Hi, Bill No idea in finnish, but I suppose that all idioms have their specialities
German: Bedeute bedeutes Bedeute, english "Means means means", spanish "significa significa significa" Idem in catalan Catalan: a cap cap cap lo que cap en aquest cap: "in no head could be placed what this head could contain" With best wishes Lluís ----- Original Message ----- From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2010 4:37 AM Subject: RE: [Zen] Re: FW: Quote from St. Thomas Aquinas Anthony, Actually Thai does not really have three tenses as I said, not in the same way as English or Spanish has. They only have one form of a verb – Present tense. They use modifiers to designate other tenses, but only two other tenses I know of – Past and Future. An example would be the transliteration of the Thai word for ‘go’ is ‘bai’ (pronounced like ‘bye’). So: ‘go’ would be ‘bai’ ‘gone’ or ‘have gone’ would be ‘bai laow’ (like ‘go already’) ‘will go’ would be ‘ja bai’ That’s it. As far as I know there is no way to translate something like ‘By next Tuesday I will have been going to class for 5 weeks’. Thai’s also have 5 tones: high, medium, low, rising and falling. These tones could be applied to any word (syllable) such as ‘mai’. The syllable ‘mai’, depending on the tone used, could mean: ‘new’, ‘wood’, ‘no’, ‘burn’ or denote a question if placed at the end of a statement (with a rising tone). So the question ‘New word doesn’t burn, does it?’ could be expressed using only the syllable ‘mai’ with different tones like this: ‘wood new no burn [question]’. How would you say that in Finnish? …Bill! From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Anthony Wu Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2010 5:13 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [Zen] Re: FW: Quote from St. Thomas Aquinas Bill, Oriental languages do not deemphasize time or personal relationships. They rely on adjectives, adverbs, pronouns etc to donate time and relationships, while westerners inflect the words for the same purposes. I am surprised to hear Thai has three tenses. Where are they? Anthony --- On Sat, 13/11/10, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote: From: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: RE: [Zen] Re: FW: Quote from St. Thomas Aquinas To: [email protected] Date: Saturday, 13 November, 2010, 3:09 PM Anthony, I know Thai’s drop subject and sometimes even object all the time, but I thought it was just because they, like Westerners, are lazy. For example, I could ask you: ‘Are you hungry?’, or I could just ask by saying: ‘Hungry?’ (with a rising tone). That's just laziness, or being casual in your speech. I do think language does reveal the different values of culture. For example in Thai there are only 3 tenses: past, present and future; whereas there are many, many adjectives and pronouns that are used to specifically identify the speaker's relationship with the one addressed. In English there are many (27?) verb tenses and very few special pronouns. This I think shows that Westerner's value time more than Asians; whereas Asians put more importance on personal relationships than time. ...Bill! From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of ED Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2010 9:53 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Zen] Re: FW: Quote from St. Thomas Aquinas The Geography of Thought: How Culture Colors the Way the Mind ... --- In [email protected], Anthony Wu <wu...@...> wrote: > > ED, > > That is not the way it is. It is too complicated to explain, but the oriental way is different from occidental. The former is synthetic, while the latter analytical. So you need subjects, objects, predicates, adverbials and other nonsense to try to complete your analysis. In other words, the westerners are more discriminating (in general). > > Anthony > Anthony, > I think the reason is that Zen Masters use the Tantric principle that one should behave in ways as if one already possesses that which one aspires to attain; in this case, to possess a non-dualistic mind that does not discriminate between subject and object. > --ED > > ED, > > > > Many oriental sentences are without subjects or objects. Bill is completely adjusted to Thailand, and the zen way. They are very grammatical here. > > > > Anthony > > Bill, > > Nice succinct answer. > > And, question: Your zen-like statement in ungrammatical, without subject or object. Is this a zen tradition of speaking, with a view to training the mind out of its customary dualistic mode of experiencing reality? > > Thank you, ED > > Mayka and Ed, > > > > Or perhaps Bill! would say: 'No effort, no judgment, no grasping, no > > pushing-away, no concepts - Just THIS! > > > > ...Bill! __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 5616 (20101112) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 5616 (20101112) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 5616 (20101112) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 5618 (20101114) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 5618 (20101114) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 5618 (20101114) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com
