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What is interesting is that Chinese is not I this superfamily. For me, ancient Chinese civilization is so interesting in large part because of how isolated it

What is interesting is that Chinese is not I this superfamily. For me, ancient Chinese civilization is so interesting in large part because of how isolated it is. Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia and even India were in regular communication with each other. Empires such as the Persians and Alexander the Great fought across all these civilizations. The Romans had direct trade with India via the Indian Ocean. However, Chinese civilization is located far away from those ones. I think there is still debate if Chinese writing rose de novo or was influenced by writing from Sumer. At the same time, even though it was so distant, China still had a very advanced civilization (and in many ways was more advanced than those of the Middle East and Europe for much of history)

Bayart 5y ago
>I think there is still debate if Chinese writing rose de novo or was influenced by writing from Sumer. Hardly. There's no discernable relationship in that respect between China and the Near East. As far as anybody's aware, China's writing is indigeneous. If you want a real isolated and independent civilisation core, look at central America.
- jng 5y ago
  There was travel and commerce between far out regions in that period (1,500-3,500 BCE). The connection between the three old-world starts of writing (Sumerian, Egyptian and Chinese) is, AFAIK, not 100% clarified yet. It's widely accepted that American writing was a separate original invention, it makes sense. I believe these days the accepted understanding is that Egyptian hieroglyphic writing is an independent development that may, or may not, have been inspired by Sumerian writing. Not hard to believe: "you know son, these peoples far far away know magic, they're able to make dents in a table containing a story, and then pass on the tablet to someone else and they can retell the story!" Chinese writing may, or may not, have also come up the same way.
thisiscorrect 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Roman_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Roman_relations might be relevant to your interests.
- mlindner 5y ago
  That's a bit too late. We're talking long before the Romans existed...
felix318 5y ago
I also find the Chinese writing system fascinating in that it's the only one that didn't evolve from representing concepts to representing sounds. Maybe there is a connection there?
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > I also find the Chinese writing system fascinating in that it's the only one that didn't evolve from representing concepts to representing sounds. It did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCshu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCshu China has had enough cultural continuity to maintain its own writing system over time.
  - felix318 5y ago
    The same thing happened in Japanese but both countries refrained from taking the next logical step and throw away the ideograms. Much of it has to do with the educated elite wanting to restrict access to knowledge, but it's still curious that the same thing didn't happen in other cultures.
    - thaumasiotes 5y ago
      Seriously, it's about cultural continuity. Its not about wanting to restrict access to knowledge; in general the educated elite wishes the illiterate masses would be more educated, not less. But for example, there is a period in Egyptian history when royal inscriptions start being written exclusively in vernacular Egyptian rather than the (incredibly old) classical form. And that period just happens to be when the Egyptian throne is taken over by Libyans.
      - felix318 5y ago
        I’m not an expert on the matter but, from what I know about Korea and Japan, literacy was a priviledge granted to a small minority. Having a complex script that takes years to learn was a tremendous advantage to them. Maybe it was different in China, and things have certainly changed in modern times, but low literacy has often been beneficial to those in power. Cultural continuity is questionable, even old texts in European languages often need to be adapted for contemporary readers. All that said, Chinese ideograms are incredibly cool so maybe that is a good reason to keep them.
m33k44 5y ago
> For me, ancient Chinese civilization is so interesting in large part because of how isolated it is. For the Europeans this might be true, but not for the Indians. There was lot of exchange between Indus and Chinese civilisations. How do you think Buddhism reached China?
- meepmorp 5y ago
  > How do you think Buddhism reached China? Bodhidharma, iirc.
- Ostrogodsky 5y ago
  History and society in western countries is absurdly Euro-centric, it sounds like an oxymoron but it should not be. You must be aware enough to realize what is an absolute truth and what it is just relative from your POV. The other day I had a discussion online mocking the concept that "Aboriginal Australians are so unique because they split from the Europeans first" as if they cannot say exactly the same.
  - mcguire 5y ago
    At least in the English language, many, many subjects are less Euro-centric and more Anglo-centric: everything is seen from the vantage of the south-eastern part of a tiny island in the North Atlantic. What's so dark about the Dark Ages? Outside of the north-western boundaries of the Roman empire, not much.
    - Ostrogodsky 5y ago
      > everything is seen from the vantage of the south-eastern part of a tiny island in the North Atlantic. Iceland? :)
      - kerridge0 5y ago
        Thanet?
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
thaumasiotes 5y ago
But ancient China wasn't isolated at all. Contact with Persia was extensive. Contact with India was significant. Han China interacted with Greeks left behind by Alexander's conquests: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayuan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayuan . The Japanese days of the week today are clearly a cultural transmission from the West, mediated through China. > I think there is still debate if Chinese writing rose de novo or was influenced by writing from Sumer. I'm not aware of a theory that says Chinese writing was influenced by Sumer. It's generally felt to be its own thing. (Though note that Sumerian is about 2,000 years earlier than our oldest Chinese records, so as a theoretical matter there's no real way to rule it out. There just isn't any evidence of influence.)
bmc7505 5y ago
I have a theory that if the East and West are ever going to reconcile their differences, we must find a way to retrace how these two great civilizations separated in the first place. What caused our societies to drift apart? Was it primarily circumstantial factors, like geography and competition for limited resources? Did religion play a role, like the recent East-West schism, where early societies self-segregated according to monotheist and polytheist beliefs? Was it driven by language, where the East and West favored certain modes of expression, eventually manifesting as logographs or alphabets? Did it originate in primordial social contracts, where early famers and shepherds drove nomadic hunter gatherers further to the North and East? Probably the original motive lies buried in the sands of time, but I think these are fascinating questions and would be curious to know what answers future historians might come up with.
- gerdesj 5y ago
  Take a look at a globe. Where does east and west start and stop? When you find yourself in a binary quandary, you are nearly always going to be arguing yourself into complete twaddle. Think: East:West, Black:White, North:South, Man:Woman, "Normal": ... . That way lies madness. It is trivial to slide into exclusiveness. I try to be inclusive. Back in the day I was the fat child left on the sidelines when picking footie teams. Then I went to a different school that also offered rugby as well as football. That's an odd form of inclusivity but I found my place for a while: I had quite a lot of extra inertia and kinetic energy and discovered how to apply it quite efficiently. Back to your comment, which I don't think needs down votes but questioning. Where do you perceive East and West colliding? Turkey?
  - bmc7505 5y ago
    > That way lies madness. Perhaps. I think a clearer understanding could also give us a better appreciation of our common values and unique differences. There is something we all share in common: a desire for peace, order, stability. And there is something qualitatively different between how Eastern and Western societies are structured to achieve those goals. By studying our historical differences, we can build a better understanding of how our societies are uniquely equipped to handle future challenges. > I had quite a lot of extra inertia and kinetic energy. That is an interesting story, thank you for sharing! I agree with you that physical differences are definitely worth celebrating. Fat people have an advantage in many arenas (can survive much longer in famine and are good at physical sports like rugby), just like people who live in high altitudes or chase food to survive. More importantly, humans also have ideological differences and it would seem those differences, real or perceived, are the source of our current tensions. > Where do you perceive East and West colliding? Historically, friction has arisen in two places: the Middle East, and the Pacific. The first seems more religiously motivated, which could be a reflection of different cultural values but I think those waters are too muddy to tell. The recent cross-Pacific tension seems like a more direct clash between individualism and collectivism. Studying the environmental factors that gave rise to our differences could help us navigate where each society is better adapted, or how they can complement each other to achieve our common goals.
yorwba 5y ago
The only reason Chinese is not in this superfamily is that the authors didn't bother to feed their algorithm with any Sino-Tibetan data. If they had done so, it would've been placed somewhere in the "family tree".
meepmorp 5y ago
It's generally accepted that writing was independently invented at least 4 times - in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and southern Mexico. Fun fact: most writing systems in use today are descended from Egyptian Hieroglyphs.
- jng 5y ago
  Yes, and even more fun in that direction, the shape of the letter O descends directly from the hieroglyph of the eye.

Bayart 5y ago

>I think there is still debate if Chinese writing rose de novo or was influenced by writing from Sumer. Hardly. There's no discernable relationship in that respect between China and the Near East. As far as anybody's aware, China's writing is indigeneous. If you want a real isolated and independent civilisation core, look at central America.

jng 5y ago
There was travel and commerce between far out regions in that period (1,500-3,500 BCE). The connection between the three old-world starts of writing (Sumerian, Egyptian and Chinese) is, AFAIK, not 100% clarified yet. It's widely accepted that American writing was a separate original invention, it makes sense. I believe these days the accepted understanding is that Egyptian hieroglyphic writing is an independent development that may, or may not, have been inspired by Sumerian writing. Not hard to believe: "you know son, these peoples far far away know magic, they're able to make dents in a table containing a story, and then pass on the tablet to someone else and they can retell the story!" Chinese writing may, or may not, have also come up the same way.

thisiscorrect 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Roman_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Roman_relations might be relevant to your interests.

mlindner 5y ago
That's a bit too late. We're talking long before the Romans existed...

felix318 5y ago

I also find the Chinese writing system fascinating in that it's the only one that didn't evolve from representing concepts to representing sounds. Maybe there is a connection there?

thaumasiotes 5y ago
> I also find the Chinese writing system fascinating in that it's the only one that didn't evolve from representing concepts to representing sounds. It did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCshu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCshu China has had enough cultural continuity to maintain its own writing system over time.
- felix318 5y ago
  The same thing happened in Japanese but both countries refrained from taking the next logical step and throw away the ideograms. Much of it has to do with the educated elite wanting to restrict access to knowledge, but it's still curious that the same thing didn't happen in other cultures.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    Seriously, it's about cultural continuity. Its not about wanting to restrict access to knowledge; in general the educated elite wishes the illiterate masses would be more educated, not less. But for example, there is a period in Egyptian history when royal inscriptions start being written exclusively in vernacular Egyptian rather than the (incredibly old) classical form. And that period just happens to be when the Egyptian throne is taken over by Libyans.
    - felix318 5y ago
      I’m not an expert on the matter but, from what I know about Korea and Japan, literacy was a priviledge granted to a small minority. Having a complex script that takes years to learn was a tremendous advantage to them. Maybe it was different in China, and things have certainly changed in modern times, but low literacy has often been beneficial to those in power. Cultural continuity is questionable, even old texts in European languages often need to be adapted for contemporary readers. All that said, Chinese ideograms are incredibly cool so maybe that is a good reason to keep them.

m33k44 5y ago

> For me, ancient Chinese civilization is so interesting in large part because of how isolated it is. For the Europeans this might be true, but not for the Indians. There was lot of exchange between Indus and Chinese civilisations. How do you think Buddhism reached China?

meepmorp 5y ago
> How do you think Buddhism reached China? Bodhidharma, iirc.
Ostrogodsky 5y ago
History and society in western countries is absurdly Euro-centric, it sounds like an oxymoron but it should not be. You must be aware enough to realize what is an absolute truth and what it is just relative from your POV. The other day I had a discussion online mocking the concept that "Aboriginal Australians are so unique because they split from the Europeans first" as if they cannot say exactly the same.
- mcguire 5y ago
  At least in the English language, many, many subjects are less Euro-centric and more Anglo-centric: everything is seen from the vantage of the south-eastern part of a tiny island in the North Atlantic. What's so dark about the Dark Ages? Outside of the north-western boundaries of the Roman empire, not much.
  - Ostrogodsky 5y ago
    > everything is seen from the vantage of the south-eastern part of a tiny island in the North Atlantic. Iceland? :)
    - kerridge0 5y ago
      Thanet?
RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago

thaumasiotes 5y ago

But ancient China wasn't isolated at all. Contact with Persia was extensive. Contact with India was significant. Han China interacted with Greeks left behind by Alexander's conquests: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayuan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayuan . The Japanese days of the week today are clearly a cultural transmission from the West, mediated through China. > I think there is still debate if Chinese writing rose de novo or was influenced by writing from Sumer. I'm not aware of a theory that says Chinese writing was influenced by Sumer. It's generally felt to be its own thing. (Though note that Sumerian is about 2,000 years earlier than our oldest Chinese records, so as a theoretical matter there's no real way to rule it out. There just isn't any evidence of influence.)

bmc7505 5y ago

I have a theory that if the East and West are ever going to reconcile their differences, we must find a way to retrace how these two great civilizations separated in the first place. What caused our societies to drift apart? Was it primarily circumstantial factors, like geography and competition for limited resources? Did religion play a role, like the recent East-West schism, where early societies self-segregated according to monotheist and polytheist beliefs? Was it driven by language, where the East and West favored certain modes of expression, eventually manifesting as logographs or alphabets? Did it originate in primordial social contracts, where early famers and shepherds drove nomadic hunter gatherers further to the North and East? Probably the original motive lies buried in the sands of time, but I think these are fascinating questions and would be curious to know what answers future historians might come up with.

gerdesj 5y ago
Take a look at a globe. Where does east and west start and stop? When you find yourself in a binary quandary, you are nearly always going to be arguing yourself into complete twaddle. Think: East:West, Black:White, North:South, Man:Woman, "Normal": ... . That way lies madness. It is trivial to slide into exclusiveness. I try to be inclusive. Back in the day I was the fat child left on the sidelines when picking footie teams. Then I went to a different school that also offered rugby as well as football. That's an odd form of inclusivity but I found my place for a while: I had quite a lot of extra inertia and kinetic energy and discovered how to apply it quite efficiently. Back to your comment, which I don't think needs down votes but questioning. Where do you perceive East and West colliding? Turkey?
- bmc7505 5y ago
  > That way lies madness. Perhaps. I think a clearer understanding could also give us a better appreciation of our common values and unique differences. There is something we all share in common: a desire for peace, order, stability. And there is something qualitatively different between how Eastern and Western societies are structured to achieve those goals. By studying our historical differences, we can build a better understanding of how our societies are uniquely equipped to handle future challenges. > I had quite a lot of extra inertia and kinetic energy. That is an interesting story, thank you for sharing! I agree with you that physical differences are definitely worth celebrating. Fat people have an advantage in many arenas (can survive much longer in famine and are good at physical sports like rugby), just like people who live in high altitudes or chase food to survive. More importantly, humans also have ideological differences and it would seem those differences, real or perceived, are the source of our current tensions. > Where do you perceive East and West colliding? Historically, friction has arisen in two places: the Middle East, and the Pacific. The first seems more religiously motivated, which could be a reflection of different cultural values but I think those waters are too muddy to tell. The recent cross-Pacific tension seems like a more direct clash between individualism and collectivism. Studying the environmental factors that gave rise to our differences could help us navigate where each society is better adapted, or how they can complement each other to achieve our common goals.

yorwba 5y ago

The only reason Chinese is not in this superfamily is that the authors didn't bother to feed their algorithm with any Sino-Tibetan data. If they had done so, it would've been placed somewhere in the "family tree".

meepmorp 5y ago

It's generally accepted that writing was independently invented at least 4 times - in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and southern Mexico. Fun fact: most writing systems in use today are descended from Egyptian Hieroglyphs.

jng 5y ago
Yes, and even more fun in that direction, the shape of the letter O descends directly from the hieroglyph of the eye.