Live Streaming: Great Adventure in the Wilderness-Chapter 882 - 878: The Democratic System of Animals

"I've always had a question, why do all scientific names seem to be in Latin?"

"How else would you highlight Old Fang's versatility?"

"Don't you understand the value of being proficient in eight languages? (tactically leaning back)"

"Please, just learn a little bit about biological classification and you'll know that Latin is essential."

"Five years of graduate studies will tell you that all scientific names are basically in Latin or Latinized Greek; it's an internationally accepted practice aimed at facilitating botanical communication among countries."

In the livestream, several professionals offered their explanations, which were in line with what they were saying—Bi Fang didn't use Latin names to show off, to display his multilingual abilities.

"Knowing a bit of Latin is almost an essential skill for every zoologist and botanist."

"The reason for this is that all professional species names are composed of Latin."

"Everyone knows that a plant or animal might have different names in different places; to facilitate research, scientists need a universal name, and eventually the choice was the binomial nomenclature created by biologist Linnaeus, which consists of the genus name and the specific epithet, two Latin words."

"The purpose of the genus name is to indicate the genus a plant or animal belongs to, while the specific epithet serves to describe the genus name, denoting the characteristics of the species."

"For example, the potato we commonly see, its scientific name is solanum tuberosum, where solanum indicates it's part of the nightshade family, and the specific epithet tuberosum means 'having tubers,' so this name means there's a strange kind of nightshade that has tubers underneath."

"There are also species epithets like edulis, which means 'edible,' like the ice cream bean, inga edulis, translated it means a bean that can be eaten."

"There are even epithets like deliciosa, which means 'delicious,' such as Huaxia's Actinidia deliciosa, which is the delicious kiwifruit."

"

"It feels like chanting spells in Harry Potter."

"Abracadabra, munching on a big melon!"

"Wow, so if I know its scientific name, can I decide whether it's edible or how good it tastes?"

"

"Lit!"

"I like to eat kiwifruit."

Bi Fang continued, "The reason for choosing Latin is not because the founders of biological taxonomy were Latin people, but due to some distinctive advantages of Latin, such as its infrequency of use."

Infrequent use?

That's an advantage?

Many were puzzled.

Bi Fang said with a smile, "Yes, that's an advantage. As a 'dead' language, apart from the Vatican, Latin is not the official language of any country, nor is it the mother tongue of almost anyone."

"This leads to the stability of Latin, whether in status, grammar, or even the spelling of words."

"The world's popular languages have changed many times; in ancient times, French, Italian, and Arab were popular, German had its heydays in modern times, Russian was a major language during the Cold War era, now Ugly English is most prevalent, and foreseeably, Mandarin will become hot in the future."

"

"Thumbs up for the hotness of Mandarin!"

"With mainstream languages constantly changing, Latin appears very 'neutral,' foreign to everyone, and learning one language allows understanding of many things. 'Lacking vitality' becomes an advantage at this point."

"Everyone knows that a vibrant language changes rapidly to keep up with the fast-developing social environment."

"But how can your writing ensure that it will still be understood a thousand years from now? Cough cough, of course, this change excludes Chinese characters as pictographic scripts. We'll discuss why that is later."

Bi Fang paused for a moment, then continued.

"So, for non-Chinese scripts, like Shakespeare's original texts, modern people from Central Country actually began to encounter some comprehension difficulties, and that's within less than four hundred years."

Today you name something, tomorrow the word becomes unrecognizable to everyone.

That's the real problem with most phonetic scripts, they change too fast, and within a few hundred years, they become unintelligible to later generations.

"Latin doesn't have this problem; everything about its usage is written in ancient Roman dictionaries from a thousand years ago."

"Since none of us are native Latin speakers, changing grammar or word spelling at one's will is impossible; what it was a thousand years ago, it still is now."

"Additionally, rich vocabulary is another advantage. When we learn English, if we can remember a few thousand words, we can easily pass the CET-4, but Latin has a vocabulary of up to a million words, which is more than enough to name the world's over three hundred thousand plant species."

"That's why basically everyone who studies plant and animal taxonomy knows Latin."

"

"So that's why."

"Today was another day of learning."

"But what about Chinese? Your explanation about Chinese is still missing, Master Fang."

"Well, Chinese characters are actually more complex to explain, involving the differences between ideographic and phonetic scripts, and it goes even beyond that."

Bi Fang organized his thoughts before proceeding to elaborate.

If phonetic scripts like English become unintelligible after five to six hundred years, then Chinese characters as ideograms have a considerable advantage.

Shakespeare's texts are only four hundred years old and already present reading challenges to modern readers.

Yet for Huaxia People, such reading obstacles would have to be pushed back over three thousand years to the Book of Documents.

For foreigners who use phonetic scripts, this is nothing short of a miraculous feat.

The fundamental reason lies in the differences between phonetic and ideographic scripts.

The most typical phonetic script—English, where the sound and the writing are the same, if you can read it, you can write it.

Huaxia people in the time of the Republic of China noticed this issue: Western phonetic scripts could be written as long as they were spoken, hence, high literacy rates among citizens, while Chinese characters are not necessarily writable just because they are speakable, making it hard for ordinary people to learn.

Even intellectuals began calling for the reform, and even abolition, of Chinese characters, in favor of alphabetic writing.

This wasn't wrong, given the limitations of the era.

Phonetic scripts have many short-term benefits; they are extremely convenient for communication, exchange, and dissemination, so much so that Ancient Egypt, which also developed pictographic scripts, abandoned their nascent system under the impact of phonetic scripts and turned to join the phonetic ranks.

But phonetic scripts have drawbacks—they change too easily.

The typical example is English, which even has to be differentiated into Ugly and Central styles.

It's the same language, but due to variations in accent, in two hundred years, the spelling of some words has already begun to change distinguishably.

And this is with the help of modern printing technology that helps standardize the language; one can only imagine the rapidity of changes before that.

Conversely, the Chinese script, which originated from pictographs, doesn't have such drawbacks, because the script doesn't follow pronunciation and has become extremely stable.

In the early stages, the evolution was perhaps significant, from the simplest wall paintings to a mature writing system, the changes were very rapid. But this wasn't a change akin to phonetic transformation, it was development, from immature to mature, from complex to convenient.

After the initial development ended, the established Hanzi remained virtually unchanged for thousands of years, and it's conceivable that they won't change much in the next several thousand or even tens of thousands of years.

The descendants can absorb the wisdom of their ancestors without any barriers, one thousand years, two thousand years, three thousand years, over a span of five thousand years without any obstacles.

In contrast, those who use phonetic writing systems could only read histories that date back three to four hundred years before modern archaeological skills were developed, with some histories gradually turning into myths...

Even now, some scholars believe that the reason Huaxia is a non-religious country is somewhat related to its Hanzi writing system; revering ancestors but not gods.

In fact, not only Huaxia but also Ancient Egypt initially developed pictographic characters. Unfortunately, Egypt's writing was impacted by phonetic scripts before it matured and was entirely assimilated.

Huaxia, on the other hand, was too far removed from the phonetic systems, separated by the Caucasus and Himalayas mountains. They fiddled with their own system until they encountered the phonetic systems when their own was already mature, a fact that's undoubtedly fortuitous.

Hanzi is not merely ideographic; there's also an aspect of phonetics within it.

One reason is that Hanzi includes phono-semantic compound characters, divided into radical (shape) and phonetic parts, with the phonetic indicating the pronunciation. These characters make up 90% of commonly used Hanzi.

A second reason is the use of rebus (phonetic loan) characters, which is another phonetic phenomenon in Hanzi.

This form of phonetics is completely different from that of English, French, Russian, and other languages.

Therefore, in the true system of linguistic categorization, Hanzi isn't just a simple ideographic system. It belongs to a type of logophonetic system, which is a more advanced understanding.

Bi Fang didn't elaborate further on this.

But the stability of Hanzi is unquestionable. If Hanzi were used for the scientific names of flora and fauna, there really wouldn't be any problem.

However, the original biological classification system was built by foreigners; European languages relate to Latin to some extent, so for them, it was easier to learn, naturally leaving no room for Chinese.

Since there were not only Huaxia people in the live stream but also quite a few foreigners, Bi Fang didn't explain too clearly. Instead, he simply popularized the stability and uniqueness of Hanzi, which indeed surprised many viewers.

[Damn, Hanzi is so awesome.]

[Why would a Wilderness Survivalist streamer even research language systems?]

[Is it strange for a Wilderness Survivalist to know eight languages? Isn't that a basic Skill? (joking)]

[Single roll a 6]

[I don't know about Hanzi, but it seems powerful.]

[There might be some bragging here...]

[Well, you can't say there's been no change. Like chrysanthemums used to be flowers, and now... (dog's head)]

"I've gotten a bit off-topic, since I just meant to introduce the Harlequin Wolf, and somehow the conversation got sidetracked. I ended up talking so much without realizing."

Bi Fang scratched his temple, looking somewhat embarrassed.

After all that talk, the spotted hyenas had nearly gnawed a zebra to the bone.

Fortunately, the Harlequin Wolf was still there, so Bi Fang quickly brought the conversation back on track.

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"More often than not, both in academic circles and among the general public, the Harlequin Wolf is known as the 'African wild dog.'"

"Even this casual name isn't too far-fetched. It's actually quite fitting."

The Harlequin Wolf looks just like a "mutt." There's nothing extraordinary about its appearance; it's about the size of a Labrador, just more slender, with a shorter face and larger ears.

In the continent of Africa, filled with fierce beasts, it's hardly remarkable.

Yet this unassuming Harlequin Wolf is one of Africa's top predators.

Every hunt bears about a sixty percent chance of success, and their prey includes various species of antelopes, warthogs, and even monumental creatures like wildebeest.

"The Harlequin Wolf never hunts alone, which is extremely rare among mammalian predators. Even notoriously social animals like spotted hyenas and wolves have their solitary moments, but not the Harlequin Wolf."

"According to E.O. Wilson's evaluation, the Harlequin Wolf has the most complex social behavior of any carnivore."

"They always live in groups; the smallest consists of a pair of adult wolves and their juvenile offspring, while the largest may number as many as forty to fifty."

"In the larger groups, there is one leading female and male, who guide the entire pack and enjoy almost exclusive reproduction rights."

"The lead couple breeds once a year, with an average of 10 pups per litter, and sometimes as many as 20—that's the highest among all existing canid species, ensuring that just one breeding pair can sustain the whole pack's growth."

[Impressive, they're so prolific.]

[I'd call them champs of reproduction.]

"Pups spend the first few weeks after birth in a den, with their mother guarding nearby, while the rest of the Harlequin Wolves bring back 'takeout' for her sustenance."

"Only when the pups become able to eat meat after a month does the mother allow other members of the pack to approach because the little guys need 'takeout' too."

"When it comes to caring for the young, Harlequin Wolves are exemplars. The food brought back from the hunt goes first to the pups."

"After the pups are full, the lead couple eats, followed by the rest of the wolves."

Bi Fang's words were playful, causing the audience in front of the screen to chuckle.

"But that's not the craziest part. Believe it or not, Harlequin Wolves even have a 'democratic decision-making' process!"

[Shit, Old Fang, are you joking?]

[I'm hearing things.]

[I don't believe it.]

[How can they be so smart?]

[That's almost human-like.]

The chat erupted with disbelief; hardly anyone believed it.

Bi Fang didn't bother to explain further but instead described the behavior of the Harlequin Wolves.

"In 2017, scientists from Ugly Country, Central Country, Botswana, and Australia jointly published a paper detailing a unique behavior exhibited by Harlequin Wolf packs in the Okavango Delta of Botswana: 'sneezing' to vote."

"They observed that when Harlequin Wolves were preparing for a group hunt, they would engage in a strange ritual of sneezing one after another."

"If one of the lead couple started sneezing first, then as long as more than three others followed with a sneeze, the pack would set out on the hunt."

"But if the lead couple didn't initiate and another member of the pack sneezed first, it would take a chain reaction of at least ten before they would depart."

"The hunt would only commence with enough 'sneeze votes'; otherwise, it would be called off."