Kung Fu?

[KungFuMan]

Jerry Love wrote,

 

"kung fu " isn't "hard work"' it is "skill acquired through hard work".

 

That is why I wrote,

 

"Martial arts [kung fu] require hard work".

 

KFM

[47MartialMan]

 

I wonder how long was that term used to mean martial art?

 

Was it's first usuage to designate so?

 

Was it always this way?

 

What is its etymology?

 

[Drunken Monkey]

do you really want me to answer?

[47MartialMan]

Nah, we have been there, although not entirely with Chinese etymology. Perhaps several courses in that may help you understand what I am trying to convey.

 

My questions were for posters to look into it further.

[Drunken Monkey]

and what do you know about chinese etymology?

[47MartialMan]

From several etymology courses, it is not merely the study of "word origins", but also of word interpretations and misinterpretations. How people interpret and/or mis-interpret words as well.

 

From these collegiate courses, I had presented many martial art terminology in a effort to "stump" my professors.

 

In fact, one such, had challenged the students to summit words that were difficult to elaborate per etymology.

 

This same professor, had to seek other collegues (as far as Eastern-China/Chinese) on those that I had presented.

 

His findings were interesting and I noted them.

 

So my question to you-

 

And what do you know about Chinese etymology?

 

And that- "I speak and write Chinese" is not what I am talking about.

 

Detailed and historic etymology-have you studied any courses?

 

Like Indian and Egyptian history, etymology discussions can take up a lot of post space.

[47MartialMan]

Sorry DM,

 

I guess I am now the one "strutting"

 

BTW-your new avatar appeals to me better than the other one. (Altough the other was "cute")

[Drunken Monkey]

From several etymology courses, it is not merely the study of "word origins", but also of word interpretations and misinterpretations. How people interpret and/or mis-interpret words as well.

 

now this is where it starts to get complicated again.

 

in order to understand what a chinese word/character means you have to know it's origins.

 

part of this involves taking apart the actual character and depends on you first knowing the language and knowing where it comes from and how it was formed.

 

chinese etymology is quite different to etymolgy of english.

 

my knowledge of the language comes from the little that i have learnt.

 

i know how to 'see' what the character means and possibly more importantly, why.

 

From these collegiate courses, I had presented many martial art terminology in a effort to "stump" my professors.

 

In fact, one such, had challenged the students to summit words that were difficult to elaborate per etymology.

 

This same professor, had to seek other collegues (as far as Eastern-China/Chinese) on those that I had presented.

 

His findings were interesting and I noted them.[i/]

 

can you actually give an example?

 

cos i can only imagine that you were providing chiense terms in english form for him to look at.

 

not exactly the same as looking at the etymology of chinese characters/words/language.

 

and again, the meanings of these characters/terms is pretty much fixed.

 

i.e the character for flower is the same where ever you go and the meaning is the same.

 

in the written chinese language, there are no variations bar the modern simplifications.

 

the mis-interpretations only come when you try to translate into another language that doesn't relate to it directly.

[47MartialMan]

Ok DM, to get you started:

 

Chinese eytmology and language-

 

If memory serves:

 

Sino Tibetan, although some scholars disagree that Korean and Japanese share Altiac. Chinese dailects, per major- Manadrin, Catonese, Hsiang, Wu, Hakka, and Min (hope I didnt forget any).

 

Here is the dilema with Chinese eytomology and language-

 

Speakers might not be able to understand each other completely. Thus, certain words that are spoken, can or are interpreted, or mis-interpreted. Although communication is possible in writing, conversely, the meaning/message is read aloud differently by those different speakers. Advantages in Chinese wrting could be offset by the difficulties by each generation that must experience and/or interpret, the complete historic meaning.

[Drunken Monkey]

but seeing as everyone is reading the same characters with the same meaning,

 

how is there misunderstanding?

 

if you don't understand verbally, the written form will always be understood.

 

how you read it out doesn't really make a difference.

 

from what i know, the real problem with chinese etymology is that a lot of the origial regional characters have been wiped out and in some instances, what we use now is not the original intended character (for the region).

 

but generally, the chinese we have now is standardised so the anomalies are very few and very far between.

 

however, this doesn't really matter as we can still 'see' where the character comes from by looking at the constituant parts.

 

but this is where another problem arises.

 

certain characters, especially those that originated in the north have elements from another language.

 

as a result, there might be some confusion about what that particular part might originally mean.

 

certain words that are spoken, can or are interpreted, or mis-interpreted.

 

you'll find that this rarely happens.

 

two of the kitchen staff at one of my uncles restaurants speak a dialect of mandarin that i've never heard of.

 

one waitress speaks with a shang-hai dialect and my aunt only knows grammatical mandarin.

 

my uncle only speaks cantonese but knows how mandarin is structured.

 

they can all communicate perfectly.

 

again, this is because there is a context involved.

 

mis-interpretations in the same language only tends to happen when you take singular terms.

 

and again i go back to my example.

 

if i were to just say 'pear' out aloud, you won't know if i meant 'pear', 'pare', or 'pair'.

 

but that same word, said within the context of a conversation, would be understood perfectly.