How These Rumors Get Started...

On a balmy afternoon by the banks of the River Ganga, the intrepid Tibetan scholar Sri Tompa sits with his youngest disciple Dhoti, discussing metaphysics while they idly toss lotus petals to the peacocks...

Dhoti: Master, I have heard the Chinese have over a hundred thousand characters!

Sri Tompa: This is true. The precise number is one hundred thousand four hundred seventeen, but a few of them are somewhat rare. It is said that a learned man need have working knowledge of no more than ninety or ninety five thousand to make himself understood.

Dhoti: Ah, then Chinese must be a language of rich and subtle nuance!

Sri Tompa: Indeed it is. As I was telling Dixie Evans just the other day, the Chinese have no less than six different ways of saying feathered streamer!

Dhoti: Ah, they must be a remarkable people indeed! Pray tell, Master, what are the six ways?

Sri Tompa: They are:

*  *  *  *  *  *
Of course, as the sage Tom Lehrer once sang, "there may be many others but they haven't been discovered."

Dhoti: And speaking of music, Master, are not The Turtles a rock band?

Sri Tompa: Indeed young Grasshopper, and the Chinese have handed down no less than eight ways to say turtle for any conceivable occasion...  Comme çi:

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * 

Dhoti: Ah, so there is one turtle for each convolution of the Eight-Fold Path!

Sri Tompa: Ah, but I said no less than eight ways, and showed you actually thirteen. Aside from which, one cannot leave out the aforementioned rock band, comme  ça:

For a grand total of thirteen. So you see Dhoti, as always, the inscrutable ancient Chinese have even anticipated the flow of future events!

Dhoti: Now it seems as if you might be pulling my limbs here. Are you not really giving me the business, Master?

Sri Tompa: The business, young Dhoti? Certainly not. If I were giving you the business I should pack your lunch box with no less than a baker's dozen of fine characters:

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Dhoti: This sounds very complex indeed, to a disciple of little brain such as I. Could you clarify for me, Master: in what way does this complicated situation differ from chaos?

Sri Tompa: Need you ask such a question, my young friend?  Chaos is merely chaos, but order is unquestionably order, as exemplified by this astonishing collection of squiggles:

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * 
Of course as you know, nothing in this world of shadows is static, and here is a fine illustration of increasing universal entropy in action. Most of these began as ways of saying Order, but over the millennia the filter of time has polarized them like photons in the wind, until they have become homogeneously aligned into fourteen ways of saying Chaos. A myopic examination of the last character at arm's length will leave no doubt in your mind that Order, Chaos, and Love are indistinguishable.

Dhoti: Oh, Master, your humor simply slays me!

Sri Tompa: Ah, but speaking of slaying, young Dhoti, it so happens that such a variegated concept as slayte has also been given its heaping dollop of words in the Chinese language, to wit:

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
As even you can see, that collection alone contains enough characters to write many a lesser language, and of course the indubitable superiority of Chinese is thrown into spectacular relief by contrast!

Dhoti: Indeed, Master, that is a monstrous collection of killing!

Sri Tompa: Monstrous, young Dhoti? It's hardly as monstrous as the malevolent freakish mountain monster, like a dragon, but with one foot, horns, hands, and a man's face... to wit:

*  *  *  *  *  *
None of which, of course, should be confused with:
* *

Dhoti: The subtlety of the ancient Chinese truly boggles my simple mind! But Master, should we, too, not be trying to gather characters, so that we can keep up with the Chinese?

Sri Tompa: An excellent question, Grasshopper.  Let this be today's homework puzzler: The Chinese have been collecting characters for five thousand years, give or take a week, so they are well ahead of us in this game. Calculate their yearly rate of new-character discovery. And knowing that, tell me how many characters would we have to discover per day if we wanted to catch them up by the year 3001 in time for the next millennium?

Dhoti: That depends, doesn't it Master, on whether each is required to mean something?

Sri Tompa: Ah, Dhoti, Dhoti, will you never learn? Why must you always seek the quick solution?

Quod Erat Defenestrandum

(Rock-Turtle.jpg glyph courtesy of Richard S. Cook)