The Basic Ideas of the Sinogram-Based Theory by Tongqiang Xu

Abstract

The Sinogram-based theory by Tongqiang Xu is the most prominent achievement of Chinese language studies in recent years. The theory emphasizes that the Chinese language studies must be based on the linguistic facts from Chinese instead of Indo-European languages. The sinograms are the basic structural units of Chinese, just as words are that of Indo-European languages. As the coding system of reality, Chinese adopts the mode of taking sinograms but not words as the basic units, and this is the ultimate reason for the fundamental difference between Chinese and Indo-European languages. The controversial theory is still non-mainstream because of the lack of precision and the conventional thinking of others.