"CL" <flothru@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:44908677$0$575$8f2e0ebb@news.shared-secrets.com...
> John R. Yamamoto-Wilson wrote:
>> Smith wrote:
>
>>> I can't imagine Chinese being used in this manner.
>>
>> Actually, it has been and still is used in this manner. In the past, 
>> Korea,
>> Vietnam , Japan and the Ryukyu islands (now part of Japan) all used
>> Classical Chinese as a lingua franca, so Koreans talking to Japanese, for
>> example, would frequently have used Chinese, much as your Greek and
>> Jordanian officials were using English. And Mandarin provides a common
>> language between different linguistic/ethnic groups in modern China. The
>> scale is regional, not worldwide, but the principle is the same.
>
> I don't think that it was the spoken form that was used for official 
> business, it was written.  Remember, if you will the story of ... wossname 
> ... the one who became Tengu, God of Learning, symbol became the recumbent 
> cow, and whose main temple is at Dazaifu with famous recumbent cow statue 
> in Kyoto ... who wrote all of those poems about cherry blossoms ... (I 
> suppose I _could_ Google it, but what fun would that be?)
>
> The story goes that he upset the Fujiwaras by refusing to join an embassy 
> to Chang-an.  Although he was considered the best writer of the classical 
> Chinese memorial form outside China, he was aware that his pronunciation 
> was terrible if even existent at all.  Rather than bring Japan into 
> disrepute by sounding like a hick or an idiot, he refused to go and was 
> punished.
>
John, is that in your collection of books?
>
> Most of the spoken form was used for trade and was _not_ what they spoke 
> in the capital.  From what I have read, China <-> Manchuria <-> Korea <-> 
> Japan used the Shandong dialects while China <-> Taiwan <-> Ryukyu <-> 
> northern part of Luzon used the Fujian or Hakka dialects.  So when a 
> Japanese person offers the "Chinese" reading of something it is unlikely 
> to be the standardized Chinese one.
>
> CL
>
>