Abstract
The article presents the examples of comparing chemical terms in the Chinese and Russian languages and the results of two experiments conducted with Chinese and Russian students. The first part of the work deals with a comparison of the one–component chemical element names from the periodic table. Then, it continues with dividing different chemical terms in Chinese into several groups: two–component, three–component, four–component, multicomponent group and comparing them with its analogical terms in Russian to analyze the main difficulties in understanding these terms in both languages. The second part of the work presents the main difficulties, revealed during two experiments, conducted with Chinese and Russian students. The students were given texts in their mother tongues with a chemical context, which they wrote and read noting the time. At the end of the work, all the advantages and complexities revealed in the results of the first and second parts of the work were calculated. Similar language comparisons are becoming more relevant in the last few years, for they contribute to development of methods of analyzing languages and discovering new and improved approaches to the study and use of languages.
Highlights
Many linguists are wondering whether it is possible to assess the complexity of languages objectively, that is, without attracting native speakers of a particular language
As the result of the analysis of chemical elements terms in the Chinese and Russian languages, the main conclusion was made in the context of the two different systems of borrowings of the chemical element terms in the periodic table – this is the advantage of the Chinese terms over the Russian ones, which consists in the translation systematicity of Chinese terms from the original language with the help of the keys
The chemical terms of the Chinese language, which include more than one hieroglyph, are analyzed
Summary
Many linguists are wondering whether it is possible to assess the complexity of languages objectively, that is, without attracting native speakers of a particular language. A. Piperski gives an example of a situation when the Martian has flown to our planet and needs to learn the human language – which language would be easier for him, and which would be more difficult [1]. Linguists studying language complexity are trying to answer this question. This science field is relatively young, its active development began only in the last 20– 25 years and it still does not have a universal theory and methods of verification. The science of language complexity has already managed to make three main theoretical conclusions, which A.
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