Divided by a common language

[maxx]

I think he meant the word 'Mandarin' comes from 'Mantri'. Not the language itself.

 

[justanobserver]

Yes I got that. The fact that there exists a Sanskrit term for it is pretty interesting.

This means that there were many two way cultural exchanges, but sadly most of the recorded history on the Indian side is lost.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Holy **** !
'Mandarin' comes from 'Mantri' !!!
wow! I had no idea there were so many contacts between ancient India and China !

LOL there was a lot more cultural contact than you think.

Even the name "China" itself is derived from Sanskrit. Which was based on the sound "Qin".

(In the Chinese language though, we call our nation the Middle Kingdom.)

 

[lcloo]

Merchants from China, central Asia, India, Arabia etc made contacts through the ancient silk routes.

Chang An, the capital of Tang Dynasty (2000 years ago) had many foreign quarters (or you may call it districts) allocated according to the nationality of mechants from different parts of the world. It was like an international city.

 

[no_name]

Tang Dynasty is from AD618– AD907, but Chang An was also often the capital since Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE).

It is near present city of Xi An, which was capital of Qin Dynasty (221 to 206 BC)

 

[lioneern]

I hope China will enventually break up into many countries

 

[mjnaushad]

I hope China will enventually break up into many countries

may be if the 2012 movie is true then we all will.......

 

[siegecrossbow]

I hope China will enventually break up into many countries

Could someone please report this guy? He is obviously trolling here.

 

[mjnaushad]

Could someone please report this guy? He is obviously trolling here.

Dont reply the troll......

Some guys feel ashamed to use their own country flag.......So no worries....He is the same case...

 

[lcloo]

DO NOT FEED THE TROLL, THEY GET PLEASURE, HIGH ON REPLIES TO THEIR POST.

DO NOT FEED TROLL

 

[no_name]

^^^I don't know man, he should be glad mdumb is not here to read his post.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Check out the bronze script for the character "Dao" (as in "Daoism").

It looks very mysterious, doesn't it?

Compare that to the modern character 道.

 

[lcloo]

Check out the bronze script for the character "Dao" (as in "Daoism").

It looks very mysterious, doesn't it?

Compare that to the modern character 道.

That is interesting, it looks like a man is looking at stairway towards a mountain, with some kind of object, like rock wall on both side. Dao can mean "The Way", so that made some pictorial sense, doesn't it?

 

[oct605032048]

I find that you can usually guess the meaning of simplified text if you can read traditional, but the reverse is harder. If you study chinese history/culture in university in china, do they teach you traditional chinese characters?

harder？I am from Beijing, city born city bred but i'don't think so. after all it is just two writing systems of the same language and many characters are same in both systems.

I went through with very old books about the pre-qin historical stories printed in traditional characters when I was in grade 3 without any difficulties.

Actually I find the 竖排 to be a more reading-unfriendly element even compared to classical Chinese (文&#35328.

 

[oct605032048]

Isn't beijing dialect the official dialect, or am I a bit outdated here?

Certainly in alot of histroical films they have people speaking beijing dialect

of course not.
You guys from taiwan, guangzhou or hong kong believes the two are same but it is just because you can't tell the differences.

Putonghua is based on the Northern Guanhua, and it takes the Beijing dialect as its standard pronunciation system. But the two things are not the same. Putonghua is more formal with no 儿化音, and lots of slangs in Beijinghua is not included in Putonghua (sadly they are dying out like cantonese or sanghaiewu (上海方&#35328).

What interesting is after 50 years, 儿化音 dose go into the daily use of Putonghua, just watch and listen to the 'most standard' Putonghua, CCTV's ‘新闻联播’ accent, you will find it.