continuity of the Chinese civilization

[bushbush]

to prevent another thread from going off-topic, I will open a new thread and answer some questions from CW.

the topic is was Chinese civilization a continuous and a distinctive one from either 1500 BC (or earlier) OR from Qin to today.

"THE HISTORY OF CHINA, as documented in ancient writings, dates back some 3,300 years. Modern archaeological studies provide evidence of still more ancient origins in a culture that flourished between 2500 and 2000 B.C. in what is now central China and the lower Huang He (Yellow River) Valley of north China. Centuries of migration, amalgamation, and development brought about a distinctive system of writing, philosophy, art, and political organization that came to be recognizable as Chinese civilization. What makes the civilization unique in world history is its continuity through over 4,000 years to the present century."

[Exarch]

for a civilization to be continuous, several key characteristics must remain more or less constant allowing for evolution: language, cultural values and people.
the chinese fulfil all 3 critera,

compare this to the roman empire.
noone speaks latin as a day to day language anymore, noone shares the same cultural values of the romans-it's morphed into something else and the people, the han chinese are still around and still exist as a demographic

[bushbush]

compare this to the roman empire.
noone speaks latin as a day to day language anymore, noone shares the same cultural values of the romans-it's morphed into something else and the people, the han chinese are still around and still exist as a demographic

roman could be fitted into the more abstract western civilization...but ya, you are right, roman civilization itself is probably not here today anymore.

[Bleda]

for a civilization to be continuous, several key characteristics must remain more or less constant allowing for evolution: language, cultural values and people.
the chinese fulfil all 3 critera,

compare this to the roman empire.
noone speaks latin as a day to day language anymore, noone shares the same cultural values of the romans-it's morphed into something else and the people, the han chinese are still around and still exist as a demographic

You're sort of correct, but only sort of. The Romance languages are arguably the most widely spoken languages in the world. Latin didn't die, it evolved and changed, just like the Chinese language and every other language that exists today. Plenty of cultural values have been passed on from the Romans. What are you talking about?

[bushbush]

You're sort of correct, but only sort of. The Romance languages are arguably the most widely spoken languages in the world. Latin didn't die, it evolved and changed, just like the Chinese language and every other language that exists today.

you have to keep in mind though that Chinese language did not evolve into a few dozen different written languages that their speakers no longer can recognize, read and write in the original form (latin here). Chinese high schoolers can pick up books written in Han dynasty and understand them in general (take out a few obscure words no longer used, often names). Poems and proses written from 1-2 thousand years ago are taught in schools and their references widely used in everyday life. How many highschoolers in romance language speaking countries can read latin? (in fact, how many university professionals can read them?). Latin no longer exists as a language, but only as an ancestor of many languages today. Chinese still exists as one language and its written form remains in use. This continuity is striking.

Plenty of cultural values have been passed on from the Romans. What are you talking about?

Can't deny that. But do romans still exist as their distinct civilization?

[Bleda]

you have to keep in mind though that Chinese language did not evolve into a few dozen different written languages that their speakers no longer can recognize, read and write in the original form (latin here). Chinese high schoolers can pick up books written in Han dynasty and understand them in general (take out a few obscure words no longer used, often names). Poems and proses written from 1-2 thousand years ago are taught in schools and their references widely used in everyday life. How many highschoolers in romance language speaking countries can read latin? (in fact, how many university professionals can read them?). Latin no longer exists as a language, but only as an ancestor of many languages today. Chinese still exists as one language and its written form remains in use. This continuity is striking.

The stress placed on the education of Classical Chinese does nothing to prove that Classical Chinese is still spoken outside of the literary and liturgical form (a distinction shared with Latin). That said, we shouldn't assume that the widespreadness of knowledge of it or that teaching a 2,000 year old poem will be the prerequisate of continuity. It doesn't work that way unfortunately. As for continuity, the Romans were profoundly influential themselves and the Chinese cannot base continuity on linguistic and historical influence alone, if we are going to exclude so many other civilizations. Throughout Chinese history many forms of government, many dynasties, and many law codes came and went, just as everywhere else. Even periods of foreign rule, just like most everywhere else that has long civilized histories.

If we are giving the Chinese the distinction of continuity, then by these standards we are arbitrarily excluding so many others.

Can't deny that. But do romans still exist as their distinct civilization?

You missed what I'm talking about here. I'm just pointing out a bad comparison.

[bushbush]

The stress placed on the education of Classical Chinese does nothing to prove that Classical Chinese is still spoken outside of the literary and liturgical form (a distinction shared with Latin).

what does it matter? Read the other thread. Spoken language doesn't carry culture over the ages as much as writings do. We don't study Romans based on vulgar latin; we study them with books written in classic latins. That's how we continue parts of roman civilization (though they don't exist as a distinctive one anymore).

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...69#post6821469

read that post on the importance of language in maintaining cultural continuity in chinese history. Source is Cambridge history of china.

That said, we shouldn't assume that the widespreadness of knowledge of it or that teaching a 2,000 year old poem will be the prerequisate of continuity. It doesn't work that way unfortunately. As for continuity, the Romans were profoundly influential themselves and the Chinese cannot base continuity on linguistic and historical influence alone, if we are going to exclude so many other civilizations. Throughout Chinese history many forms of government, many dynasties, and many law codes came and went, just as everywhere else. Even periods of foreign rule, just like most everywhere else that has long civilized histories.

If we are giving the Chinese the distinction of continuity, then by these standards we are arbitrarily excluding so many others.

yet you can't deny that continuity in writings, studying of classics and teaching of them (this is just few of continuing aspects we have discussed, you can read more if you are willing to dig previous pages) is very unique in China's case. Can you find another region of the world with a non-stop written history for over 2000 years in the same written language?

Language, especially writing, is the most important component of any culture because it carriers ideas, history, literature over the ages. Maintaining the survival of a language tradition is key to survival of a culture. When a culture's language is dead (like whatever dacian spoke and wrote with), it no longer exists as a distinctive civilization.

we are not discussing influence or superiority here. Just uniqueness of Chinese civilization. I wouldn't say its exclusion as much as it's comparing the differences. You can also read previous posts on why China is more continuous culturally (hint: it's not because they are superior in any aspect).

and only inferiority-complex filled ignorant fools (not against you Bleda) can mistaken this as some sort of nationalist piss-fest. Are all the western scholars we have quoted who agree with me sino-centrist nationalists?

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...17#post6795917

[Carpathian Wolf]

You're sort of correct, but only sort of. The Romance languages are arguably the most widely spoken languages in the world. Latin didn't die, it evolved and changed, just like the Chinese language and every other language that exists today. Plenty of cultural values have been passed on from the Romans. What are you talking about?

Exactly, the Romance Languages of today are just the natural progression of Latin in their respective regions. Compared to Chinese for example who can't understand one another if they're from a different region, Romanians, Spaniards and Italians have many words in common. I've said this before but for example when I play online, I speak with Italians and Spaniards using Romanian (with a few words in their respective languages) and we understand another especially with military words. Chinese may all be able to read Hanzi but I don't see how written language is more proof of continuation than spoken, when historically speaking only the top 5 percent (at best) of society read and wrote. You can't really say "Oh look I can read what my ancestors wrote!" Because most likely your ancestors weren't the royal family but the typical peasant or hell even a foreign 'barbarian.'

[Exarch]

notice how i didnt say technology?
technology is universal; noone has a monopoly on tech, anymore than they own the very atoms in the universe

[Carpathian Wolf]

Using "Chinese culture" as a term is equivilant to saying "Western Culture" for Europe. So to answer your question is yes, there was a "continuous Chinese civilization" much the same way there was a continous Western Culture in Europe. The problem in both cases however is that the terminology is too vague expressing the seemingly subtle differences.

The civil wars weren't the same as the Roman Empire as these different regions became their own Kingdoms with their own rulers, government and at times even languages. Of course the Chinese culture remained dominant but again that's like saying "Western culture remained dominant". China is sort of like a unified Europe...or Europe is like China during its warring states period. So I think the question misses the point I raised.

Your last statement brings up an interesting question. If a civilization was revived, then civilization would have had to die/ceased for a time. So it can not be "continous" as there would have been a break.

Anyway i'd say there has been a continous Chinese civilization the same way there has been a continoued western civilization. I do not think however Chinese civilization is some perfect, fallen from heaven uncreated and unchanging entity some sino centricsts would like to percieve it as.

[bushbush]

Using "Chinese culture" as a term is equivilant to saying "Western Culture" for Europe. So to answer your question is yes, there was a "continuous Chinese civilization" much the same way there was a continous Western Culture in Europe. The problem in both cases however is that the terminology is too vague expressing the seemingly subtle differences.

wait CW, culture and civilization are not the same thing I believe. And I don't exactly believe that various local cultures in the Chinese culture are as different as european cultures. I mean for one thing they do actually have ONE language, albeit different dialect.

but i am glad you agree with me on the continuous part.

The civil wars weren't the same as the Roman Empire as these different regions became their own Kingdoms with their own rulers, government and at times even languages. Of course the Chinese culture remained dominant but again that's like saying "Western culture remained dominant". China is sort of like a unified Europe...or Europe is like China during its warring states period. So I think the question misses the point I raised.

I don't know about different "government and languages". If you were talking about minority ethnic kingdoms...that wouldn't civil war I think. Like Jin kingdom in the song dynasty, they were considered foreign invader.

a better example would be three kingdom era. Where all three kingdoms were modeled after Han and tried to claim to be the heir of han and fought over it.

Your last statement brings up an interesting question. If a civilization was revived, then civilization would have had to die/ceased for a time. So it can not be "continous" as there would have been a break.

I would say it was put into a "coma". It was put underneath a temporary foreign rule. Like Yuan dynasty, for 90 years, the regime tried to rule China. But in the end, it was overthrown and replaced with Ming, who revived the old traditions and political system

(I can make a case that Yuan pretty much kept most of traditions and system anyways, they even kept on writing history in Chinese style. History of Song was compiled under Yuan, by TuoTuo (weird mongolian name ), a mongolian scholar who modeled himself as a confucian historian.

Anyway i'd say there has been a continous Chinese civilization the same way there has been a continoued western civilization. I do not think however Chinese civilization is some perfect, fallen from heaven uncreated and unchanging entity some sino centricsts would like to percieve it as.

I think the western one is a lot more abstract because of all the different cultures and entities envolved in a very large span of time and area.

Chinese civilization had 3 different entities in my view, ancient china, imperial china, and modern China. So i don't know where you get the "unchanging entity" idea from.

[Carpathian Wolf]

wait CW, culture and civilization are not the same thing I believe. And I don't exactly believe that various local cultures in the Chinese culture are as different as european cultures. I mean for one thing they do actually have ONE language, albeit different dialect.

but i am glad you agree with me on the continuous part.

One language with differnet dialects that can not even converse. While Romanians and Italians can converse to a large extent. Swedes and Norweigens can converse as well etc. So European languages carry a level of interchangability while Chinese dialects can hardly be understood from one another. So even though European culture is more diverse perhaps, it is in no way an inconsistancy comparing it with Chinese culture.

I agree with you on the continuous part as much as you agree with me the same on the European part.

I don't know about different "government and languages". If you were talking about minority ethnic kingdoms...that wouldn't civil war I think. Like Jin kingdom in the song dynasty, they were considered foreign invader.

a better example would be three kingdom era. Where all three kingdoms were modeled after Han and tried to claim to be the heir of han and fought over it.

They did have different governments. They didn't all have the same ruler during Qin's time did they? Same with language that was a big thing for Emperor Qin to unite all languages which he did in writing only.

I would say it was put into a "coma". It was put underneath a temporary foreign rule. Like Yuan dynasty, for 90 years, the regime tried to rule China. But in the end, it was overthrown and replaced with Ming, who revived the old traditions and political system

(I can make a case that Yuan pretty much kept most of traditions and system anyways, they even kept on writing history in Chinese style. History of Song was compiled under Yuan, by TuoTuo (weird mongolian name ), a mongolian scholar who modeled himself as a confucian historian.

You're using double standards again. "Coma", very historical of you.

I think the western one is a lot more abstract because of all the different cultures and entities envolved in a very large span of time and area.

Chinese civilization had 3 different entities in my view, ancient china, imperial china, and modern China. So i don't know where you get the "unchanging entity" idea from.

There were different cultures from region to region in China too with different eras putting emphasis on different things. Entities evolved in China too with the different Kingdoms and Dynasties assuming power, falling, being conquored and allowing room for the newer entity to rule and while all "Chinese" (In the same manner as Europe is all European) we can not cover our eyes and just pretend it was some democratic election switch in presidency.

Ancient, Medieval, Modern Europe. You can do the same for Western civilization as well.

[bushbush]

One language with differnet dialects that can not even converse. While Romanians and Italians can converse to a large extent. Swedes and Norweigens can converse as well etc. So European languages carry a level of interchangability while Chinese dialects can hardly be understood from one another. So even though European culture is more diverse perhaps, it is in no way an inconsistancy comparing it with Chinese culture.

I wouldn't consider Romanian and Italian the same language (nor would linguists) because they don't share the same writing. Chinese dialects are dramatically different but they share the same writing system exactly. That's the difference.

I don't know about the diversity of European cultures as much (I did go there a couple times). But I don't see any regions of China hate each other as much as let's balkan countries. Nor did Chinese provinces go at it in two most destructive wars in human history. So it's somewhat hard for me to see them as ONE civilization (unless making it very abstract...)

I agree with you on the continuous part as much as you agree with me the same on the European part.

sure, but I have to say it's a lot more abstract though.

They did have different governments. They didn't all have the same ruler during Qin's time did they? Same with language that was a big thing for Emperor Qin to unite all languages which he did in writing only.

wait wait wait CW, let's do this slowly.

1. the Three kingdoms modeled their government structure (thus same structure) after Han. And they all claimed to be the legit government of China. Wei (later Jin) fought on and won, thus took over as the next dynasty.
2. they all spoke and wrote CHINESE (old Chinese before Qin). What Qin did was unifying the calligraphy of Chinese language in various locations, not the language itself because it was the same already.

that was how confucius was able to travel aruond and teach. That was how scholars from different kingdoms interacted with each other academically and made era one of the most flourishing period intellectually in Chinese history.

You're using double standards again. "Coma", very historical of you.

it went to sleep and woke up. I think "coma" is a good world. If it died, how did you explain a pretty muhc identical empire emerged again?

There were different cultures from region to region in China too with different eras putting emphasis on different things. Entities evolved in China too with the different Kingdoms and Dynasties assuming power, falling, being conquored and allowing room for the newer entity to rule and while all "Chinese" (In the same manner as Europe is all European) we can not cover our eyes and just pretend it was some democratic election switch in presidency.

the regional differences in Chinese culture are not remotely close to the differences between Europeans. Europe was hardly unified culturally and politically since Rome in history. China was unified for most period of time. And political identity and dominant culture didn't change much during imperial era. So that's why it's considered one entity. versus the modern era where things changed a lot.

-------------------------

Chinese perspective on this is not ethnic. It's civilizational. That's if a "barbarian" could adopt to the Chinese way, he is Chinese. I give you Tuotuo as an example again. He was ethnic mongolian. But he was raised in a chinese family, received confucian education. Went on to revive much of Chinese political and cultural customs during Yuan (like government exam and religious ceremonies) as well as continued the tradition of writing history (he led the team to complie history of song, jin, liao). And later generations of confucian scholars hailed him as one of their own.

did they care he was mongolian? not really. He was a part of Chinese civilization that was all that mattered. Ethnicity plays little role here.

Ancient, Medieval, Modern Europe. You can do the same for Western civilization as well.

partly. But the diversity is a little too much to be compared to China. Europe didn't exactly have a 2000 year imperial period that maintained similiar political structure, ideology (confucian) and cultural practicses (especially the continous writting history).

[RollingWave]

The civil wars weren't the same as the Roman Empire as these different regions became their own Kingdoms with their own rulers, government and at times even languages. Of course the Chinese culture remained dominant but again that's like saying "Western culture remained dominant". China is sort of like a unified Europe...or Europe is like China during its warring states period. So I think the question misses the point I raised.

Hold on, the Confederates had their own government with the (failed) intent of staying that way , so was the US civil war not a civil war?

how we define civil war is very vague anyway. the American war of indepence could very well have been classified as a civil war... if you know, the colonies didn't actually win.

I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense to judge from the point of government entity. the Roman's went from a Kingdom to a Republic to a Empire. while the Byzantian's dropped the rubber stamp senate completely.

In the case of China, one could argue that for the most part it is quiet a continues civilization, as much as any one civilization can continue over such a long period anyway, yes there were extensively long periods of civil war. most notablly between the Han and Tang dynasty, however, if you actually took notice, the Southern dynasties were almost always in direct succssion with very little change along the way. (Han -> Wei -> Jin -> Song -> Chi ->Liang -> Chen was actually the direct accesntion where the last emperor of each of those dynasty abbicated to the first emperor of the later ) while the Northern dynasty eventually was absorbed culturally by the South dispite military superiority.

The fact is that up util the early part of the 20th century (and one could argue even today). the required reading of Chinese scholars were still the work of those from about 2000 years before their time (like Confucious) while even the common folks could quote the history and some text from said time, is a fairly good testimony of the continious nature of the civilization. language change overtime, as long as it showend a consistent continuty then it's not a real rational to argue that the Chinese spoken / written by Confucious is not the same Chinese we use today. in the same rational, the English spoken by Shakespear is also not the English we use today. does that really make a argument that British isn't a continious civilization from Shakespear to modern times? no.

[Carpathian Wolf]

that's why it's the "standard Chinese" spoken by everyone in China (aside from their own dialects. I have my own dialect too but i only speak that with people from my hometown).

but that doesn't change the fact that Chinese language is one of the oldest continuously used single language in human history. That's one KEY trait of Chinese civilization's continuity. Versus in the West, numerous DIFFERENT languages (linguists said so, not me) branched out. Key difference.

This is an issue with definition. How is it that Italian and Romanian are interchangable to a large degree but Mandarin and Cantonese are not and yet the former two are different languages and the latter are only dialects. Because of political borders we have languages acting like dialects and dialects acting like languages.

On paper you are right but in practice...

Major issue with Chinese languages is also that the script isn't phonetic so we actually have no idea what "Chinese" sounded like in the past.

dude, even someone as rational and knowledgeable as romano has a picture album aimed at mocking Hungarians...I am starting to think that everyone in the area must hate their neighbors...

He's mocking nationalist Hungarians. They want to take Transilvania from us due to some made up idiotic Rossler theory, that even if it were true does not excuse displacing millions of Romanians just so they can have their Kingdom back...and Romano-Dacis is laughing at them for it.

Most Hungarians in Romania get along with Romanians. That's why neither side voted for the crazy nationalist parties. One of my dad's best friends is Hungarian.

Tibetens getting beaten in the street to me shows more hatred than some funny internet pictures.

1. technically warring state period (for most part) was actually like feudal europe. There was ONE king for the land of China. He was the emperor of Zhou dynasty. But the various feudal lords evolved into kingdoms and started to have their own agendas. kingdom of Qin finally took over from Zhou and unified China.

How is that different than what I said? It was still a different bunch of Kingdoms.

2. he unified the official writing (not artistic ones) into one single calligraphy...but they were still the SAME language. I mean even today there are different calligraphic style of writing Chinese as a way of artistic expression. Qin Shi Huang felt like one calligraphy (small seal script was the one) would be more efficient for controlling the country and using his bureaucracy (versus everyone writing in different style, would be messy). Even today small slea script is stil one of the several different calligraphies used in artistic writing, with other styles like cursive script and seal script and etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Seal_Script

Today's Chinese spoken or written is not a carbon copy of Chinese 2,000 + years ago. I really doubt that all these different kingdoms all spoke the same thing when they don't even do that today.

why not? Western civilization today has divided into many nation states. China on the other hand is ONE nation. That's because of China's civilizational view of the past. That was one of the key reasons why different nations didn't develop in China but developed in Europe.

And how does that make Roman any less encompassing? I personally think it's much better to adopt the good things of your subjects rather than stamp out their individuality. Why is that seen as an inconsistancy when really it's an advantage?

The old dynasty fragmented. And the factions tried to unify China. It's still the same political entity because after they fought it out, the new ruler restore everything.

Sometimes that was the case, but not always. Saying "well it was all Chinese after they stopped fighting hence unbroken continuation" would be like saying the same phrase but replacing western civilization in for Chinese.

one is a lot more abstract then the other here. Chinese civilization historically has always been ONE distinctive civilization. Western civilization consists of numerous other civilizations and together they can be grouped as one...but in a very abstract way.

i think what i want to say is western civilization was not as homogeneous as Chinese civilization in history for the obvious reasons like its fragmentation politically, culturally and socially for most of its history versus china being unified in those areas in large parts of its own history.

Western civilization has more diversity but it's still all Western civilization. Just because the dominant ethnic group in China (Han) told all the others that they were Han and that their culture and ideas didn't mean jack doesn't merit it some special place in history. Diversity and individuality is not a weakness and does not mean we ignore the fact that there has been a continous western civilization, in all its spectrums each with something to offer.

Hold on, the Confederates had their own government with the (failed) intent of staying that way , so was the US civil war not a civil war?
how we define civil war is very vague anyway. the American war of indepence could very well have been classified as a civil war... if you know, the colonies didn't actually win.

Your second paragraph answers your first pretty well.

I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense to judge from the point of government entity. the Roman's went from a Kingdom to a Republic to a Empire. while the Byzantian's dropped the rubber stamp senate completely.

Just another shift in government. In my opinion a much less dramatic change than Republic to Empire.

In the case of China, one could argue that for the most part it is quiet a continues civilization, as much as any one civilization can continue over such a long period anyway, yes there were extensively long periods of civil war. most notablly between the Han and Tang dynasty, however, if you actually took notice, the Southern dynasties were almost always in direct succssion with very little change along the way. (Han -> Wei -> Jin -> Song -> Chi ->Liang -> Chen was actually the direct accesntion where the last emperor of each of those dynasty abbicated to the first emperor of the later ) while the Northern dynasty eventually was absorbed culturally by the South dispite military superiority.

No I completely agree China was a continous civilization, much the same way Western civilization was. The former however generally followed a "nail that sticks out gets hammered" mentality.

The fact is that up util the early part of the 20th century (and one could argue even today). the required reading of Chinese scholars were still the work of those from about 2000 years before their time (like Confucious) while even the common folks could quote the history and some text from said time, is a fairly good testimony of the continious nature of the civilization. language change overtime, as long as it showend a consistent continuty then it's not a real rational to argue that the Chinese spoken / written by Confucious is not the same Chinese we use today. in the same rational, the English spoken by Shakespear is also not the English we use today. does that really make a argument that British isn't a continious civilization from Shakespear to modern times? no.

Common folks could quote history that early on? No more than common folks anywhere else. The rest I don't really disagree with. It's just that when I make the same linguistic claim for say, Romanian then it's nationalism.

I consider Han, as the continuation of proto-nationalistic sentiments created by scholars when they needed to confront a tangible foreign opponent. Since many of these scholars lived during qing times, they needed a concrete difference between Chinese and Manchu culturally in order to rouse anti Manchu sentiments. What they, Huntington( Why would you even use Huntington, he is frankly just a post Cold war relic trying to apply a backwards black and white ideology to find a definite enemy for America to oppose) fail to realize is that the lines are blurry when it comes ot culture. As such it is hard for me to recognize continuity when the peopels of each dynasty have their ideology changed greatly. Then again there are some cases liek the Yuan and Qing dynasties which seem to not fit with the Han dominating the political sphere of the nation, so perhaps it shows a new civilization was born. Though feel free to correct me as I am not as well versed in Chinese literature having only english sources to deal with.

Yea i've brought up this point before that Han was a term that was relevant to one small ethnic group but was imposed upon other ethnic groups with their domination of the political sphere.

it's hard to find one among any other indo-european cultures...heck, show me one state else where that had even a 2000 years worth of continuous written history of the same language.

But Chinese writing system is much more different. It isn't phonetic, it's more akin to picture drawing than European script. If the Chinese would of had an alphabet based on sounds you'd have hundreds of different alphabets.

Well now, aren't you a curious fellow?

Arguing against a continuous Chinese civilization, but for a continuous Roman civilization from times immemorable to 1453.

No new entity internal or external ever over took the Roman Empire completely for it's entire history. Can not say the same for Chinese.

[bushbush]

This is an issue with definition. How is it that Italian and Romanian are interchangable to a large degree but Mandarin and Cantonese are not and yet the former two are different languages and the latter are only dialects. Because of political borders we have languages acting like dialects and dialects acting like languages.

On paper you are right but in practice...

Major issue with Chinese languages is also that the script isn't phonetic so we actually have no idea what "Chinese" sounded like in the past.

I think we shouldn't overlook the importance of the same written system, which is a key trait of Chinese civilization in its continuity. I answered Romano on this one, you can check out the post if you want. The point stays that they are still Chinese language but different dialects because of the shared written system (not interchangeable, 100% shared).

I don't think you can compare the differences to European civilization's different languages here. They don't have the same written language. Writing is a key trait of a civilization. A continuous written system is a key trait of a continuous civilization.

He's mocking nationalist Hungarians. They want to take Transilvania from us due to some made up idiotic Rossler theory, that even if it were true does not excuse displacing millions of Romanians just so they can have their Kingdom back...and Romano-Dacis is laughing at them for it.

ai...I dont know. Let's not go off topic but if you read his words there...he was talking about "kicking ass" "barbarians" and stuff. It's pretty radical. I couldn't imagine someone like him would say that.

Tibetens getting beaten in the street to me shows more hatred than some funny internet pictures.

Tibetans aren't exactly Hans and they were never really considered a part of Chinese civilization...so.... They might be part of Chinese nation...but that's just modern construct.

1. How is that different than what I said? It was still a different bunch of Kingdoms.

2. Today's Chinese spoken or written is not a carbon copy of Chinese 2,000 + years ago. I really doubt that all these different kingdoms all spoke the same thing when they don't even do that today.

1. I would say they are the same civilization though. They share more similarities together than with other countries. For one part they all used Old Chinese. Each kingdom produced fine scholars and contributed to the development of Chinese civilization.

2.I doubt they spoke the same thing. But they were certainly close enough to have scholars traveling around to preach different doctrines consistently. Works were complied by people from different kingdoms together. Confucius' works were compiled by his students.

I just can't see how you can dispute the continuity of Chinese language. It's one of the easiest thing to prove really. People have been studying confucian classics to this day. High schools are teaching them in their original texts. It's hard to find another place on earth that teaches texts in its original form from over 2000 years ago.

And how does that make Roman any less encompassing? I personally think it's much better to adopt the good things of your subjects rather than stamp out their individuality. Why is that seen as an inconsistancy when really it's an advantage?

It's not an advantage. I never said which one was better. Please don't draw this into some sort of this vs that discussion. I am just making an obeservation that Chinese civilization likes to assimilate other cultures. That's it. I don't care if it's good or bad. Not the topic here.

Western civilization has more diversity but it's still all Western civilization. Just because the dominant ethnic group in China (Han) told all the others that they were Han and that their culture and ideas didn't mean jack doesn't merit it some special place in history. Diversity and individuality is not a weakness and does not mean we ignore the fact that there has been a continous western civilization, in all its spectrums each with something to offer.

have the western civilization been unified since Rome?

and I don't get when did the government told everyone "to be han". Show some source? It's as much as Romans conquering others and assimilate them into their civilization. Earliest reference of hanren was by people themselves who want to differentiate themselves from the nomads in border provinces and the term spread to identity the "civilized" chinese people versus barbarians. It's not an ethnic term, but a civilizational one.

No I completely agree China was a continous civilization, much the same way Western civilization was. The former however generally followed a "nail that sticks out gets hammered" mentality.

I see continuation for sure. But the lack of political and cultural unity in its history is something that's making it a little abstract. That's my point.

Common folks could quote history that early on? No more than common folks anywhere else. The rest I don't really disagree with. It's just that when I make the same linguistic claim for say, Romanian then it's nationalism.

it's a lot more extensive in chinese language i have to tell you. I mean I speak english. It's not even close to find amount of english phrases that based on stories from 2000 years ago that you have in Chinese vocab. I don't know about Romanian language though. I can only speak for Chinese and english.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu

Yea i've brought up this point before that Han was a term that was relevant to one small ethnic group but was imposed upon other ethnic groups with their domination of the political sphere.

wait wait wait. Han was NOT an ethinc group in history. It was a CIVILIZATIONAL view. I explained to you already. It matters not if a person is Mongolian. In history, if he adopted the chinese way and confucian thinking, he would be considered civilized (thus han ren).

this is very important. You can't mix ethnicity with definition of han in history here.

Does the Papacy count

good point

[Exarch]

funny how some ppl who accuse others who accept the established view of a continuous chinese civilization, of nationalism are in essence nationalistic about their own country.
it's called projection.

chinese language and written script has evolved but are still similar.
have a look at this for eg:


i posted a seal earlier in song dynasty script; this script is sitll used today in calligraphy and authenticating documents.

[Exarch]

in much the same way christendom came to mean post roman western cultures, confucianism, taoism and chan buddhism came to mean sinic values.

ever been to a chinese wedding or funeral?
a lot of the rituals havent changed since they first came about

[Exarch]

you can argue that song dynasty writing is used today-in seals and chops, like so:

[Carpathian Wolf]

I wouldn't consider Romanian and Italian the same language (nor would linguists) because they don't share the same writing. Chinese dialects are dramatically different but they share the same writing system exactly. That's the difference.

I don't know about the diversity of European cultures as much (I did go there a couple times). But I don't see any regions of China hate each other as much as let's balkan countries. Nor did Chinese provinces go at it in two most destructive wars in human history. So it's somewhat hard for me to see them as ONE civilization (unless making it very abstract...)

They may not be catagorized as the same languages but I can go to Italy and get by in a basic conversation with people on the street. Can someone from Beijing do that in Hong Kong? Nope.

Really? Because I had a friend from north of China and a class mate from the south and they didn't speak very respectfully of one another. The northern one told me that I should get a northern Chinese wife because southern women have short legs and no breasts. And southerners are generally stupid. The southern one told me that northerners don't know how to cook and that they are lazy, cheat, lie and steal.

So there are regional hatreds everywhere you go. Not just the Balkans like you are stereo typing. (Perhaps I should call a moderator I felt insulted. )

It's hard to see as one civilization maybe but it's all there. It's one European civilization which is becoming (to my disapproval) one politicaly. The only difference is that the Chinese have already been unified willingly or unwillingly while the Europeans are still working on it.

wait wait wait CW, let's do this slowly.

1. the Three kingdoms modeled their government structure (thus same structure) after Han. And they all claimed to be the legit government of China. Wei (later Jin) fought on and won, thus took over as the next dynasty.
2. they all spoke and wrote CHINESE (old Chinese before Qin). What Qin did was unifying the calligraphy of Chinese language in various locations, not the language itself because it was the same already.

that was how confucius was able to travel aruond and teach. That was how scholars from different kingdoms interacted with each other academically and made era one of the most flourishing period intellectually in Chinese history.

1. Nobody is talking about Three Kingdoms here. Was Qin during Shu Han, Wei and Wu periods? No.

2. No you can't say they all spoke Chinese because they couldn't understand each other both verbally (as they cant even today) AND written. Qin united the writing system.

it went to sleep and woke up. I think "coma" is a good world. If it died, how did you explain a pretty muhc identical empire emerged again?

Well first off a civilization/culture/kingdom/whatever isn't "alive" so the terminology is incorrect. What your "revival" comment notes however is that you admit a break in the continuation. I'm not going to sit here and argue to say Chinese people stopped existing for the 89 or so years of Mongol domination i'm just noting what you said.

the regional differences in Chinese culture are not remotely close to the differences between Europeans. Europe was hardly unified culturally and politically since Rome in history. China was unified for most period of time. And political identity and dominant culture didn't change much during imperial era. So that's why it's considered one entity. versus the modern era where things changed a lot.

China wasn't unified either except for when one of the kingdoms gobbled the others or when one of the rebel factions took power. Self awareness and identity is generally relevant.

Chinese perspective on this is not ethnic. It's civilizational. That's if a "barbarian" could adopt to the Chinese way, he is Chinese. I give you Tuotuo as an example again. He was ethnic mongolian. But he was raised in a chinese family, received confucian education. Went on to revive much of Chinese political and cultural customs during Yuan (like government exam and religious ceremonies) as well as continued the tradition of writing history (he led the team to complie history of song, jin, liao). And later generations of confucian scholars hailed him as one of their own.

did they care he was mongolian? not really. He was a part of Chinese civilization that was all that mattered. Ethnicity plays little role here.

Exactly like what being Roman is. Ethnicity plays little role here.

partly. But the diversity is a little too much to be compared to China. Europe didn't exactly have a 2000 year imperial period that maintained similiar political structure, ideology (confucian) and cultural practicses (especially the continous writting history).

A little too much according to what scale? It's all European. France, Germany, England, Italy, etc are all regions of Europe.

It wasn't 2,000 years of imperialism because there were many breaks in it when seperate kingdoms would fight amongst each others, rebel factions would create a new rulership. Sure the two (Europe and China) didn't coincide exactly with one another's eras. Europe didn't have as long of an Imperial Age and China's Modernism began much later as well. My point stands.