Character decomposition for 船?

[Lugubert]

What happened to the mood in here, guys? People really have something against the Bible although never ever studied it, even read it. If you're gonna make fun of peoples questions, then you shouldn't be hangin' around at forums.

I think nobody is poking fun at your question, only at those who came up with the interpretations.

I can be pretty mean when commenting fundamentalists and inerrantists of any faith. Hopefully, my comments and links don't look to much as if I'm making fun of the Bible in this thread. For such exercises I post on other fora.

For some background in these matters, I'm an atheist and have for this autumn applied for The Old Testament in Hebrew, Course 1, 15 higher education credits, which requires one full semester of Bible Hebrew and three semesters of Bible studies.

[chalimac]

chrix,

These Texas school you link can't even tell Japanese from Chinese as Hanzi Smatter discovered. It is also classified as a “phishing” and “criminal” site.

These theories are a big piece of BS. Chinese characters are like Rorschach's blots: you can see in them what you want (as long as you utterly disregard the whole researched and peer-reviewed etymological corpus).

[chrix]

well as far as the phishing allegations go, I've read Tian's blog entry, but some people questioned the tools he used. But I don't know these tools, so I don't want to comment. Be that as it may, there still seem to be serious proponents around. That's all I wanted to say...

[chalimac]

there still seem to be serious proponents around

By serious you mean two individuals that write at a creationist site, only cite two references more than a hundred years old and have authored such books as "God Made Dinosaurs"?

[chrix]

by "serious" I mean people who actually seem to be believing what they're seeing. If you look through my posts, you'll see that I probably don't share their views...

[querido]

Baoman:

Is that what have happened through time?

Due to personal experience, I am empathetic toward your perspective, and I think it is worthwhile. Unfortunately, as a general rule, even if there were ancient connections, the changes that the hanzi have gone through since the *beginning* are too radical to expect this much detail to be preserved. They changed shapes as writing materials changed, and underwent "discontinuous" evolution at times that is not fully documented. Further, despite their best efforts, and in some cases no doubt their most heroic scientific pretensions, it looks as though Chinese etymology has *always* included and depended upon the imaginations of the researchers, and are thus less "carved in stone" than someone predisposed to search for "truth" (like myself) would hope. But, it also means that someone whose mind already contains some large-scale structure he's studied that can lend its framework, could have an advantage: you would be like the man who built his Chinese etymology on a Rock. Just don't expect anyone to follow you. Come on man, you know you're likely to be ridiculed when you mention religion on a non-specifically-religious site, or for anything else not approved by the reigning cultural orthodoxy, or by preexisting cliques, if any.

Lugubert:

Interpretations like in the OP will almost exclusively have originated on the websites of creationists.

Obviously wrong. Gratuitous ridicule.

I see a lot of sexual images in hanzi. Did I steal these images from porn sites because I have no imagination of my own? If my mind were as full of religious materials as it once was, there is no doubt that I would be seeing that, and I wouldn't need a website.

chalimac:

Don't mix faith and etymology.

I think it's O.K. to use whatever is already in your mind to make connections, just don't start believing that it is the "true" etymology. And as I said, there is nothing wrong with this since "real" etymologists through the ages have done this.