The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[Jorge_Stolfi]

Can I infer from this that your statements about the differences between different varieties of Chinese is entirely based on phonological differences?

No, you can't.  Why do you have to "infer" things that I didn't write?

So is the idea here that the differences are idiolectic, that is unique to different speakers? And if yes, what is the shared "mental geography" and "idea space" you referred to above that is apparently is the same for all speakers?

You seem to expect all things to be binary.  Either the meaning of a Hanzi is always a word, or it is never a word. Either the meaning of 水 is exactly the same for all Mandarin speakers, or is completely different for each speaker.  Either the meaning is the same for Mandarin and Cantonese speakers, or it is completely different. Either all Chinese languages have the same grammar, or they have completely different grammars.  Either one reads the hanzi as they were pronounced in 300 BCE, or one cannot read the classics at all.  Either the Author would have understood every word and compound that the Dictator said, or he would have understood absolutely nothing.  Either there is not a single error in the VMS, or the whole text is just random gibberish.   A solution to the Voynich puzzle either immediately provides the correct decoding of every word in the book, or it is a wrong solution...

Can you handle the idea that every statement is always only partly true or partly false?  That two languages may share 90% or 99.9% of their grammars, rather than either 0% or 100%? 

But now *I* must ask, why are we having this discussion?  It is obvious now that you don't care any more for the Chinese Origin Theory, for the Dictation Scenario, or or for the claim that the SPS is the SBJ. In fact it seems you no longer care about the Voynich manuscript at all.  The discussion has now derailed to the socioliguistic  situation in China and its political correctness and implications. 

Well, sorry, but this is the wrong thread for that topic, and I am the wrong person for you to debate it. Again, I don't even speak any Asian language except a tiny tiny bit of Japanese, and I have never been to China.  I think I know some things about linguistics and the psychology of language, but strictly as an "interested amateur".  So maybe it would be more productive for you to take the discussion to another forum and with more qualified people?

But let me ad just one more bit of advice that linguist and Voynichophile Jacques Guy posted to the mailing list some 30 years ago:

When I use my finger to point to the Moon, no one mistakes the finger for the Moon. Why is it then, that when I use a word to point to an idea, people often mistake the word for the idea?

Some say that Buddha himself said so.  Worth meditating on it.

All the best, --stolfi