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Chinese is more full of double (or more) meanings than any other language I've studied. Chinese literature and poetry are famous for playing on multiple meanin
by flatline 11y ago
Chinese is more full of double (or more) meanings than any other language I've studied. Chinese literature and poetry are famous for playing on multiple meanings of a single character or sound.
- beat 11y agoEven in my one year of Chinese, I learned a great appreciation for the ridiculous puns that can be made in Chinese. It's also remarkably concise. I think most computer programmers, if exposed to Chinese, would really admire its clarity and simplicity. It's like the Lisp of natural languages.
- tim333 11y agoI wonder if English would be the c++. Large complicated mess, popular.
- beat 11y agoEgad, no! English is like Perl. It looks strange, but it's actually pretty simple and flexible, despite the ideas held in place with duct tape. Right->{}? C++ is absurdly obtuse and complicated, for no good reason. It's not simple or flexible at all. If it were a natural language, it would be dead already. Native speakers would have been conquered by another people who could actually understand each other relatively unambiguously. Like English speakers.
- newman314 11y agoTo be clear, I was referring to everyday conversational Chinese. The play of words with any sort of literature or poetry isn't the normal usage.
- gohrt 11y agoYour original example was wordplay in literature.