> Traditional Chinese relies on context: “Rain heavy, not go”, “雨大，不去了”.
> Modern Chinese demands explicit logic: “Because the rain is heavy, therefore I will not go.””因为雨下得很大，所以我决定不去了。”
No, what? Most native speakers today definitely say things like “雨大，不去了” in daily conversations.
> Take his most famous poem, Saying Good-bye to Cambridge Again (再别康桥). In Classical Chinese, a farewell to a river might be compressed into four dense characters: Liu shui, li ren (流水，离人 | Flowing water, departing person). But Xu wrote:
> (轻轻的我走了，正如我轻轻的来；我挥一挥衣袖，不带走一片云彩)
Sorry, it's just stupid. Yes, Xu's poetry style is heavily influenced by European languages. However it doesn't mean this is equivalent to "流水，离人."
I'm not one of those AI haters, and as long as you give it enough love, I have nothing against the usage of AI in blog posts. Actually, I'm even quite disappointed that I'm not allowed use AI to correct my grammar here anymore.
That said, this has so much fill-words and weird section titles that reading becomes torture. Not to mention the lack of sources.
This is a point I was also wondering the whole time. The vulgarisation of literature happened all over Europe at varifying times and in different stages. We don’t see these as changes in the language itself, but instead the authors daring to write the way they actually always spoke.
There’s something in bemoaning the loss of a poetic register in written language, but that’s a different and much less significant change.
> He argued that Modern Chinese has become “lazy” by forgetting how to use its own verbs. instead of “researching” (研究, yanjiu), speakers “conduct research” (进行研究, jinxing yanjiu)
There is a similar path with Chinese painting. The language of painting was refined over millennia, but the last 2 centuries caused an extremely rapid integration of Western influences.
This article is interesting because language is like water to a fish, the invisible medium humans live through. Since art is more 'foreign' and 'superfluous', the change were more obvious and there was much more debate regarding this evolution than in linguistics.
I discussed with a painter in the artistic lineage of Shi Guoliang, and he told me he remembered how much that could be seen as "Western art painted with a Chinese brush".
I think the criticism was more directed towards such painters than say the Lingnan school that explicitly sought to revitalize Chinese painting through foreign influences, because it's really in the foundations of the painting -- how perspective and light are tackled through the 'scientific' system rather than the elaborate symbolic system of classical painting.
I don’t think there’s an inherent modern bias against the laconic traditional style. It actually sounds more in line with the simple sentences children learn in grade school. Really, that ‘traditional’ version is only missing a noun for the second part and then that’s sufficient for modern use. Could remove the last character, even.
> Traditional Chinese relies on context: “Rain heavy, not go”, “雨大，不去了”.
> Modern Chinese demands explicit logic: “Because the rain is heavy, therefore I will not go.””因为雨下得很大，所以我决定不去了。”
Two observations. One, I see this in Thai, too, which might yet preserve that earlier syntax. ไม่เผ็ด ไม่กิน ("No spicy, no eat") is perfectly fine in Thai, though it is possible (and very unidiomatic) to create a formal conditional using เพราะ ("because").
Two, it's also true that ancient languages in general have a different logic to their syntax than their modern descendants. I've always felt it was easier to read and understand academic French than ancient Latin, despite having much less training in the former than the latter. There is probably a shift that happens, that isn't always deliberate, when speakers of a language encounter a radically different world than one they were born into. And add contact to that: the author write of creolization, though it's not only about vocabulary and syntax. That's the just the visible. It's often about changing how we perceive things. To return to Thai, squid, octopus, and cuttlefish are all ปลาหมึก. For English speakers, those are similar things, but all clearly distinct. But for Thai speakers, they're all ปลาหมึก, just different types.
An article for those who read both because none of the grammatical exemplars are really explained. You have to take his word for it without transliteration or explanation.
Probably true. Though as someone who can read both English and Chinese, I thought the translations in the article does a good job of representing the traditional vs modern grammar styles. Not sure what more explanation would be necessary
> Modern Chinese demands explicit logic: “Because the rain is heavy, therefore I will not go.””因为雨下得很大，所以我决定不去了。”
No, what? Most native speakers today definitely say things like “雨大，不去了” in daily conversations.
> Take his most famous poem, Saying Good-bye to Cambridge Again (再别康桥). In Classical Chinese, a farewell to a river might be compressed into four dense characters: Liu shui, li ren (流水，离人 | Flowing water, departing person). But Xu wrote:
> (轻轻的我走了，正如我轻轻的来；我挥一挥衣袖，不带走一片云彩)
Sorry, it's just stupid. Yes, Xu's poetry style is heavily influenced by European languages. However it doesn't mean this is equivalent to "流水，离人."
我(Wo, "I") has been constantly used for a very very long time. Just not in poetry. For example, this is from early 19th century[0]:
>> 嫣娘答應著，出來三步兩步，連忙跑到園裡，一進門就高聲說道：「我回來了，我可也回來了！」
This is from Journey to The West, 16th century:
>> 我等在此，恐作耍成真，或驚動人王，或有禽王、獸王認此犯頭，說我們操兵造反，興師來相殺，汝等都是竹竿木刀，如何對敵？須得鋒利劍戟方可。如今奈何？
Actually, there are pronouns specifically created for western text:
- 她 (she)
- 妳 (female you, no longer used in mainland China)
- 祂 (originally this character is only used for He and Him in the Bible).
The author mentioning 我 instead of these makes me question how knowledgeable this article is.
[0]: https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E9%A2%A8%E6%9C%88%E9%91%9...
That said, this has so much fill-words and weird section titles that reading becomes torture. Not to mention the lack of sources.
There’s something in bemoaning the loss of a poetic register in written language, but that’s a different and much less significant change.
I can't help but think of this classic essay about Java OOP: https://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/execution-in-kingdo...
I discussed with a painter in the artistic lineage of Shi Guoliang, and he told me he remembered how much that could be seen as "Western art painted with a Chinese brush". I think the criticism was more directed towards such painters than say the Lingnan school that explicitly sought to revitalize Chinese painting through foreign influences, because it's really in the foundations of the painting -- how perspective and light are tackled through the 'scientific' system rather than the elaborate symbolic system of classical painting.
> Modern Chinese demands explicit logic: “Because the rain is heavy, therefore I will not go.””因为雨下得很大，所以我决定不去了。”
Interestingly the "traditional grammar" is much more conversational and natural, while the latter is expected for modern written work.
> Modern Chinese demands explicit logic: “Because the rain is heavy, therefore I will not go.””因为雨下得很大，所以我决定不去了。”
Two observations. One, I see this in Thai, too, which might yet preserve that earlier syntax. ไม่เผ็ด ไม่กิน ("No spicy, no eat") is perfectly fine in Thai, though it is possible (and very unidiomatic) to create a formal conditional using เพราะ ("because").
Two, it's also true that ancient languages in general have a different logic to their syntax than their modern descendants. I've always felt it was easier to read and understand academic French than ancient Latin, despite having much less training in the former than the latter. There is probably a shift that happens, that isn't always deliberate, when speakers of a language encounter a radically different world than one they were born into. And add contact to that: the author write of creolization, though it's not only about vocabulary and syntax. That's the just the visible. It's often about changing how we perceive things. To return to Thai, squid, octopus, and cuttlefish are all ปลาหมึก. For English speakers, those are similar things, but all clearly distinct. But for Thai speakers, they're all ปลาหมึก, just different types.