In a message dated 3/27/01 5:15:33 PM Central Standard Time, jr@shasta.com
writes:
> > "The Dream of the Red Chamber" from the late Ming period is, among
> > other things, a romance novel, and is recognized by many as the first
true
> > "novel" written in any culture.
> >
> > Greg Burch
>
> Ah, so! Thank you for retrieving that fact, Greg. Chinese written language
> is
> in glyphs or picto-grams, right?
Not really. Since sometime after 1000 BCE written Chinese has been mainly
*ideographic*, retaining remnants of its pictographic orgins only in the
simplest words (such as *ren* or "man", *shan* or "mountain", etc.). Modern
written Chinese is a complex blend of ideographic and phonetic elements,
further confusing things.
> Graphic representation, by means of
> pictures,
> is sometimes referred to as pornography in some cultures. Could this
> indicate
> that what passes for porno in some cultures is thought of as romance in
> others?
That may be a stretch, but when we consider what the Taliban think of as
"pornographic", who knows?
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://www.gregburch.net -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
ICQ # 61112550
"We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
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