FF:OJ566 Languages of China - Course Information

OJ566 Languages of China (Chinese and languages of the Barbarians)

Extent and Intensity

2/0. 3 credit(s). Type of Completion: k (colloquium).

Teacher(s)

Mgr. Michal Schwarz, Ph.D. (lecturer)

Guaranteed by

prof. RNDr. Václav Blažek, CSc.
Department of Linguistics and Baltic Languages – Faculty of Arts
Supplier department: Department of Linguistics and Baltic Languages – Faculty of Arts

Timetable

each even Tuesday 14:10–15:45 N01023

Course Enrolment Limitations

The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.

fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with

there are 6 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display

Course objectives

At the end of this course students should be able to understand and explain the history, relations and recent development of languages in China. Lectures include systematic overview about language families, comments on conditions of present life in China and projection of author’s photographs.

Syllabus

• 1. Languages in China: an overview. Periodisation of the history of China. Important factors in the development of languages (geography, politics, economy, social structure, …). 2. Prehistory of China, oldest settlements and their culture. Origin, development and meaning of the Chinese script. First Chinese characters on bones and bronzes. Types/writing styles of Chinese characters. 3. Old + Middle Chinese and systems of reconstructions of pronunciation. The growth of population till the Han dynasty + oldest contacts of the Hans with other ethnics. 4. Chinese literature. Middle and Modern Chinese. The divergence of Chinese languages and their geographical distribution. 5. Dialects of Mandarin Chinese – their development in specific areas. 6. Chinese language policy and national minorities: history and present state. 7. Indo-European languages and their influence on Chinese – old ones: Indic, Iranian, Tocharian; present ones: English, Russian, (Iranian). 8. Altaic languages I: Turkic and Mongolic. Scripts, culture and civilisation of nomads, their expansions and Sinicization. Non-Han dynasties till the 15. century. Sinicization of Altaic toponyms. 9. Altaic languages II: Tungusic + Korean and Japanese with their scripts in relation to Chinese. Language, script and policy of the last (non-Han) Manchu Qing dynasty and later development. 10. Tibeto-Burman languages, their classification and geography. Groups of Bodic (Tibetan) languages. Ethnohistory of Sino-Tibetan areas. 11. Non-Chinese languages in Southern China: Tai-Kadai, Bai, Miao-Yao (= Hmong-Mien), Mon-Khmer (Austroasiatic). Local kingdoms and their culture vs. Chinese influence in southern Asia. 12. Languages of original (Austronesian) inhabitants of Taiwan. Change and development after arrivals of continental migrants and Japanese. Present state. 13. Chinese in South-Eastern Asia and Singapur. Mixing languages. Growth of Chinese communities in the World and Sinicization as a component of globalisation.

Literature

recommended literature
• Švarný, Oldřich & Uher, David. 2001. Úvod do studia hovorové čínštiny. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého.
• Thurgood, Graham & LaPolla, Randy (eds.). 2003. The Sino-Tibetan Languages. London & New York: Routledge.
• Norman, Jerry. 1988. Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• FAIRBANK, John F. Dějiny Číny. Praha: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 1998, 656 s. ISBN 9788074220074. info
• RAMSEY, S. Robert. The languages of China. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987, xi, 340. ISBN 9780691014685. info

Teaching methods

lectures

Assessment methods

Final test or seminar paper within the range 10 and more standardized pages.

Language of instruction

Czech

Further Comments

Study Materials
The course is taught annually.

• Enrolment Statistics (Spring 2013, recent)
  
• Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/phil/spring2013/OJ566