JSCh
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惡 does not equal evil in english like I have explained. The concept of evil is associated with a religion that is alien to Chinese. And I think even many Chinese today, would not understand evil in that context, because there is no such word that carry that meaning in Chinese language.No, we don’t care about the concept of redemption when we say “evil”
惡. And I don’t think many western people cared about the notion of redemption either when they talk about “evil”, unless they are religious or have some life philosophy. So I’m not sure why you would mention the concept of redemption here. Some of us believe in that, some don’t, its not an essential concept for our word ac (惡) or evil.
For us Vietnamese, we use evil ac
惡 to differentiate it from “bad” in terms of degree and intensity. Meaning,
惡 or ac convey a much more deeper and darker notion of badness. I think its also similar in English.
A little kid stealing candies from a store would be considered as “bad” and we do have indigenous words for that like khong tot or sau. But we can’t describe that as ac 惡 because
惡 is only reserved for something extremely bad like murder and torture, just like the word “evil” will be used in English. And in Vietnamese, we do not have the indigenous equivalent word for this extreme badness or “evil”.
So my question remain, according to your friend’s reasoning, does it mean that my Vietnamese ancestors did not know any concept of extreme evil until we have met your han Chinese ancestor and learnt it from them?
Therefore it is possible that without knowing a word would mean ignorant of the idea associated with the word.
Just like ancient people did not know the word "blue", therefore it is possible that they do not actually "see" the color blue.
Since degree of badness that is more than misdemeanor is common in most human culture, I would think that the possibility that your ancestor know would be pretty large. And I find it very hard to believe that ancient Vietnamese do not have such a word. It seem illogical to have a commonly known concept and yet do not have a word to communicate it.
Therefore it is more likely that since the concept "bad" is not a NEW concept to ancient Vietnamese, then they use the word "bad" in Vietnamese to describe all degree of badness. Or they use some kind of quantifier like "very bad" to differentiate degree.
Like in Chinese, the word "坏" is used as generally bad. Commonly used to describe inanimate object and sometimes man. But the word 惡 would be used exclusively for animate being including man. Chinese would say 好与坏 (good and bad) and 善与惡 (kind/virtuous/good and bad/evil). See the difference between 坏 and 惡?
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