The Duality Code

[WKC]

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[Shelley]

Is this just a library? Or are these books you actually used to write your book?

 

Have you read all these or just referred to one thing in each?

 

Presenting a list like this feels a bit like here take this, see what you think now.

[Gharial]

Well, at least it isn't relying too heavily on just one or two books. Mind you, it is missing Scientific Progress Goes "Boink".

[davoosh]

I think we all know this is going to be rejected outright by academia as a serious academic work. It might be more marketable/readable if the premise was stated as a fictionalised conspiracy theory type of thing à la Dan Brown. People like to read that type of thing, even if they know it's completely fictional.

[Lu]

WKC, thanks. I still think that if you want to say something about Lu Xun and the Chinese language, it might have been useful to have read a lot of Lu Xun in Chinese, and not just a small selection in passable English translation. His writing might have told you everything you need to know about his thinking, seeing that he wrote quite a lot.

[laurenth]

Roddy: Never seen anyone claim to find hidden meaning in the letter f.

 

Guess what? Everything is possible 

 

In particular, "F (...) represents love in all its’ forms."  Hm... I see... And  also: "F’s are warm-hearted, compassionate and easy going individuals who enjoy the company of others. When F is the first initial in a name it carries the vibration of a natural ‘nurturer’ " (copy/pasted from here). 

 

People will go to all sorts of lengths to attach hidden meanings to anything, including the F thing.

 

 

[iand]

This is the definition of Esperanto, as it is based on European languages, I am not sure it would have been that easy for chinese people to learn. The only reason its grammar is simple is because Europeans are already familiar with it as with the pronunciation and structure.

 

Personally I think that would have have been a disaster to change.

 

I am glad characters have survived.

*is summoned* As a beginning Esperanto learner, I want to address this. The reason its grammar is simple is because it has no exceptions and a fairly short number of rules. China has one of the largest Esperanto communities (though the entire Esperanto world is pretty small), and it's fairly popular in other Asian countries as well. There is even at least one school that teaches it to kids--I can't find the video now, but there's one showing the teachers drilling their kids, Chinese-style, on vocabulary, all of them chorusing "simio" (monkey) together, etc.

 

There are definitely some grammar things that are going to be unfamiliar to Chinese speakers: past, present, and future tense, subordinate clauses ("the man who lives in the house"). I won't say acquiring it would be effortless, just that the hard parts would be balanced by how easy it is in general. I don't think Chinese should be or should have been replaced with Esperanto, but it's not as far-fetched as someone might think. If you're interested in the history, Bakin was another Chinese writer who played a part in the Esperanto movement in China. Like many intellectual movements from the era, there were a lot of ties to Esperantists in Japan as well.

[Shelley]

@iand

 

Yes this is what I would have expected, mostly the tenses would be different but also some other grammar structures but as you say not impossible.

 

I just didn't think it would have been any easier than any other European or indeed any western language to learn.

[iand]

Unlike most European languages, the tenses are completely regular (no exceptions, even for "to be"--estis, estas, estos) and verbs only incorporate tense, not person, number, and aspect, which are separate particles which also work completely regularly without any exception. Since it's supposedly easier for a European to learn than any European language, it's not surprising that it would be easier for a Chinese person to learn than any European language.

[Tianjin42]

I've been reading with interest trying to remember what this all reminds me of.

 

Finally I have remembered - Peep Show: Mark Corrigan, "Business Secrets of the Pharaohs". 

 

"As the critics and the nay sayers and the tall-poppy-chopper-downers ask with their probing questions and their knowing sneers and unfriendly voices: "Why use the Pharaohs as the basis for a business manual?" "Well," I would answer, "I think any 'business' that lasted for more than three thousand years, as did that of ancient Egypt, is probably worth studying!" (Even if in a strict, or indeed even vague sense, it wasn't really a business at all but a civilization, with no comparable notion of "business".)"

[Lumbering Ox]

I think Chinese and all other languages should be replaced with Klingon.

 

It was good enough for Shakespeare after all.

[WKC]

Lu,

It is not correct to say that I have not read Lu Xun in Chinese.  My book offers new translations of selections from 門外文談. 

 

To everyone else,

 

There is something in Chinese characters that has caused Qian Xuantong, Lu Xun and Mao to want to get rid of Chinese characters.  The desire to replace 漢字 happened not just in China, but also in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.  Qian Xuantong has told us what that something is.  “Confucian doctrines and Daoist fallacies” are recorded in 漢字.

 

There is a difference between vernacular Chinese and classical Chinese.  According to the sinologist Benjamin A. Elman,

 

Premised on a system of inclusion and exclusion based on tests of classical literacy that restricted the access of those in the lower classes (whose literacy was too vernacular to master the classical frames of language and writing tested in the local licensing examinations), the civil examinations concealed the resulting process of social selection. [benjamin A. Elman, ‘Preface’, in A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China, pp. xxx–xxxi.]

 

People who are experts in vernacular Chinese may be unable to understand classical Chinese.  I have already quoted Moser who has said that sinologists do not understand classical Chinese.  Sinologists are experts in vernacular Chinese but may not fully understand classical Chinese.  The two simple characters 中庸 has been translated as, ‘Doctrine of the Mean’, ‘The Unwobbling Pivot’, and ‘Focusing the Familiar’.  Experts in vernacular Chinese cannot penetrate the two simple characters 中庸.  The Kangxi and Shuowen dictionaries provide 庸 with a definition of 用.  In the definition of 用, these dictionaries say, 可施行也, which can be read to mean 可 (can, possible) 施 (grant, bestow, give) 行也.  There is, in effect, a chain of substitution ciphers and 庸 can be read as 行.  The中庸 is not about unwobbling pivots, it is about 五行.

 

It is  possible to read the 白馬論 as the ‘white horse discourse’ or the ‘pure military discourse’.  When your minds are sufficiently open to reading it as ‘pure military discourse’ then you will be able to comprehend the “Confucian doctrines and Daoist fallacies” that are recorded in Chinese characters. 

 

The Duality Code is about the duality between vernacular Chinese and classical Chinese.  It is not about reading the Bible, it is about reading Confucian doctrine.  It is about classical exegesis.  You can choose to read what I say in the book and understand how to read Confucian doctrines recorded in Chinese characters.  The choice is yours.

[Shelley]

It is not correct to say that I have not read Lu Xun in Chinese

 

 

Have you read it?

In chinese from cover to cover and understood it all?

[realmayo]

I don't see the point in continuing to question what the OP has or hasn't read. Shelley even if he had read all of "it" that won't make any difference to anyone's opinion of what his book is or isn't like.

[Shelley]

I suppose I was reacting to the way he said it, - it is not correct to say I have not read it - a simple yes or no would have been sufficient.

 

In fact I had pretty much given up with this topic but this way of answering was annoying.

 

I am not going to spend any more time with it.

[WKC]

realmayo,

 

Thank you.

 

 

I have been questioned on my academic credentials for writing a book on Chinese.  I have told you that I have had training in philosophy and applied mathematics.  There have been brilliant philosophers who have also been brilliant mathematicians at the same time.  Mathematics uses symbols to represent meaning, therefore mathematicians are good at symbolic logic.  Philosophy uses words to represent meaning, and philosophers are good at semantic logic.  In both cases, they are logicians.

 

漢字 is a logographic script.  It is a script that uses symbols to represent meaning.  It is a script that uses symbols to represent words.  It is a script that combines symbolic and semantic logic.  My academic training prepared me  to examine the symbolic and semantic logic of 漢字.

 

What do I see when I see the character 國?  As someone trained in mathematics, I see an equation a+b=c.  This equation can be described as a duality.  One part of the duality, c, represents the sum of the parts in the other half of the duality, a+b.  Therefore I see 囗或=國.  In order to read the equation a+b=c, you have to read both parts of the duality.  So I read囗或國.  To me, this says 囗 is possibly 國.  So I refer to the entry for 國 in the Kangxi Dictionary.  It says 古文囗.  囗 has a classical Chinese meaning of 國.  Doubters may say that this is pure chance.  They are free to do so.  I say that Chinese characters can be read in the manner that I have showed you.

 

Classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese share the same script, but classical Chinese is a slightly different language.  It uses the same symbols (characters) but the meanings are slightly different.  People who are experts in vernacular Chinese cannot understand classical Chinese because of this.  One step towards learning classical Chinese is to learn 古文 meanings from the dictionaries.

 

I have said that Kai Script is the 楷書(Kai Book).  Characters contain little sentences such as 囗或國.  When you start reading the sentences you start reading the Kai Book.  A synonym for 書(book) is 冊(book, volume).  The character 侖 contains the message 冊(book) 亼(to assemble) 侖(logical reasons, logical order).  The Kai Book is assembled using logic.  To me, classical Chinese is very logician.  But you first have to understand the logic of 漢字.

 

What do I see when I see the character 凰?  As a mathematician, I see an equation with an unknown symbol ⺇.  A mathematician is trained to solve equations.  The solution for ⺇ is in the Kangxi Dictionary.  A mathematician would recognise the equation that provides the solution for ⺇.  The solution is in my book.

 

Sinologists do not understand the Shuowen.  They think 說文解字 means “explanations of simple graphs and analyses of composite graphs”. [Jerry Norman, Chinese, p. 67].  There are some sinologists such as Françoise Bottéro who disagrees.

 

“But it should be recalled that traditional theories on Chinese writing (such as the liu shu 六書 theory, the distinction between wén and zì) are still far from being satisfactorily understood.  Scholars typically refer to such theories without knowing really what they represented at the time they were introduced, and without asking themselves whether they provide an exact understanding of the Chinese writing system. .... Today, most scholars agree that the distinction between wén and zì is a graphological distinction between ‘non-compound characters’ (wén) and ‘compound characters’ (zì). ... Neither wén nor zì are defined as ‘character’, and there is no talk of any distinction between ‘non-compound’ and ‘compound character’ to be found in Xu Shen’s definitions of these  words.”  [Françoise Bottéro, ‘Revisiting the Wén 文 and the Zì 字’, Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Vol. 74, pp. 14–22.]

 

I have absolutely no idea why sinologists cannot understand 說 (speak) 文(culture) 解(loosen, unfasten, untie; explain) 字(character).  When you speak about culture (古文) you untie the components in characters and read them.  Seems logical to me.

 

Qian Xuantong has told us that Confucian doctrine is recorded in Chinese characters.  I say that I have found the logic of 漢字.  My book provides you with tools to read Confucian doctrine that is recorded in Chinese characters.

[Gharial]

I keep checking back in to see if anyone with a reasonably sure grounding in classical Chinese has taken on that 庸 = 用 = 可施行也 = 行 = 五行, or is there no point fighting the tenacious Klingons for quite possibly empty space sectors?

[Angelina]

I said it in post #112, he is looking for data to support a conclusion he has made already. Otherwise, it could have been a great book. 

[WKC]

In the gloss for the character行, the Kangxi Dictionary says 从彳，左步。从亍，右步也.  Therefore 亍 (step with right foot) 彳(step with left foot) 行(go; walk; move, travel; circulate).  Quite logical.

 

Mathematics is a language that uses symbols to represent meaning.  Give a mathematician an equation with an unknown X, and the first thing he will do is solve for X.  漢字is also a language that uses symbols to represent meaning.  You guys see 皇＋⺇＝凰 but you don’t query what ⺇ represents.   You see the coded symbol ⺇ but you deny that there is a code in Chinese.  Qian Xuantong tells you that Confucian doctrines are recorded in Chinese characters.  Is it so difficult to figure out why your cannot read the Confucian doctrines recorded in 漢字?

[Gharial]

There is nothing mysterious about the composition of the character 行, hell, even modern dictionaries like the Xinhua explain it.

 

@Angelina: there are only so many meanings that can be supported in the language (well, in its everyday communicative uses, at least). That is, it's not like language (semantics, pragmatics) can support too open-ended theorizing.