Riding the wind of rebirth

Zhou Zhi laughed and said, "I actually have a bolder idea now, which is that we keep our heads down and run hard, and one day we look up and find that we are far ahead, and everyone else has fallen behind."

“This kind of thinking is still unacceptable.” Mai Mingdong laughed: “It’s not a bad thing for young people to be bold, decisive and confident. I admit that you have already achieved great success, but you must not get arrogant.”

"Because the heavy responsibility of history has gradually shifted to your shoulders. Even if you have outrun others, you still need to compete with yourself and maintain your speed."

“Yes, have lofty aspirations, keep your feet on the ground, and be as if you are standing on the edge of an abyss or walking on thin ice.” Zhou Zhi quickly picked up his cup: “I’m just encouraging myself and Xiao Miao.”

"We can't let Professor Gu's project progress fall behind." After everyone had another drink, Mai Mingdong finally spoke his mind: "Is the project difficult? It seems to be related to information engineering. If so, could you be the client and only be responsible for project planning and overall scheme? As for the specific implementation and coding, you can form a team and let them do it."

"Actually, that's what we're doing now," Zhou Zhi said with a smile. "The progress is going well, so please don't worry, it won't be delayed. However, some new ideas have emerged during the research and development process, and I plan to incorporate them into the project, which may require some of the previous work to be redone."

"Oh? What kind of idea is it? Do I understand?"

“You’ll definitely understand,” Zhou Zhi said with a smile. “Didn’t my master’s thesis involve creating a specimen bank of dialect phonology?”

"The current doctoral research aims to reconstruct the structure of Middle Chinese based on this specimen library. In other words, it aims to reconstruct how Tang poetry was actually read in the era in which it was created."

"Is this difficult?"

“Difficult, extremely difficult,” Zhou Zhi said. “This field of study actually began in the Song and Ming dynasties, became popular in the Qing dynasty as ‘elementary learning,’ and then modern masters introduced modern linguistics and phonetics research tools to continue the research. It has been studied for almost a thousand years, but to say that it has been studied thoroughly is still not entirely accurate.”

"Are your humanities topics this frustrating? You've been researching them for nearly a thousand years and still haven't figured them out?" Mai Mingdong asked in surprise.

"Of course, there are many reasons involved here," Zhou Zhi said with a smile. "The biggest reason is that language is recorded in writing, which naturally results in the loss of some informational elements."

“Yes, sound elements.” Mai Mingdong could completely understand this, after all, informatics is one of the compulsory courses in information engineering, and the modulation, transmission, loss, verification, and recovery of information are also the objects of research in information engineering.

Although computer information technology is only a branch of information technology, just like literature and history are inseparable, it would be a joke if the dean of the computer science department did not understand information engineering.

“Yes, without a sound medium, language recorded solely in writing lacks a dimension,” Zhou Zhi said. “My current research project is to use existing information dimensions to reconstruct that dimension that has been lost in the long river of history.”

“That’s indeed incredibly difficult,” Mai Mingdong said. “It’s like an ant crawling forward. In its understanding, the ground is flat. If it doesn’t turn around and keep crawling, it’s certain it will never return to its starting point.” “That’s exactly it. Its world is two-dimensional; it can’t comprehend three-dimensional space. It’s hard for it to realize that the ground it’s crawling on might be a giant sphere. From the perspective of the sphere’s three-dimensional space, if this ant keeps crawling, it can definitely return to its starting point. That’s the difference between dimensions.”

“Then we need a method, or a frame of reference, so that even if we can use some models and methods to calculate that the two-dimensional plane we are on is actually a three-dimensional plane.” Mai Mingdong nodded: “Is your dialect phonology specimen library such a frame of reference? After all, they are all passed down from ancient times and have been passed down to today. But they are still sounds. There may be some ancient language remnants in them. They are things that have been passed down and changed from that missing dimension. At least it is a foundation that can be used as a reference.”

"The idea is absolutely correct! Just like North American English and British English, even words with the exact same phonetic symbols will have obvious changes in sound."

"What Mr. Gu wants me to do now is to completely restore the pronunciation of British English, based on the current phonetic symbols and audible pronunciations of North American English, combined with the phonological rules of Shakespeare's plays, Byron's and Shelley's poetry, in the case of the complete loss of British English." Zhou Zhi couldn't help but give a thumbs up: "Talking about this with you is so effortless, unlike the three little ones, I have to explain for so long."

"This specimen collection is my superior weapon that surpasses those of my predecessors. Even if they have been studying it for nearly a thousand years and still haven't fully understood it, I feel quite confident."

"Oh? Why does this specimen collection give you so much confidence?"

“In ancient times, transportation was inconvenient, and many people never heard a second dialect in their entire lives, including many renowned phonologists,” Zhou Zhi said. “If we study them more carefully, we will find that many accomplished phonologists rely more on their own dialects and combine them with the phonological knowledge recorded in ancient texts to carry out their research on Middle Chinese phonology. Their achievements are often closely related to the amount of ancient remnants in their dialects.”

"Because they lack a comprehensive understanding and mastery of the sounds and rhymes of Chinese dialects, they have limitations, and very serious limitations," Zhou Zhi said. "It is an indisputable fact that someone who has only ever heard Beijing dialect in their entire life cannot imagine the nine tones and six registers of Cantonese out of thin air."

"Of course, modern science has some methods to algorithmically deduce ancient tones. For example, the six tones can be divided into levels based on the frequency changes of the initial tone in the four tones of modern Mandarin. Then, some combinations can be obtained, and the more reasonable combinations can be selected and applied to ancient theories for verification. Finally, the largest 'reasonable set' can be obtained."

"Many scholars, including modern scholars, have adopted this approach. The advantage of this approach is that it allows one to conduct this research without leaving home, focusing more on logic and reasoning while neglecting the collection of empirical evidence."

"There was nothing they could do about it, because given the conditions they faced back then, this was the only way they could pursue their studies; there was no other way."

"However, there are too many problems with doing this, because we all know that the correct result of logic depends on two factors. The rigor and scientific nature of the derivation method is certainly one, but more importantly, the preconditions must be sufficient to meet the needs of the reasoning."

"If the preconditions themselves are not sufficient, the more correct the derivation method is, the more absurd and ridiculous the result will be."

“There’s an ancient story about this,” Mai Xiaomiao said with a smile. “The story of Bo Le’s son judging horses illustrates this point very well. Logic was already well understood by the Chinese in ancient times.”

"What story? I don't think I've ever heard it before?" The Chinese stories Mai Xiaomiao knew were definitely told to her by Zhou Zhi, but this was enough to make Mai Mingdong look at his beloved granddaughter with new respect. (End of Chapter)