Kenneth Whistler scripsit:
> Like the
> United States today, China has long been a cosmopolitan
> mixture of many peoples, and many of the conquering minorities
Eh? Do you mean the Mongols and Manchu specifically?
> Han4ren2, literally "Han person", is either a somewhat
> old-fashioned, somewhat purple word for a Chinese person,
As I understand, this term is undergoing a revival in the PRC,
precisely because of the perceived need to distinguish between
"ethnically Han persons" (some 93% of the population),
and "citizens of the Chinese state".
> Kango,
> instead, means "a Chinese word" or "a Chinese expression",
> i.e. a lexical item, written in kanji, that is recognized
> as being derived from China, as opposed to being a
> Japanese innovation.
I know what you mean, but I have to register a protest against
the use of "innovation" for native Japanese words.
It is the Chinese borrowings that are, historically,
the innovations.
-- John Cowan cowan@ccil.org One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore --Douglas Hofstadter
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