Why Chinese words didn’t "exist" until the 20th century

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Join ♣️ THE LINGUIST CLUB ♣️ to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWPmflIzM_mpBWGTVMGevxg/join It may sound crazy, but the concept of "word" is very new to Chinese speakers - in fact, even today, Chinese people don't exactly agree on what is or isn't a "word." [Timeline] [00:00] What's an English word [01:19] Why Chinese don't have "words" [02:53] Background of emergence of Chinese "words" [05:29] An experiment [07:38] Support for existence of Chinese words [References] Bai, X., Yan, G., Liversedge, S. P., Zang, C., & Rayner, K. (2008). Reading spaced and unspaced Chinese text: Evidence from eye movements. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 34(5), 1277–1287. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.34.5.1277 Duanmu, S. (1999). Stress and the Development of Disyllabic Words in Chinese. Diachronica, 16, 1-35. He, Kekang & Dakui Li. 1987. Xiandai Hanyu san qian changyong ci biao [Three thousand most commonly used words in modern Chinese]. Zhang, Liulin. (2024). What is a Chinese word? Lexical constructionalization in Chinese. Folia Linguistica. 58.10.1515/flin-2024-2023. [Images] freeicons.io: http://bit.ly/46k63YU, https://shorturl.at/S1hMD pexels.com: http://bit.ly/3GsYYe2, http://bit.ly/44wvq7x SAY HI! Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/julesytooshoes