[totally OT now] Zhong (was RE: Decimal separator with more than one character?)

From: Marco Cimarosti (marco.cimarosti@essetre.it)
Date: Mon May 19 2003 - 15:51:14 EDT

  • Next message: Andrew C. West: "RE: Decimal separator with more than one character?"

    Andrew C. West wrote:
    > I'm not sure. I was consciously using the term "Middle
    > Kingdom" that is the traditional translation of
    > Zhongguo used since ... since the penetration of
    > Zhongguo by the Jesuits in the 16th century I guess
    >(no doubt someone will correct me if I'm wrong) ?

    I vaguely recall that, originally, "中" (zhong) meant "in, at" (when used as
    a postposition) and "internal" (when used as an adjective). It also had the
    modern meanings "in the middle" (postposition) and "middle" (adjective), but
    they were not the main ones.

    But I am afraid that, right now, I can't support this with anything more
    that my distant classroom memories, dating nearly 20 years ago...

    The only thing that I could find on-line with my rusty Chinese is the last
    verse of this a Tang poem (http://www.chinapage.com/tang300.html#Tang044),
    where "中" cannot mean "in the middle":

            "妾心井*中*水" ("A spirit like water *in* a timeless well")

    But this is hardly a demonstration, I guess.

    Ciao.
    Marco



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