The story of Richard Sears or "Uncle Hanzi"

[soryang]

American authority on Chinese Etymology. Had the privilege to see some examples of these ancient "oracle bones" in the national museum in Taipei once a long time ago. Became familiar with the difficulty of memorizing hanja in the study of Korean.
His website:

https://hanziyuan.net/

Being able to search for and see the earlier forms of modern characters on his web site is truly amazing.

[taxi]

1. Interesting

I was expecting him to be an anthropologist.

[soryang]

2. i made a vague association with programming and languages when i started studying

not that I knew anything about either, but i think he said he was a physicist as well as a software person. That surprised me.

[taxi]

3. auto noise cancelling kicked in at times.

I made it to the part where the reporter had to change her approach after the first question he missed. That being said, I enjoyed what I watched.

[soryang]

5. I didn't notice anything wrong with audio

...although i felt the host was disappointed maybe with his answer to the last question about the prospect for world wide adoption of Chinese. That phase is already over for China.

I feel that historically Chinese spread in a sense to the neighboring countries who more or less adopted hanzi for written needs according to their own language's requirements. So those languages are affected with all sorts of Chinese words. In Korean it's around 60 percent according to people who quantify it. With the Anglo-American expansion around the world, and a more efficient alphabet, the opposite is happening now. Korean is being adulterated with all sorts of English phrases and vocabulary. With Korean it's more of the technological and cultural influence, the professional, media and entertainment vocabularies, because Hangul is similar in structure to English and also more efficient if much less precise than Hanja.

What is the time on the video of the "auto noise cancelling?"

[taxi]

6. Yes

Through the section of the video where he explained his process, and was then showing how the grasses transformed, the horizontal lines didn't change. I only played around with Hanyu. I'm an armchair cultural anthropologist; what people do because we are people cumulatively - advance of civilizations, how things like agriculture influenced one side of our development, and the establishment of written guidelines also necessary for larger civilizations. It has been in our lifetime the the matriarchal society of native tribes has been replaced by commerce and modern lifestyles.

Oh, the auto noise cancelling is just a way of saying I didn't listen to the parts I didn't like. Those were the sentences following her first question. I believed she asked something relevant and he responded about himself and how difficult something was,,,so when she spoke I listened again and it was obvious that my attention span was exceeded.

[soryang]

7. Yes

Looking at hanja in the study of Korean, I tried to make that anthropology association naturally in the hope that it would assist in comprehension and memory. However, to a certain extent, it interferes with immersion to get obsessed with the 1800 to 2000 character level people say one should achieve. Never did. Hanyu seems even further removed from those cultural associations to me, and is impenetrable to me. Although I see how his web site can show the changes from traditional to hanyu.

Among the persons on the youtubes I encountered who are absorbed in one way or another with Asian language and culture like this character, he is peculiar.

[taxi]

8. There are benefits to having symbols in written language

Two thousand symbols is a bit daunting, but you use that type of written language every day. Probably thousands and thousands of times.

[soryang]

9. of course

but they are just to cumbersome for everyday use compared to alphabets. Koreans used them for several hundred years if not longer. But only the upper class had the time to become literate. The government ultimately decided they were a barrier to commerce. Some professionals in South Korea learn up to five thousand characters for scholarly purposes.

If I was studying Mandarin as a language for actual use, i would have to learn them. Most of the time, i refer to hanja as roots in Korean the same way i think of latin in English. After the learning the most common roots sometimes it helps to understand less common vocabulary words without having to use the dictionary. I'm not going to live long enough to learn thousands of characters.

[taxi]

10. OMG - I just looked at it

Do you learn this for fun?

[taxi]

11. On a separate note

Is this interesting?
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/03/05/how-to-solve-the-nord-stream-2-dilemma/
March 23rd:
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/03/23/nord-stream-2-impasse-threatens-trans-atlantic-ties/
this horse just left the barn

They should include a moratorium after the pipeline’s completion; a “snapback mechanism” to prevent Russian manipulation of the gas supply; energy security assurances for eastern European countries and for Ukraine; support for Ukraine’s economic and democratic transformation; ensuring the full application of EU energy regulations; and investments in eastern European connectivity and in the transition away from fossil fuels.

[soryang]

12. i guess that's up to the Russians and Germans

I'm not a big fan of US mercantilism. The US will suffer diplomatic damage if it injures the Germans here. In addition to that I view Ukraine as a dead horse (an old navy term). In general i tend to be skeptical of the security arguments especially when it comes to energy markets. However, I don't study European relations anymore, I focus on northeast Asia.

Studying Korean language, culture, politics, military affairs etc. is a hobby. I don't think I ever got past 500 hanja characters. I still like to interpret a Chinese aphorism once in while

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. I would love to find a book in English on the origin and development of the Chinese language.

Alas, there doesn't seem to be one out there.

I am utterly fascinated by language, and have read any number of books about the history of English, as well as more general language development/evolution, and ones on French and Spanish.