Original link: https://blog.yitianshijie.net/2022/09/17/base-language/
Nishikawa ” The Possibility of Thinking in Chinese “:
As far as purely linguistic matters are concerned, no language is superior to any other; different languages must have their own strengths and weaknesses, and therefore their own possibilities. Under the conditions of good social life, historical life and political life, it is more important to fully develop the strengths of the language, accept the advantages of other languages, and form a thinking vitality that coexists with the language.
Not necessarily what he meant, but I think this is the most important paragraph in the whole text. Without good conditions for social, historical and political life, your language becomes inferior to a language with good conditions for social, historical and political life. Communist Chinese – the language spoken by all Chinese today – is one such language.
…we will find that many words with modern theoretical and modern life colors used by Chinese people come from Japanese, and are Western concepts translated by Japanese in Chinese characters, such as spirit, world outlook, purpose, goal, cadre, Police, public servant, citizen, duty, materialism, idealism, contingency, necessity, consciousness, environment, economy (in the modern sense), industry, handicraft, transportation, speed, intelligence, market, enterprise, investment, capital, quality, Production, productive forces, production relations, class, art, fine arts, works, content, aesthetics, sublimation, quality, lectures, lectures, pulpits, alma mater, etc. Without these words, it is difficult to think of a modern China. Of course, our young people are also creating words, new words on the Internet, exaggeratedly, changing every few days, such as: Shenma (what), watch (呑, don’t), sauce purple (like this), porridge (like), Fans, Banzhu, 748 (go to hell), 88 (goodbye), 847 (don’t be angry), 987 (don’t go), 7456 (piss me off), 9494 (that’s it), yyds (forever god), BT (perverted)… This is all from my computer. This is our linguistic reality, cruel to this extent.
The often overlooked aspect of our language reality is that the input of Japanese vocabulary has not stopped in the 21st century: proliferation, proposal, cuteness, counterattack, otaku, rotten girl, (two/three) dimension, notice, ignore, desire dissatisfaction, Black belly, strategy, black history, popularity, workplace, complete victory, explosive purchases, sucking cats, complaining, careful selection, instant visual perception, tourists, hand-made, picture books… “Shenma” may change every few days, but these Japanese words are basically incapable of going.
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