward/ Nerd/ Scholar.)

[tp4tissue]

The trouble with chinese, is it's time consuming to learn, and provides very little benefit except physical space saving on paper..   <- a property which is obsolete in modernity because we have virtually unlimited space as far as text support.

Should blame the Cowards for this lack of progress with language reform. It should have been done 2200 years ago.

I was reading fables from 2300-2700 years ago recently for the kids, and felt very irritated that there were so many homonyms and nouns from characters that are long since outdated/ unused. It doesn't make sense to have to literally learn 1000 more characters just to read some basic children's stories. These characters are almost never used now and merely refer to names of people and places long in the past.

Have never understood why the Nerds never thought about pushing language reform during the Ming. They should have swallowed their pride and adopted Han Gul. Alternatively the Manchus should have forced everyone to adopt their alphabet, which would have greatly improved education and increased the number of nerds so the scholars have no reason to object.

(BTW I am playing with the same character when I use the words Coward/ Nerd/ Scholar.)

The solution is simple though..  Everyone learns english..

I know the fellow Chinese would consider this notion betrayal.. but.. it's for the greater good..


If the Chinese characters were to make a comeback.. It would be when the Human brain evolves greater capacity or write-rate, recall efficiency, and retention reliability.

So... probably not gonna happen in the Near future,   

We can look to neuro implants.. but that's still just as far away..

in the short -term  I believe the Chinese language will be largely retired..

[berserkfan]

This is a tonal language and there are more than 10 characters possible for each tone on average. There are 4 tone per romanized phoneme.

By the fact that you can't type in Chinese I suspected that you didn't know the language.

okay my bad.

操你妈的逼

i know chinese, i just don't have the ime installed in windows. I have no idea why.

in the short -term  I believe the Chinese language will be largely retired..
[/quote]

TP, I don't consider it good to lose any major language as it causes the loss of a 'thought-system'. The dominance of English worries me. I don't exactly want to learn Arabic, but I think it is important that other major world languages survive.

As for Zenna, he got a character wrong further reinforcing my suspicion that he doesn't know the language and is merely pretending.

[tp4tissue]

This is a tonal language and there are more than 10 characters possible for each tone on average. There are 4 tone per romanized phoneme.

By the fact that you can't type in Chinese I suspected that you didn't know the language.

okay my bad.

操你妈的逼

i know chinese, i just don't have the ime installed in windows. I have no idea why.

in the short -term  I believe the Chinese language will be largely retired..


TP, I don't consider it good to lose any major language as it causes the loss of a 'thought-system'. The dominance of English worries me. I don't exactly want to learn Arabic, but I think it is important that other major world languages survive.

As for Zenna, he got a character wrong further reinforcing my suspicion that he doesn't know the language and is merely pretending.

I don't believe the-Chinese or anyone else have a different thought-system..  the differences you've witnessed is consequence of differing economic-class rather than  ideology..

Many Chinese like to tout- their- historically significant culture..   but in truth, the culture is just OLD,  that really doesn't make it significant, or all that different..

When you're hungry, you eat...

When you're thirsty, you drink...

When you're cold, you build a fire...

When you're tired, you sleep...

When you're presented with a female.. sex...


ALL cultures respond to precisely ^^^^ those identical problems..  the only difference has been the resources at hand..

And because stone and sun is identical where-ever you go...  fundamentally, cultures can not differ in practice, only in expression..


That is to say... we're all the god damn same...


And if one language is more efficient, which leads to the retiring of another... so be it...

[Hiroyuki]

文言文應該用繁體字才好吧  it looks kinda awkward to me talking about classical Chinese and using modern simplified characters... Just my 50 cent...