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khiemtranMany years ago (it must have been late seventies or early eighties) I was at Sovereign Hill in Ballarat, a sort of recreated Gold Fields township, and I remember reading a sign inside a Chinese joss house explaining that "'Joss' is an important word in the Chinese language...".
As a child, I filed it away as one more piece of knowledge.
Years later now, I know that not only is it not even a word in "the Chinese language", but that even the notion of a single Chinese language is a tenuous one (yes, okay, technically most of them are dialects of the one language, but I don't think we're using linguistic terminology here).
On a related note, I still find references today to the meanings of words "in the Aboriginal language" without any hint of the hundreds of different languages that they could have come from.
Some people still live in a world where there is just "an" Aboriginal language. And perhaps just "a" Chinese language too.
I often wonder if that sign is still there.
As a child, I filed it away as one more piece of knowledge.
Years later now, I know that not only is it not even a word in "the Chinese language", but that even the notion of a single Chinese language is a tenuous one (yes, okay, technically most of them are dialects of the one language, but I don't think we're using linguistic terminology here).
On a related note, I still find references today to the meanings of words "in the Aboriginal language" without any hint of the hundreds of different languages that they could have come from.
Some people still live in a world where there is just "an" Aboriginal language. And perhaps just "a" Chinese language too.
I often wonder if that sign is still there.
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Date: 2010-04-01 11:47 am (UTC)