Join ♣️ THE LINGUIST CLUB ♣️ to get access to perks: 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. 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. [Images] : , : , SAY HI! Instagram: