Wikipedia:Peer review/Chinese language/archive1

Chinese language

A good and comprehensive article on a very important subject (yes, I am a tad biased by my interests). It seems like most of the information is both factual and comprehensive. In my opinion, the article does a very good job of describing the complexity involved in classifying Chinese as a single languge and still thoroughly explaining why Chinese still is perceived as being just one language.

The pictures are good even though I'm sure a few more might fit in. I'm still hesitant if any pronunciation files should be added. but I'm hoping for comments on that one. Peter Isotalo 01:19, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

• If it's at all possible, sound bits of someone speaking Chinese or even a few prononciation files are very welcome. I'm sure it would help the article getting through FAC. Just don't overdo it. A few files is enough. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:38, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)
  • Ok, there are three samples available at the talk page right now. Comments are appreciated. Peter Isotalo 23:20, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)
• I don't understand a word of those speech files, but they sound fine to me. Mgm|^(talk) 12:29, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Peter, impressive article! I like the lead especially, because, like everybody else, I knew Chinese regional variation is as diverse and mutually unintelligible as the European language family, while Chinese has a joint written language, but I never knew why the situations are so different, and the lead explains it succinctly. This is the one thing I've always wondered, so it's nice and inviting to get it up front. ( As is proper, there's a fuller explanation further down.)

OTOH, I don't understand the logic of this bit in the Lead:

The terms and concepts used by Chinese to think about language are different from those used in the West, partly because of the unifying effects of the Chinese characters used in writing,

Why would the unifying effects of the characters make the terms and concepts different from in the West?

Picking some more nits. "Spoken Chinese": "There is more on this debate below." Not elegantly put, not very useful, because "below" is big. Put something like "For this debate, see section X"; I'd change it myself if I knew where the "more" is. This short graph is altogether harder to follow that the rest of the text. ("On the other hand"? What was the first hand?)

There are some local incoherences in the text--occasionally I get the impression that sentences have been inserted without regard for existing connections. I've tried to straighten these out, but I doubt I've caught them all, as I probably sometimes miss what connection is intended to be made. Also, somebody editing there seems to have a bit of a "however" issue, using the word very loosely (I've removed it a few times, but there are more).

Very small nit: do you want "Chinese culture and politics" or "Chinese" in "Influence on other languages", first sentence? (Can't have both.) --Bishonen|Talk 07:24, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Very nice article. But I'm here to be critical of it, so here you go:

• General — some sections are really extensive, others are only one paragraph. Try sectioning some longer parts of the article.
• Related to Bishonen's point on "The terms and concept used by Chinese to separate spoken language from written language are different from those used in the West" — this is a very obscure sentence and only at the end of the paragraph it becomes clear what it is about. Additionally, I have the feeling that the comparison of Europe's and China's history muddles the (important) point and is a little too far-fetched for the lead section. I suggest cutting this paragraph down to (1) simply noting the discrepancy between spoken and written language in Chinese, (2) giving some reasons for it (only briefly — the lead section should only summarize what is to be found later on in the article); (3) drawing the conclusion that "[t]he concept of a distinct and unified combination of both written and spoken forms of language is therefore much stronger in the West than in China."
  • I think it's best if people with a more general knowledge of Chinese edited the introduction. China-nerds like myself will probably just get it all confused by assuming that people simply know more about the suject than they actually do. There's not really that much that much editing to be done, so I'd appreciate if you or bishonen could do it. Peter Isotalo 14:41, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)
• Spoken Chinese — it would be more intuitive if the text followed the order of the dialects on the map, or vice versa.
• Spoken Chinese — The map is released under a non-free license; it would preferable to have it under GFDL or CC-BY. Maybe you could ask one of the Wikipedians listed at Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Cartographers to redraw the map (I'm listed there, but currently I only take requests for African subjects).
• Phonology — strictly speaking, talk about syllables belongs to morphology rather than phonology. (I suspect you don't feel like writing a 'Morphology' section — it might be better to place this bit into 'Grammar' then, but I'm not sure).
• Regardless of the placement, if I read that "Chinese phonology is strictly bound to a set number of syllables with a fairly rigid construction", I wonder why that 'set number of syllables' isn't disclosed and why that 'fairly rigid construction' is not outlined; in other words, I would expect a little something about canonical word and syllable structure (I believe Chinese lects have a preference for open syllables).
  • I agree. A short summary of how syllables are constructed is appropriate. We don't want to get too specific, though, because there is just too much to get specific about. Peter Isotalo 14:41, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)
• Grammar — the first sentence is incomplete; they 'depend on syntax' -> to accomplish what? Incidentally, I believe that this is not a very clear description of 'isolating language'. In general, in isolating languages many semantic features are expressed by (separate) lexical items, as opposed to agglutinating language who tend to use morphology or inflection/conjugation to accomplish the same. I'm not sure that's that's the best way of saying it but it might be better at least.
• Grammar — I think it's worth mentioning that Chinese is known for its in situ question formation strategy as opposed to the relatively common wh-fronting. See Wh-movement.
• Grammar — I think it would be nice to have some simple example sentences here. On the Talk page I saw some recordings — are these going to be used in the article?
  • Absolutely. Maybe not those specific recordings, but something like them. We need input from native speakers and people with more experience of Chinese, though. Peter Isotalo 14:41, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)
• External links — that's a load of links that we have there. Maybe this section needs to be pruned; if not, then it is probably a good idea to categorize them into, for example, 'Tutorials', 'Dictionaries', etc.

That'll be it for now. I've learned a lot of new things by reading this! — mark ✎ 14:11, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Recently, Umofomia expanded the phonology section and graced the article with an extensive morphology section. I have a few comments.

Chinese morphology is strictly bound to a set number of syllables with a fairly rigid construction which are the morphemes, the smallest building blocks, of the language.

• I have still several problems with this sentence. First, what does the first part of it really mean? Does it mean that, given the finiteness of the phoneme inventory and given the constraints on syllable structure, the number of possible syllables is finite? Probably not :) — in any case, that quite trivial and has nothing to do with Chinese. Does it mean that words tend to be bisyllabic or monosyllabic or trisyllabic or whatever? Then I'd say just that. Second, I wouldn't say that morphemes are the smallest building blocks of languages; speech sounds are, I think. A popular definition of morpheme is 'smallest meaning-conveying unit'. Third, I wouldn't equate morphemes with syllables — I'm sure there are multi-syllabic morphemes and there might also be morphemes that don't constitute a well-formed syllable on their own.
  • I'm pretty sure that the comment is valid for Chinese. As far as I know the smallest morphemes in Chinese are the individual syllables, and the number of syllables is quite fixed. Since the whole language is bound to the Chinese writing system, there's no possibility of coming up with a system like for example English, where morphemes are much smaller than just syllable. Just try a minimal pair excercise and you'll see what I mean. Peter Isotalo 22:48, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)
    • It could well be (Chinese being an isolating language). My main problem is that the sentence as it is now makes it look like a general statement. — mark ✎ 23:22, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • You're right about it being too general. I again assume that everyone has the same konwledge as wikinerds fascinated with Chinese. :-) The thing with Chinese is that the set of sounds is restricted to syllables with a very rigid construction. The only valid syllable is one that is based on the initial-medial-final(+tone) construction. While all languages naturally have a lot of restrictions on how individual phonemes can be used and the number of reasonable syllables, Chinese has literally no room for change as it is now. To use English as an example, the word */dʒi θma/ is ficticious, but there's nothing to stop us from inventing an appropriate spelling for it (*<jeethma>, for example) and using it to name some exotic form of beetle, a new type of food product or a Klingon captain in Star Trek XVIII. In Chinese this is not possible. The number of syllables does vary from one dialect to another, but the system is fairly consistent (as far as I know). For example, the word */kɕam/ doesn't exist in Chinese and there is simply no way of writing it except in grossly non-standard pinyin. The rendering would be something like *<kxam>, but since this has no support in either colloquial speech or Chinese written language, it would require extraordinary changes to facilitate it. Peter Isotalo 14:07, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)
• I changed the order of the sections, because it seems more intuitive to start with the basic building blocks and then proceed to sentence/grammar level.
• The comprehensiveness of the morphology section may merit a separate article. I don't have a real problem with long articles myself, but many people do. Other than that, I must say that this section is really great. Good and to-the-point explanantions; nice way of getting common misunderstandings out of the way; beautiful examples. Great work, Umofomia! — mark ✎ 10:25, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to review my changes Mark.

Does it mean that, given the finiteness of the phoneme inventory and given the constraints on syllable structure, the number of possible syllables is finite? Probably not :)

Actually that is indeed the case. Essentially all syllables are of the forms V, CV, VC, or CVC, and the C's and V's are constrained to certain possible values. Anyway, I see what you mean, though I'll have to think a bit to see how to reword this. If you have better suggestions, don't hesitate to respond.

Well the problem with that would be that it is trivial. It holds for every language. Every language is "bound to a set number of syllables with a fairly rigid construction" given the finiteness of the phoneme inventory and the constraints on syllable structure. — mark ✎ 23:22, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Third, I wouldn't equate morphemes with syllables

Agreed. Although almost all Chinese morphemes are one syllable, there are some that aren't (though many of them are foreign loans) and I shouldn't confuse the two. I'll fix that soon.

Thanks! --Umofomia 11:04, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)