LINGUIST List 14.1249

Sun May 4 2003

Media: NYT: Arts: Chinese writing

Editor for this issue: Steve Moran <stevelinguistlist.org>

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  • Karen Chung, Media: NYT: Arts: Chinese writing

    Message 1: Media: NYT: Arts: Chinese writing

     Date: Sat, 3 May 2003 18:26:20 +0800
    From: Karen Chung <karchungntu.edu.tw>
    Subject: Media: NYT: Arts: Chinese writing


    The Arts section of the May 3, 2003 online edition of the New York Times has the following article:

    Writing as a Block for Asians By Emily Eakin

    The first two paragraphs:

    Western theories about Chinese writing have often been tainted by ignorance and prejudice, oscillating between wide-eyed veneration and smug disdain.

    Though he could not read Chinese, Leibniz, for example, held it in high repute, dreaming of a universal script �X intelligible to speakers of all languages �X modeled on Chinese characters. By contrast, Hegel dismissed Chinese "hieroglyphics" as primitive. More recently, Ezra Pound, a famous admirer and translator of Chinese poetry, helped spread the still-popular misconception that Chinese characters are simply "ideograms": visual symbols of things and ideas.

    The URL:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/03/arts/03ASIA.html?tntemail0

    Karen Steffen Chung http://ccms.ntu.edu.tw/~karchung/ http://www.topica.com/lists/phonetics/