Sushi first started in southeast Asia and then spread to China. After it came to China it mad its way to Japan. While sushi is an item of Japanese that today is considered strictly Japanese this is not the only thing that look like it is completely Japanese in todays time.
Japan took its written alphabet from the Chinese characters. This is really interesting because while both languages have the same original alphabet over time they slowly began to change and become two separate and distinct languages. Do you think that you could tell the difference between these symbols? They are both the same word but the one on the left is the Japanese and the one on the right is Chinese.
Written language just like with oral languages change over time and become much more descriptive than they originally were. With people constantly trying to change and modify things to become easier to record, which is the reason that writing exists, to make it so that future generation are able to know what their forefathers accomplish. Only through knowing our past can we become better in the future and this is the reason for written language to allow us to know what has happened in our history.
I think that one aspect of written knowledge that's really interesting is how it spread among cultures. With oral knowledge it seems that you were much more confined to your language of origin because it would be much more difficult to teach someone else a new language without the ability to write so they have a way to reference back to what they've learned and compare it to their original language through translation.
ReplyDeleteAs knowledge systems have progressed the accessibility of that knowledge has only gotten better, and now look at where we are in the digital age. I wonder how we can further innovate knowledge if its already accessible to virtually the whole globe.
It is really interesting to compare Asian languages with each other since they have so many similarities, yet so many differences, both orally and written.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who speaks Japanese and since I speak Mandarin, we sometimes teach other bits and pieces of each others' language. And it's really interesting to see not only the different words, but even the mere tone and sound just is completely different. You can use the same tone with Chinese as you do with Japanese which I find fascinating. How did that come to be? How was it decided that this language was going to sound this way?
To bring in a subject from class, another really interesting thing about written language is that it was a specific way of passing down and preserving knowledge. For example (I'm guessing here) how do we know where sushi originated? Probably because we have historical records of some kind, and that's the power of written language. Something written two thousand years ago (provided it isn't a lost language) can still be read and interpreted and viewed as evidence of a long-extinct culture.
ReplyDeleteSushi = The Sea's gift to man. Even though man is what actually makes sushi...anyways..
ReplyDeleteBut it's really interesting to see how the culmination of knowledge is all from generations of records being passed down. Which causes me to wonder the origins of basically knowledge.
We can get into the gospel and bring in Heavenly Father and what not, and not that I doubt that sushi is part of His divine plan, but obviously it is not a key integral part.
How did knowledge of making sushi begin? I would think it was a combination of previous knowledge of making food that originated the idea of sushi. Which then leads to questions where THAT knowledge then came from.
Everything is so entwined seems to go in circles. While frustrating, just fascinating to think about.
So, we know that sushi didn't originate in Japan based on historical records. Well then it seems to me that we don't actually know where sushi originated, we simply know where sushi was first recorded. How to we know that the author was telling the truth? Perhaps he lied. ;)
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