Can Chinese and English be merged into one language?

Shuimo   Mon Nov 02, 2009 11:11 am GMT
Can Chinese and English be merged into one language?
What would it be like?
Ouch McCouch   Mon Nov 02, 2009 12:11 pm GMT
I suppose Chinese would have to get rid of the tones, and adopt the latin alphabet.

At that point, couldn't everyone just switch over to Chinese, and ignore English?
blanc   Mon Nov 02, 2009 8:36 pm GMT
Well, inversely, English could adopt logograms instead of alphabets. ;-)
English   Tue Nov 03, 2009 2:37 am GMT
English > Chinese

Sources:
Fact
Kevin Nadolny   Tue Nov 03, 2009 5:27 am GMT
I would assume that English will continue to evolve as it always has. New words will be borrowed from Chinese and added to our vocabulary.

Living in Japan, I get a lot of questions such as: What is "sake" in English? What is "unagi" in English? What is "sushi" in English? What is "sashimi" in English?

I invariably reply that the word is the same as the Japanese. We'll just take the Chinese word and put an alphabet to it.

Kevin
www.capturingchinese.com
fxdtg   Wed Nov 04, 2009 4:41 pm GMT
"We'll just take the Chinese word and put an alphabet to it."

And, what's most important, you change the pronunciation.
...   Wed Nov 04, 2009 7:06 pm GMT
What kind of weed do you smoke? There's gotta be some weird shit in it since you keep coming with these absurd questions all the time.
Caspian   Wed Nov 04, 2009 7:37 pm GMT
In a word: No.
Kevin Nadolny   Thu Nov 05, 2009 4:02 am GMT
"And, what's most important, you change the pronunciation. "

The most important part is the character. Pronunciation in Chinese while important is dwarfed by the importance of the character. Study Mandarin and then try to order something from a Cantonese restaurant without the characters. I've done it and I get some other type of dish instead of what I intended. If I had the character, then I would have known clearly.

I didn't say going from Chinese to English would be perfect, but it will become more frequent as China begins to innovate more.

Kevin
www.capturingchinese.com
Kelly   Thu Nov 05, 2009 11:29 am GMT
Cantonese sounds masculine,
Mandarin sound feminine.
Shuimo   Thu Nov 05, 2009 2:21 pm GMT
Kelly Thu Nov 05, 2009 11:29 am GMT
Cantonese sounds masculine,
Mandarin sound feminine.
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My belly being laughed off!
Little Tadpole   Thu Nov 05, 2009 2:47 pm GMT
Kelly: "Cantonese sounds masculine, Mandarin sound feminine."

It is true that Mandarin is very high pitched. Frankly I can never get used to Beijing opera. It's worse than hearing chalk squeaking on a piece of glass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-dPC-srIbs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHPegoquV5I

I know it's consider an art form by many. But to me, it's more like a torture to your ears.