RE: Human speech 350,000 years ago?

Darn, Learn something ever day. Thanks for educating me.. You are
correct. It wasn't in one of my dictionaries but was in another.

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Don Winterstein
Sent: Sunday, July 04, 2004 2:55 AM
To: dickfischer@earthlink.net; asa@calvin.edu; Glenn Morton
Subject: Re: Human speech 350,000 years ago?

Glenn Morton wrote:
 
" As to your
example of 'to eat' that should be chi, not shi."
 
 
Glenn, do you really think I'd be that sloppy? : ) While /chi/ or /chi
fan/ is the common word for "to eat," there's also /shi/. My dictionary
gives the following meanings for the associated character: "1. to eat
2. food; meal 3. livelihood; living 4. (an old usage) salary; pay 5.
eclipse."
 
This example shows that possibilities for ambiguity are multifold: not
only can the same sound often mean many different things, but the same
character can also have several meanings, just as words in English can
have several different meanings.
 
Other Chinese words that can mean "to eat" are: /can/, /jin/, /ru/,
/yong/, and /dan/. Of these I've only witnessed /yong/ in practice, as
in /qing yong/, said by a host(ess) at a meal.
 
Don
 

 
Received on Sun Jul 4 08:15:39 2004