I could be wrong here, but I remember the Chinese typewriter may also have a number of key words, there are lots of words that take two characters... the word for America is mei... mei also means beautiful... guo means country, therefore mei guo means the United States or beautiful country... ren is person, so mei ren is an American or a beautiful person, rather curious considering their politics are so anti American, but I think it's more out of phonetic convenience than anything else... also, all non Chinese are considered barbarians, called wai to, meaning outsiders, but more like barbarians, not just a foreigner, they have no word for foreigner other than wai to meaning barbarian... chung gwo means China, chung is center or middle, gwo is country... chung gwo means the central country, the country in the middle of the world, the center of everything, or China... it's impossible to separate Chinese thought from the language when you study the individual characters themselves, I think it's a beautiful language...
Anyhow, my point here is that certain words like mei have their own key on the typewriter so they don't always have to be constructed... mei shu means the fine arts, mei gwo shu, American fine arts...
Yes, I'm full of surprises, as I told you before, you don't know me at all...
GZ |
