How old was he?

How old was he?

Zhou Youguang, a Chinese linguist, passed away last month. English media reported he was 111, while Chinese media reported he was 112. Which one is wrong?

Zhou was born on January 13, 1906, and died on January 14, 2017. In accordance with western practice, age is the length of time that a person has lived. Zhou was 111 years and one day old, shortened to 111 years old.

According to Chinese custom, age is the number of years that a person has lived. No matter if he were born on the first day or on the last day of a year, that year was his first year. For example, if a man was born on the last day of a year then that is his first year. And, the following day, New Year’s Day, is his second year. On New Year’s Day, he is 2 years old, although he was only 2 days old. Of course, this is an extreme case.

English focuses on how old he was. Chinese focuses on how many years have passed since he was born. In this respect, the number of English media is a cardinal number, and the number of Chinese media is an ordinal number.

In the past, the Chinese people have used the Chinese calendar. On Chinese New Year’s day, all Chinese people are one year older. According to the Chinese calendar, the Year of the Rooster began on January 28, 2017. If Zhou had died 2 weeks later, he would have been 113.

他多少岁？

中国语言学家周友光上个月逝世。英文媒体报道他111岁，而中文媒体报道他112岁。谁的数字错了？

周有光生于1906年1月13日，2017年1月14日去世。按照西方的习惯，年龄是一个人活了多长时间。周有光活了111岁零1天，简称111岁。

根据中国的传统，年龄是一个人活了多少岁。无论他出生在一年的第一天还是最后一天，那一年他都是一岁。例如，一个人出生在一年的最后一天，这一天是他的第一年，他一岁。第二天是新年春节，这是他的第二年，他两岁。虽然他才两天，他已经两岁了。当然，这是最极端的情况。

英文专注于他活了多久。中文着眼于他出生后过了多少个年头。从这一点来看，英文媒体的数字是一个基数，中文媒体的数字是一个序数。

过去中国人使用中国农历。在农历新年这一天，所有中国人都长一岁。按照中国农历，鸡年的新年是2017年1月28日。如果周老两个星期后去世，他就113岁了。

An answer to Dr. Qian’s question 钱学森之问的答案

An answer to Dr. Qian’s question

Dr. Qian Xuesen, a renowned Chinese scientist, more than once asked a former Chinese premier a question. “Why do our schools always fail in training outstanding talent”, he asked. Talent here refers to scientific and technological talent only. There may be many answers to the question Dr. Qian posed. However, many people often ignore an answer – the limitation of the written language, or Chinese characters, on human thinking.

Why is the answer ignored? The reason is that until now the linguists in the world have not yet known what a Chinese word is, or what a Chinese unit is. The linguistic professors in China have been debating whether a Chinese word is a Chinese character or a group of Chinese characters for decades without a result. As a result, they cannot correctly compare Chinese and alphabet languages, such as English, and they do not know the gap between them. Some people in China even think that Chinese characters are better than alphabets, and so they resist Chinese alphabets.

Creating a scientific theory requires human brain thinking, and language is a thinking tool. If the other conditions are the same, language is the determining factor. Hence, the advanced language promotes human thinking while the backward language limits human thinking.  

Numerous overseas Chinese have achieved great successes in scientific field. Among them, quite a few have won the Nobel Prize. However, until now, people cannot create scientific theories in written Chinese. The reason is that the written Chinese limits human thinking.

The linguists sometimes confuse the spoken language with the written because they often shorten both two phrasal terms of “the spoken language” and “the written language” to a word of “language”. Compared to the spoken, the written is a superior tool for human thinking. Therefore, the sophistication or primitiveness of a written language may be decisive in human thinking.

How does the written Chinese limit thinking? Let me try to explain by contrasting Chinese with English. In general, the more units, the more advanced the language. Units, or basic units, are words. That is to say, the more words, the more advanced the language.

Chinese characters are Chinese words. Chinese has only ten thousand words while English has more than one million words that are still growing. This is the gap between Chinese and English. The reason is that the quantity of Chinese words is finite and fixed.

The small quantity of the Chinese words limits Chinese people thinking severely. Therefore, the number of Chinese words is too small and finite is an answer to Dr. Qian’s question.

reference: New Concept Linguistics

钱学森之问的答案

中国著名的科学家钱学森不止一次地问中国前总理一个问题。 “为什么我们的学校总是培养不出优秀人才？”他问。这里的人才是指科技人才。钱学森提出的问题可能有许多答案。然而，许多人总是忽略一个答案，那就是书面语言的限制，或者说中文汉字对人类思维的限制。

为什么会忽略这个答案（原因）？因为直到现在，世界上的语言学家还不知道什么是中文的word。或者说，什么是中文的单位？中国的语言学教授一直在争论中文的单位是一个字，还是一个词，至今也没有结果。所以他们不能正确地比较中文和拼音文字，如英文。他们也不知道中文和英文的差距。中国还有些人甚至认为汉字比拼音文字好，所以他们抵制汉语拼音文字。

创造科学理论要靠人类的大脑思维，language是思维的工具。如果其他条件大体相当，那么language就是决定的因素。因此，先进的language促进人类的思维，落后language限制人类的思维。

许多海外华人在科技领域取得了巨大成功。其中不少人还获得了诺贝尔奖。然而至今还没有人使用中文创造出科学理论。原因就是中文限制了人的思维。

语言学家常常混淆语言和文字这两个概念。原因就是他们常常把 spoken language 和 written language 这两个词简化成一个字language。和口语相比，书面语言是更先进的思维工具。因此，书面语言的先进与落后在人类思维中的作用是决定性的。

中文是如何限制思维的？我们可以从中文和英文的比较中找到答案。一般来说，单位越多，书面语言越先进。单位，也叫基本单位，就是word。也就是说，基本单位越多，书面语越先进。

中文的基本单位就是汉字。中文只使用一万个基本单位，而英文已经超过了一百万个，而且数量还在不断增加。这就是中文和英文之间的差距。原因就是中文基本单位的数量太少，而且是不能发展。

中文基本单位的数量太少，严重限制了中国人的思维。因此，中文基本单位的数量不能增加，而且数量太少，就是钱学森之问的一个答案。

参考：新概念语言学

Is Chinese a language or a group of languages?

Is Chinese a language or a group of languages?

We must separate spoken language and written language here. We cannot classify spoken languages by spoken language itself, because everybody speaks differently, strictly speaking. Usually we classify spoken languages by the group of people, like countries, areas, tribes etc., as we need. However, we classify written language by the written language itself. That is why so many spoken Chinese and only one written Chinese in China.

Reference: New Concept Linguistics

Chinese是一种language还是多种language？

这里我们必须把口语和书面语分开。我们不能根据口语本身对口语进行分类，因为严格来说，每个人说话都不同。 通常，我们是根据自己的需要，按照人群（如国家，地区，部落等）对口语进行分类。 但是，我们是根据书面语本身对书面语进行分类。 这就是为什么中国有这么多种口语，而只有一种书面语。

参考：新概念语言学