[KS] Misunderstanding Hanja

[Duncan, John]

Thanks, Don.

In addition, I would like to note that when I was an undergrad at Kodae in
the early 70s, Western study of the Orient (tongbang, toho in Japanese) was
presented as originating (both in content and terminology) in British
studies of what we would now call West Asia, i.e., Turkey, Syria, Palestine,
Iraq, and Iran.  And this was years before Said's treatise.  

John Duncan

-----Original Message-----
From: dbaker at interchange.ubc.ca
To: Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
Sent: 5/8/2003 8:34 AM
Subject: [KS] Misunderstanding Hanja

I thought one of the linguists on the list would reply to William
Brown's comments about the alleged barriers Chinese characters and the
Chinese language raise to abstract thinking. However, since no one else
has responded, I'll step forward.

He says, "there was no algebra, calculus etc. in China until the modern
era." That is incorrect. In fact, for most of the last 2,000 years
mathematics in China (and in Korea as well, since Koreans learned their
math from China) was more advanced in many areas, including algebra,
than the West was. Li Yan and Du Shiran's history of Chinese
mathematics, as well as volume 3 of Joseph Needham's Science and
Civilization in China, provide plenty of evidence for the high level of
algebra in traditional Chinese mathematics. Chinese characters clearly
did not present a barrier to abstract thought by mathematicians. 

He also says that Chinese is a monosyllabic language,and that the
monosyllabic nature of Chinese vocabulary items has hindered abstract
thinking not only in China but in Korea and Japan as well. John
DeFrancis laid that myth to rest in his chapter on "The monosyllabic
myth" in The Chinese Language, Fact and Fantasy. Anybody who has spent
much time reading texts written in Hanmun, or even just looking through
Chinese language dictionaries, is well aware that there are many
multi-syllabic words in Chinese. As for Chinese characters being a poor
tool for expressing abstract ideas, just try translating Neo-Confucian
concepts such as li and ki into English!

--
Don Baker
Director, Centre for Korean Research
Interim Head, Department of Asian Studies
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2  CANADA