Ancient Chinese Coin?

Your emphasis on grammar being indicated by something as intuitive as mere word order reminds me of conversations with a guy who was Thai (of consistently Chinese descent) on one side, and Ozark hillbilly on the other. (To half of that, I can say, 'Teacher, I Raise My Hand.') He said the same thing, memorably in reference to what he referred to (probably for my benefit) as Cantonese.
...Except, for an effectively monolingual English speaker, a concept as simple as that --grammar=word order-- can be hard to get one's head around! Even in comparison to (other) Germanic and (other and change) Romance languages.
One takeaway is that, across the globe, one advantage people who learn English as a second language have is that they grew up with one that made a grain of sense in the first place. I can almost imagine someone (super-)Imposing a measure of rationality on English, in the process of learning it.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Yes. But it also sadly means that those of us who grew up speaking English are at a handicap when learning other languages. I suspect that the vast majority of native English speakers are like me - raised with very little appreciation or understanding of any rules of grammar beyond the very basics.

I have learned four foreign languages. Only one of which processed to real proficiency and stuck (French) due to both the length of the training and the fact I have to use it professionally. The other three were to give me basic survival skills on postings.

In all these cases I felt like a total moron in class as I realized I had little grasp of real grammar. Understanding what an adverb was wasn't too hard, but once we got to, say, transitive vs. insensitive verbs the separation between the linguists and polyglots versus us barely literates became abundantly clear.....

SC

 

Thanks to all who replied to my question. I suspect all languages would show regional variations. The time I spent in the Army introduced me to quite a few variations some of which are easier to understand than others. I recall one from Maine and one from Louisiana that had trouble with each other's speech. I do suspect that the Internet will smooth over some of these differences as people who speak a language experience more dialects when they are children online.

 

What an interesting thread. I am learning lots here.

 

Very interesting . . . Just a couple of days ago I found this coin in a bag of foreign coins. I have absolutely no knowledge of this coin, but I think that it very strongly resembles the OP coin.

 

It was only after studying Latin in high school that the technical side of English grammar really clicked for me.

 

Wish I went to your high school....

 

BJBII,

Your coin is a Japanese Kanei Tsuho coin. The mark on the reverse is Bun, indicating the Kanbun era. This coin in particular was most likely cast in Kanbun 8 / 1668 AD.

It was cast at the Kameido-mura mint, Edo (modern Tokyo), Musashi Province, Japan.

It is type 4.102 in Hartill's Early Japanese Coins.

SC

 

A wonderful site! Thanks so much . . . with your help I have now found this coin and more info. My mistake for posting this on a Chinese coin posting. But hey! Who Knew?

 

I got my first Kanei Tsuho in a group of 100 "Chinese coins". Turned out that in addition to the one Japanese there were half a dozen Vietnamese and the rest Chinese. Led me to explore new areas.

SC