The 1999–2000 CBA season was the fifth CBA season.
122-944: Yao Ming ( Chinese : 姚明 ; born September 12, 1980) is a Chinese basketball executive and former professional player. He played for the Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) and the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Yao was selected to start for the Western Conference in the NBA All-Star Game eight times, and was named to the All-NBA Team five times. During his final season, he
244-547: A family . Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese , of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin with 66%, or around 800 million speakers, followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min ), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese ), and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese ). These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with
366-469: A nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong , diphthong , or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant , or consonant + glide ; a zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone . There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where
488-457: A subject–verb–object word order , and like many other languages of East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic–comment construction to form sentences. Chinese also has an extensive system of classifiers and measure words , another trait shared with neighboring languages such as Japanese and Korean. Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction , pronoun dropping , and
610-510: A Chinese character is the morpheme, as characters represent the smallest grammatical units with individual meanings in the Chinese language. Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. The Hanyu Da Zidian , a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including oracle bone versions. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions and
732-599: A Shanghai resident may speak both Standard Chinese and Shanghainese ; if they grew up elsewhere, they are also likely fluent in the dialect of their home region. In addition to Standard Chinese, a majority of Taiwanese people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien (also called 台語 ; 'Taiwanese' ), Hakka , or an Austronesian language . A speaker in Taiwan may mix pronunciations and vocabulary from Standard Chinese and other languages of Taiwan in everyday speech. In part due to traditional cultural ties with Guangdong , Cantonese
854-462: A central variety (i.e. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity. The Chinese government's official Chinese designation for the major branches of Chinese is 方言 ; fāngyán ; 'regional speech', whereas the more closely related varieties within these are called 地点方言 ; 地點方言 ; dìdiǎn fāngyán ; 'local speech'. Because of
976-590: A charity basketball match to raise money for underprivileged children in China. He was joined by fellow NBA stars Steve Nash , Carmelo Anthony , and Baron Davis , and Hong Kong actor Jackie Chan . After the 2008 Sichuan earthquake , Yao donated $ 2 million to relief work and created the Yao Ming Foundation to help rebuild schools destroyed in the earthquake. Yao partnered with WildAid to appear in commercials and documentaries to educate citizens on
1098-615: A compromise between the pronunciations of different regions. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language known as Guanhua , based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin. Standard Chinese is an official language of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of the four official languages of Singapore , and one of
1220-714: A corresponding increase in the number of homophones . As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary lists six words that are commonly pronounced as shí in Standard Chinese: In modern spoken Mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used as-is. The 20th century Yuen Ren Chao poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den exploits this, consisting of 92 characters all pronounced shi . As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing, with less ambiguous disyllabic compounds. Only
1342-409: A fortune cookie in China and guessed it must have been an American invention. Before Yao's first meeting with Shaquille O'Neal on January 17, 2003, O'Neal said, "Tell Yao Ming, ching chong -yang-wah-ah-soh", prompting accusations of racism. O'Neal denied that his comments were racist, and said he was only joking. Yao also said he believed O'Neal was joking, but he said a lot of Asians would not see
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#17327976804641464-664: A game. The next season , Yao played 77 games, his first full season since the 2004–05 season , and averaged 19.7 points and 9.9 rebounds, while shooting 54.8% from the field, and a career-high 86.6% from the free throw line. Despite McGrady suffering a season-ending injury in February, the Rockets finished with 53 wins and the fifth seed in the Western Conference. Facing the Portland Trail Blazers in
1586-406: A junior sports school. The following year, Yao measured 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m) and was examined by sports doctors, who predicted he would grow to 7 feet 3 inches (2.21 m). Yao first tried out for the Shanghai Sharks ' junior team of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) when he was 13 years old, and practiced ten hours a day for his acceptance. After playing with
1708-576: A millennium. The Four Commanderies of Han were established in northern Korea in the 1st century BCE but disintegrated in the following centuries. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese. Later, strong central governments modeled on Chinese institutions were established in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with Literary Chinese serving as
1830-659: A perfect 9-of-9 from the field and 2-of-2 from the free-throw line against the Lakers. Barkley made good on his bet by kissing the buttock of a donkey purchased by Smith for the occasion (Smith's "ass"). In Yao's first game in Miami on December 16, 2002, the Heat passed out 8,000 fortune cookies , an East Asian cultural stereotype . Yao was not angry with the promotion because he was not familiar with American stereotypes of Chinese. In an earlier interview in 2000, Yao said he had never seen
1952-647: A ranking of 96 points and wrote: "I am aware of all the arguments that major celebrities lending their names to wines is generally a formula for mediocrity, but... the two Cabernets are actually brilliant, and the reserve bottling ranks alongside just about anything made in Napa." Yao is one of China's most recognizable athletes, along with Liu Xiang . As of 2009, he had led Forbes ' Chinese celebrities list in income and popularity for six straight years, earning US$ 51 million ( CN¥ 357 million) in 2008. A major part of his income comes from his sponsorship deals, as he
2074-542: A secure reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty . As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate
2196-508: A similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in European languages. Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords, because their foreign origin
2318-666: A tailored degree program with mostly one-on-one lectures to avoid being a distraction on campus. Yao completed his studies in July 2018, graduating with a degree in economics after 7 years of study. In 2016, Yao opened a winery called Yao Family Wines in Napa Valley, California , which serves Cabernet Sauvignon blends and "the kind of rich-but-balanced luxury reds he'd come to enjoy in Houston steakhouses." American wine critic Robert M. Parker Jr. of The Wine Advocate gave Yao's wine
2440-631: A unified standard. The earliest examples of Old Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones dated to c. 1250 BCE , during the Late Shang . The next attested stage came from inscriptions on bronze artifacts dating to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching . Scholars have attempted to reconstruct
2562-575: A variety of Yue from a small coastal area around Taishan, Guangdong . In parts of South China, the dialect of a major city may be only marginally intelligible to its neighbors. For example, Wuzhou and Taishan are located approximately 260 km (160 mi) and 190 km (120 mi) away from Guangzhou respectively, but the Yue variety spoken in Wuzhou is more similar to the Guangzhou dialect than
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#17327976804642684-455: A win over Angola , and 25 points in a three-point win against Germany , which clinched China's place in the quarterfinals. However, China lost to Lithuania in the quarterfinals by 26 points, eliminating them from the tournament. Yao's 19 points a game were the second-highest in the Olympics, and his averages of 8.2 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game were third overall. Yao served as chair of
2806-602: Is Taishanese. Wuzhou is located directly upstream from Guangzhou on the Pearl River , whereas Taishan is to Guangzhou's southwest, with the two cities separated by several river valleys. In parts of Fujian , the speech of some neighbouring counties or villages is mutually unintelligible. Local varieties of Chinese are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely based on the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials: Proportions of first-language speakers The classification of Li Rong , which
2928-490: Is called either 华语 ; 華語 ; Huáyǔ or 汉语 ; 漢語 ; Hànyǔ ). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore, it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools. Diglossia is common among Chinese speakers. For example,
3050-603: Is often described as a 'monosyllabic' language. However, this is only partially correct. It is largely accurate when describing Old and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, around 90% of words consist of a single character that corresponds one-to-one with a morpheme , the smallest unit of meaning in a language. In modern varieties, it usually remains the case that morphemes are monosyllabic—in contrast, English has many multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free , such as 'seven', 'elephant', 'para-' and '-able'. Some of
3172-629: Is one of China's best-known athletes internationally, with sponsorships with several major companies. His rookie year in the NBA was the subject of a documentary film, The Year of the Yao , and he co-wrote, along with NBA analyst Ric Bucher , an autobiography titled Yao: A Life in Two Worlds . Known in China as the "Yao Ming Phenomenon" and in the United States as the "Ming Dynasty", Yao's success in
3294-445: Is only about an eighth as many as English. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese. A very common example used to illustrate
3416-668: Is specifically meant. However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. For example, 石 ; shí alone, and not 石头 ; 石頭 ; shítou , appears in compounds as meaning 'stone' such as 石膏 ; shígāo ; 'plaster', 石灰 ; shíhuī ; 'lime', 石窟 ; shíkū ; 'grotto', 石英 ; 'quartz', and 石油 ; shíyóu ; 'petroleum'. Although many single-syllable morphemes ( 字 ; zì ) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllable compounds known as 词 ; 詞 ; cí , which more closely resembles
3538-489: Is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. The CC-CEDICT project (2010) contains 97,404 contemporary entries including idioms, technology terms, and names of political figures, businesses, and products. The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese Dictionary (WDCD), based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84,000 entries. The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary,
3660-557: Is under contract with several major companies to endorse their products. He was signed by Nike until the end of his rookie season. When Nike decided not to renew his contract, he signed with Reebok . He also had a deal with Pepsi , and he successfully sued Coca-Cola in 2003 when they used his image on their bottles while promoting the national team. He eventually signed with Coca-Cola for the 2008 Olympics. His other deals include partnerships with Visa , Apple , Garmin , and McDonald's . On July 16, 2009, Yao bought his former club team,
3782-501: Is used as an everyday language in Hong Kong and Macau . The designation of various Chinese branches remains controversial. Some linguists and most ordinary Chinese people consider all the spoken varieties as one single language, as speakers share a common national identity and a common written form. Others instead argue that it is inappropriate to refer to major branches of Chinese such as Mandarin, Wu, and so on as "dialects" because
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3904-500: Is used in education, media, formal speech, and everyday life—though Mandarin is increasingly taught in schools due to the mainland's growing influence. Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Northern Vietnam was incorporated into the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) in 111 BCE, marking the beginning of a period of Chinese control that ran almost continuously for
4026-552: Is used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), distinguishes three further groups: Some varieties remain unclassified, including the Danzhou dialect on Hainan , Waxianghua spoken in western Hunan , and Shaozhou Tuhua spoken in northern Guangdong . Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called 普通话 ; pǔtōnghuà ) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it
4148-428: Is very complex, with a large number of consonants and vowels, but they are probably not all distinguished in any single dialect. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics. The complex relationship between spoken and written Chinese is an example of diglossia : as spoken, Chinese varieties have evolved at different rates, while
4270-753: The Qieyun rime dictionary (601 CE), and a late period in the 10th century, reflected by rhyme tables such as the Yunjing constructed by ancient Chinese philologists as a guide to the Qieyun system. These works define phonological categories but with little hint of what sounds they represent. Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese , borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence. The resulting system
4392-452: The 2001 FIBA Asian Championship , the 2003 FIBA Asian Championship , and the 2005 FIBA Asian Championship . He was also named the MVP of all three tournaments . Yao's injury at the end of the 2005–06 NBA season required a full six months of rest, threatening his participation in the 2006 FIBA World Championship . However, he recovered before the start of the tournament, and in the last game of
4514-551: The 2002 NBA draft . He reached the NBA playoffs four times, and the Rockets won the first-round series in the 2009 postseason , their first playoff series victory since 1997. In July 2011, Yao announced his retirement from professional basketball because of a series of foot and ankle injuries which forced him to miss 250 games in his last six seasons. In eight seasons with the Rockets, Yao ranks sixth among franchise leaders in total points and total rebounds, and second in total blocks. Yao
4636-499: The 2004 Athens Olympics , Yao carried the Chinese flag during the opening ceremony , which he said was a "long dream come true". He then vowed to abstain from shaving his beard for half a year unless the Chinese national team made it into the quarter-finals of the 2004 Olympics . After Yao scored 39 points in a win against New Zealand , China lost 58–83, 57–82, and 52–89 against Spain , Argentina and Italy respectively. In
4758-573: The 2005 NBA All-Star Game , and Yao broke the record previously held by Michael Jordan for most All-Star votes, with 2,558,278 total votes. The Rockets won 51 games and finished fifth in the West, and made the playoffs for the second consecutive year, where they faced the Dallas Mavericks . The Rockets won the first two games in Dallas, and Yao made 13 of 14 shots in the second game,
4880-481: The 2008 Beijing Olympics . Yao Ming was born on September 12, 1980, in Shanghai , China. He is the only child of 6-foot-7-inch (2.01 m) Yao Zhiyuan and 6-foot-3-inch (1.91 m) Fang Fengdi, both of whom were former professional basketball players. At 11 pounds (5.0 kg), Yao weighed more than twice as much as the average Chinese newborn. When Yao was nine years old, he began playing basketball and attended
5002-542: The 2008 NBA playoffs , but he did not miss the 2008 Summer Olympics at Beijing, China in August. After Yao's injury, the Rockets stretched their winning streak to 22 games, at the time the second-longest such streak in NBA history. Yao underwent a successful operation on March 3, which placed screws in his foot to strengthen the bone, and recovery time was estimated at four months. Yao's final averages in 55 games were 22.0 points, 10.8 rebounds, and 2.0 blocks
Yao Ming - Misplaced Pages Continue
5124-459: The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, "It would be the biggest loss in my career to right now." He returned to play with the Chinese national team on July 17, 2008. On August 6, Yao carried the Olympic flame into Tiananmen Square , as part of the Olympic torch relay . He also carried the Chinese flag and led his country's delegation during the opening ceremony . Yao scored the first basket of
5246-491: The Chinese Basketball Association from 2017 until his resignation in 2024 due to personal issues. After Yao announced that he would enter the 2002 NBA draft , he told one American journalist that he had been studying English for two years, and that he liked the movie Star Wars but disliked hip hop . He was sometimes accompanied during interviews in Shanghai by one of his parents, whose basketball careers were derailed by
5368-572: The Chinese diaspora . Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language . Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of a single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in
5490-533: The Korean , Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies. This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. Borrowed Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts, in
5612-710: The May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and subsequent reign of the Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan dynasties in northern China, a common speech (now called Old Mandarin ) developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital. The 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun was a dictionary that codified the rhyming conventions of new sanqu verse form in this language. Together with
5734-595: The National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but renamed it 普通话 ; 普通話 ; pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech'. The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both mainland China and Taiwan. In Hong Kong and Macau , Cantonese is the dominant spoken language due to cultural influence from Guangdong immigrants and colonial-era policies, and
5856-502: The Shanghai Sharks , which were on the verge of not being able to play the next season of the Chinese Basketball Association because of financial troubles. Yao has also participated in many charity events during his career, including the NBA's Basketball Without Borders program. In the NBA's offseason in 2003, Yao hosted a telethon, which raised US$ 300,000 to help stop the spread of SARS . In September 2007, he held an auction that raised US$ 965,000 (CN¥6.75 million), and competed in
5978-590: The next year , but lost both times to the Bayi Rockets . When Wang Zhizhi left the Bayi Rockets to become the first NBA player from China the following year , the Sharks finally won their first CBA championship. During the playoffs in his final year with Shanghai, Yao averaged 38.9 points and 20.2 rebounds a game, while shooting 76.6% from the field, and made all 21 of his shots during one game in
6100-478: The oracle bone inscriptions created during the Shang dynasty c. 1250 BCE . The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period , Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun , a rime dictionary , recorded
6222-596: The phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at
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#17327976804646344-676: The "Say No" campaign with partners African Wildlife Foundation and WildAid. On March 3, 2013, Yao attended the First Session of the 12th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference as one of its 2,200 members. He was a member of the CPPCC from 2013 to 2018. While he is involved in Chinese politics, he is not a member of the Chinese Communist Party , although he has been awarded the Proletarian Award by
6466-755: The 12-volume Hanyu Da Cidian , records more than 23,000 head Chinese characters and gives over 370,000 definitions. The 1999 revised Cihai , a multi-volume encyclopedic dictionary reference work, gives 122,836 vocabulary entry definitions under 19,485 Chinese characters, including proper names, phrases, and common zoological, geographical, sociological, scientific, and technical terms. The 2016 edition of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian , an authoritative one-volume dictionary on modern standard Chinese language as used in mainland China, has 13,000 head characters and defines 70,000 words. 1999%E2%80%932000 CBA season The season ran from November 21, 1999, to March 19, 2000. Nanjing Army Thunder and Hubei Mailyard were promoted from
6588-417: The 1966–76 Cultural Revolution , and who came to his Shanghai Sharks games on bicycles. Yao met Chinese female basketball player Ye Li when he was 17 years old. Ye was not fond of Yao at first, but finally accepted him after he gave her the team pins he had collected during the 2000 Summer Olympics . She is the only woman he has ever dated. Their relationship became public when they appeared together during
6710-403: The 2004 Olympics closing ceremony. On August 6, 2007, Yao and Ye married in a ceremony attended by close friends and family and closed to the media. On May 21, 2010, the couple's daughter Yao Qinlei (whose English name is Amy) was born in Houston, Texas. In 2004, Yao co-wrote an autobiography with ESPN sportswriter Ric Bucher , entitled Yao: A Life in Two Worlds . In the same year, he was also
6832-854: The All-Star Game since Grant Hill in 1995 . Yao finished his rookie season averaging 13.5 points and 8.2 rebounds per game, and was second in the NBA Rookie of the Year Award voting to Amar'e Stoudemire , and a unanimous pick for the NBA All-Rookie First Team selection. He was also voted the Sporting News Rookie of the Year, and won the Laureus Newcomer of the Year award. Before
6954-456: The CBA stipulated that Yao would have to return to play for the national team. They also said they would not let him go to the United States unless the Houston Rockets would take him first overall. After assurances from Team Yao that the Rockets would draft Yao with their number one pick, the CBA gave permission on the morning of the draft for Yao to play in the U.S. When the Rockets selected Yao with
7076-528: The Chinese government released new regulations that would require him and other Chinese players to turn over half of any NBA earnings to the government and China's national basketball association, including endorsements as well as salaries. When Yao decided to enter the 2002 NBA draft , a group of advisers was formed that came to be known as "Team Yao". The team consisted of Yao's negotiator, Erik Zhang; his NBA agent, Bill Duffy; his Chinese agent, Lu Hao; University of Chicago economics professor John Huizinga; and
7198-429: The Chinese social-networking site Sina Weibo . Reacting to Yao's retirement, NBA commissioner David Stern said Yao was a "bridge between Chinese and American fans" and that he had "a wonderful mixture of talent, dedication, humanitarian aspirations and a sense of humor." Shaquille O'Neal said Yao "was very agile. He could play inside, he could play outside, and if he didn't have those injuries he could've been up there in
7320-671: The Hall of Fame. In February 2017, Yao was unanimously elected as chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association . Yao had a storied career as a member of the Chinese national team. With the national team, Yao won the FIBA Asia Cup in 2001, 2003, and 2005, winning MVP of the tournament all three times. He also made the All-Tournament Team at the FIBA World Cup in 2002. Yao retired from the Chinese national team after
7442-565: The Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet . English words of Chinese origin include tea from Hokkien 茶 ( tê ), dim sum from Cantonese 點心 ( dim2 sam1 ), and kumquat from Cantonese 金橘 ( gam1 gwat1 ). The sinologist Jerry Norman has estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. These varieties form a dialect continuum , in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though
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#17327976804647564-564: The NBA, and Charles Barkley said he would "kiss Kenny Smith 's ass" if Yao scored more than 19 points in one of his rookie-season games. Yao played his first NBA game against the Indiana Pacers , scoring no points and grabbing two rebounds, and scored his first NBA basket against the Denver Nuggets . In his first seven games, he averaged only 14 minutes and 4 points, but on November 17, he scored 20 points on
7686-399: The NBA, and his popularity among fans, made him a symbol of a new China that was both more modern and more confident. Yao is also an entrepreneur and owner of Yao Family Wines in Napa Valley, California . In April 2016, Yao was elected into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame , alongside Shaquille O'Neal and Allen Iverson , becoming the first Chinese national to be inducted into
7808-433: The Rockets signed former Sacramento Kings coach Rick Adelman , who was thought to focus more on offense than the defensive-minded Van Gundy. On November 9, 2007, Yao played against fellow Chinese NBA and Milwaukee Bucks player Yi Jianlian for the first time. The game, which the Rockets won 104–88, was broadcast on 19 networks in China, and was watched by over 200 million people in China alone, making it one of
7930-408: The Rockets to a 100–92 win in Los Angeles. However, the Rockets lost their next two games, and Yao was diagnosed with a sprained ankle after Game 3. A follow-up test revealed a hairline fracture in his left foot, and he was ruled out for the remainder of the playoffs. In reaction, Yao said the injury, which did not require surgery, was "better than last year". However, follow-up analysis indicated that
8052-424: The Second Division. Vanguard from the Second Division was merged with Beijing Olympians and the club was known as Vanguard Beijing Olympians for the next several seasons. The top 8 teams in the regular season advanced to the playoffs. In the Final series, Bayi Rockets defeated Shanghai Sharks (3-0), and claimed its 5th straight CBA championship. Teams in bold advanced to the next round. The numbers to
8174-410: The best shooting performance in the playoffs in Rockets history. However, the Rockets lost four of their last five games and lost Game 7 by 40 points, the largest Game 7 deficit in NBA history. Yao's final averages for the series were 21.4 points on 65% shooting and 7.7 rebounds. After missing only two games out of 246 in his first three years of NBA play, Yao endured an extended period on
8296-399: The different spoken dialects varies, but in general, there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more polysyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which
8418-484: The difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. These include topolect , lect , vernacular , regional , and variety . Syllables in the Chinese languages have some unique characteristics. They are tightly related to the morphology and also to the characters of the writing system, and phonologically they are structured according to fixed rules. The structure of each syllable consists of
8540-464: The end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection , and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles . Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui , Tang , and Song dynasties (6th–10th centuries CE). It can be divided into an early period, reflected by
8662-404: The exception, and used approximately $ 5.7 million on free agent Trevor Ariza . After weeks of consulting, it was decided that Yao would undergo surgery in order to repair the broken bone in his left foot. He did not play the entire 2009–10 season . For the 2010–11 season , the Rockets said they would limit Yao to 24 minutes a game, with no plan to play him on back-to-back nights. Their goal
8784-458: The field and 87.8% at the free-throw line. His final averages in 57 games were 22.3 points and 10.2 rebounds per game. It was the first time that he ended the season with a so-called "20/10" average. However, Tracy McGrady played only 47 games in the season, missing time because of back spasms. Yao and McGrady played only 31 games together, and the Rockets did not make the playoffs, winning only 34 games. With only four games left in
8906-483: The final group game, however, a 67–66 win over the reigning 2002 FIBA World Champions Serbia and Montenegro moved them into the quarterfinals. Yao scored 27 points and had 13 rebounds, and he hit two free throws with 28 seconds left that proved to be the winning margin. He averaged 20.7 points and 9.3 rebounds per game while shooting 55.9% from the field. Yao led the Chinese national team to three consecutive FIBA Asia Cup gold medals, winning
9028-483: The finals. Yao was pressured to enter the NBA draft in 1999 by Li Yaomin, the deputy general manager of the Shanghai Sharks. Li also influenced Yao to sign a contract for Evergreen Sports Inc. to serve as his agent. The agreement entitled Evergreen to 33% of Yao's earnings, but the contract was later determined to be invalid. As American attention on Yao grew, Chinese authorities also took interest. In 2002,
9150-413: The first one, 十 , normally appears in monosyllabic form in spoken Mandarin; the rest are normally used in the polysyllabic forms of respectively. In each, the homophone was disambiguated by the addition of another morpheme, typically either a near-synonym or some sort of generic word (e.g. 'head', 'thing'), the purpose of which is to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable
9272-415: The first pick of the draft, he became the first international player ever to be selected first overall without having previously played U.S. college basketball . Yao did not participate in the Rockets' pre-season training camp, instead playing for China in the 2002 FIBA World Championships . Before the season, several commentators, including Bill Simmons and Dick Vitale , predicted that Yao would fail in
9394-466: The first round, Yao finished with 24 points on 9-of-9 shooting in the first game, and the Rockets won 108–81, in Portland. The Rockets won all their games in Houston, and advanced to the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 1997, and the first time in Yao's career. The Rockets faced the Lakers in the second round, and Yao scored 28 points, with 8 points in the final four minutes, to lead
9516-491: The form of a word), to indicate a word's function within a sentence. In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical inflections —it possesses no tenses , no voices , no grammatical number , and only a few articles . They make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood . In Mandarin, this involves the use of particles such as 了 ; le ; ' PFV ', 还 ; 還 ; hái ; 'still', and 已经 ; 已經 ; yǐjīng ; 'already'. Chinese has
9638-582: The fourth quarter. Although he averaged 25.1 points and 10.3 rebounds for the series, Yao said afterwards "I didn't do my job". At the end of the season, Yao was selected to the All-NBA Second Team for the first time in his career, after being selected to the All-NBA Third Team twice. On May 18, 2007, only weeks after the Rockets were eliminated from the playoffs, Jeff Van Gundy was dismissed as head coach. Three days later,
9760-533: The game, a three-pointer , in China's opening 2008 Olympics Basketball Tournament game against the eventual gold medal-winning United States . "I was just really happy to make that shot", Yao said after the Americans' 101–70 victory. "It was the first score in our Olympic campaign here at home and I'll always remember it. It represents that we can keep our heads up in the face of really tough odds." Following an overtime defeat to Spain , Yao scored 30 points in
9882-528: The game, but Yao was not in Los Angeles because of his rehabilitation schedule after his surgery. Yao's contract with the Rockets expired at the end of the season, and he became a free agent. On July 20, 2011, Yao announced his retirement from basketball in a press conference in Shanghai. He cited injuries to his foot and ankle, including the third fracture to his left foot sustained near the end of 2010. His retirement sparked over 1.2 million comments on
10004-618: The government of the People's Republic of China, with Singapore officially adopting them in 1976. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among Chinese-speaking communities overseas . Linguists classify all varieties of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family , together with Burmese , Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif . Although
10126-519: The harmful effects of shark fin soup on shark species. From 2011 to 2018, consumption of shark fin soup dropped by 70% in China. In August 2012, Yao started filming a documentary about the northern white rhinoceros . He is also an ambassador for elephant conservation . In 2014, he was also part of the documentary The End of the Wild about elephant conservation. Yao has filmed a number of public service announcements for elephant and rhino conservation for
10248-462: The humor. In the game, Yao scored the Rockets' first six points of the game and blocked O'Neal twice in the opening minutes as well as altering two other shots by O'Neal, all 4 of those attempts coming right at the rim, and made a game-sealing dunk with 10 seconds left in overtime. Yao finished with 10 points, 10 rebounds, and 6 blocks; O'Neal recorded 31 points, 13 rebounds, and 0 blocks. O'Neal later expressed regret for
10370-458: The inactive list in his fourth season after developing osteomyelitis in the big toe on his left foot, and surgery was performed on the toe on December 18, 2005. Despite missing 21 games while recovering, Yao again had the most fan votes to start the 2006 NBA All-Star Game . In 25 games after the All-Star break, Yao averaged 25.7 points and 11.6 rebounds per game, while shooting 53.7% from
10492-476: The injury could be career threatening. The Yao-less Rockets went on to win Game 4 against the Lakers to even the series 2–2. The Rockets eventually lost the series in seven games. In July 2009, Yao discussed the injury with his doctors, and the Rockets applied for a disabled player exception, an exception to the NBA salary cap which grants the injured player's team money to sign a free agent. The Rockets were granted
10614-400: The junior team for four years, Yao joined the Sharks' senior team, where he averaged 10 points and 8 rebounds a game in his rookie season . His next season was cut short when he broke his foot for the second time in his career, which Yao said decreased his jumping ability by four to six inches (10 to 15 cm). The Sharks made the finals of the CBA in Yao's third season and again
10736-586: The language of administration and scholarship, a position it would retain until the late 19th century in Korea and (to a lesser extent) Japan, and the early 20th century in Vietnam. Scholars from different lands could communicate, albeit only in writing, using Literary Chinese. Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud using what are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations . Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into
10858-528: The late 19th century. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters called kanji , and kana. Korean is written exclusively with hangul in North Korea, although knowledge of the supplementary Chinese characters called hanja is still required, and hanja are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. As a result of its historical colonization by France, Vietnamese now uses
10980-417: The left of each team indicate the team's seeding in regular season, and the numbers to the right indicate the number of games the team won in that round. Home court advantage belongs to the team with the better regular season record; teams enjoying the home advantage are shown in italics. The bottom 4 teams played the relegation round by round-robin. Nanjing Army Thunder and Hubei Mailyard were relegated to
11102-455: The more conservative modern varieties, usually found in the south, have largely monosyllabic words , especially with basic vocabulary. However, most nouns, adjectives, and verbs in modern Mandarin are disyllabic. A significant cause of this is phonetic erosion : sound changes over time have steadily reduced the number of possible syllables in the language's inventory. In modern Mandarin, there are only around 1,200 possible syllables, including
11224-423: The most-watched NBA games in history. In the 2008 NBA All-Star Game , Yao was once again voted to start at center for the Western Conference. Before the All-Star weekend, the Rockets had won eight straight games, and after the break, they took their win streak to 12 games. On February 26, 2008, however, it was reported that Yao would miss the rest of the season with a stress fracture in his left foot. He missed
11346-425: The mutual unintelligibility between them is too great. However, calling major Chinese branches "languages" would also be wrong under the same criterion, since a branch such as Wu, itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, and could not be properly called a single language. There are also viewpoints pointing out that linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with
11468-583: The nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. In Mandarin much more than in other spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda (assuming that a final glide is not analyzed as a coda), but syllables that do have codas are restricted to nasals /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ , and voiceless stops /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , or /ʔ/ . Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only /n/ , /ŋ/ , and /ɻ/ . The number of sounds in
11590-538: The other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Southern Min). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwestern Mandarin , Xuanzhou Wu Chinese with Lower Yangtze Mandarin , Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan . All varieties of Chinese are tonal at least to some degree, and are largely analytic . The earliest attested written Chinese consists of
11712-502: The party for his spreading of literacy and socialist ideologies. Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing') is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China , as well as by various communities of
11834-488: The preliminary round, he had 36 points and 10 rebounds in a win against Slovenia to lead China into the Round of 16 . In the first knockout round, however, China was defeated by eventual finalist Greece . Yao's final averages were 25.3 points, the most in the tournament , and 9.0 rebounds a game, which was fourth overall. After having surgery to repair his fractured foot, Yao stated if he could not play in
11956-601: The process would be restarted. On September 9, 2016, Yao was inducted into the Hall of Fame along with 4-time NBA champion Shaquille O'Neal and Allen Iverson . Continuing with the honors, on February 3, 2017, Yao's Number 11 jersey was retired by the Houston Rockets. Yao first played for China in the 2000 Summer Olympics , and he was dubbed, together with 7 ft (2.1 m) teammates Wang Zhizhi and Mengke Bateer , "the Walking Great Wall". During
12078-404: The rate of change varies immensely. Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain . Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects were spoken. Specifically, most Chinese immigrants to North America until the mid-20th century spoke Taishanese ,
12200-552: The related subject dropping . Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences. The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 50,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are in use and only about 3,000 are frequently used in Chinese media and newspapers. However, Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. Because most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters, there are many more Chinese words than characters. A more accurate equivalent for
12322-509: The relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic . Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach and are often also sensitive border zones. Without
12444-539: The season, Yao suffered another injury in a game against the Utah Jazz on April 10, 2006, which left him with a broken bone in his left foot. The injury required six months of rest. Early into his fifth season, Yao was injured again, this time breaking his right knee on December 23, 2006, while attempting to block a shot. Up to that point he had been averaging 26.8 points, 9.7 rebounds and 2.3 blocks per game, and had been mentioned as an MVP candidate. Yao
12566-517: The six official languages of the United Nations . Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and was first officially adopted in the 1930s. The language is written primarily using a logography of Chinese characters , largely shared by readers who may otherwise speak mutually unintelligible varieties. Since the 1950s, the use of simplified characters has been promoted by
12688-561: The slightly later Menggu Ziyun , this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects. Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety. Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as 官话 ; 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'language of officials'. For most of this period, this language
12810-494: The start of Yao's sophomore season, Rockets' head coach Rudy Tomjanovich resigned because of health issues, and long-time New York Knicks head coach Jeff Van Gundy was brought in. After Van Gundy began focusing the offense on Yao, Yao averaged career highs in points and rebounds for the season, and had a career-high 41 points and 7 assists in a triple-overtime win against the Atlanta Hawks in February 2004. He
12932-463: The subject of a documentary film, The Year of the Yao , which focuses on his NBA rookie year. The film is narrated by his friend and interpreter, Colin Pine. In 2005, former Newsweek writer Brook Larmer published a book entitled Operation Yao Ming , in which he said that Yao's parents were convinced to marry each other so that they would produce a dominant athlete, and that during Yao's childhood, he
13054-541: The summer of 2004, the Rockets acquired Tracy McGrady from the Orlando Magic in a seven-player trade that also sent Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley to Orlando. Although Yao said that Francis and Mobley had "helped [him] in every way [his] first two seasons", he added, "I'm excited about playing with Tracy McGrady. He can do some amazing things." After the trade, it was predicted that the Rockets would be title contenders. Both McGrady and Yao were voted to start in
13176-623: The tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still a largely monosyllabic language), and over 8,000 in English. Most modern varieties tend to form new words through polysyllabic compounds . In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic formed from different characters without the use of compounding, as in 窟窿 ; kūlong from 孔 ; kǒng ; this is especially common in Jin varieties. This phonological collapse has led to
13298-478: The top five centers to ever play the game." Yao was nominated by a member of the Chinese media for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor to the game. He would have been eligible for induction as early as 2012, but Yao felt it was too soon and requested that the Hall of Fame delay consideration of the nomination. The Hall granted Yao's request, and said it was Yao's decision when
13420-547: The traditional Western notion of a word. A Chinese cí can consist of more than one character–morpheme, usually two, but there can be three or more. Examples of Chinese words of more than two syllables include 汉堡包 ; 漢堡包 ; hànbǎobāo ; 'hamburger', 守门员 ; 守門員 ; shǒuményuán ; 'goalkeeper', and 电子邮件 ; 電子郵件 ; diànzǐyóujiàn ; 'e-mail'. All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages : they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure), rather than inflectional morphology (changes in
13542-512: The use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese, along with the neutral tone, to the syllable ma . The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: In contrast, Standard Cantonese has six tones. Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered to be " checked tones " and thus counted separately for a total of nine tones. However, they are considered to be duplicates in modern linguistics and are no longer counted as such: Chinese
13664-417: The vice president for marketing at BDA Sports Management, Bill Sanders. Yao was widely predicted to be picked number one overall. However, some teams were concerned about Yao's NBA eligibility because of uncertainty over whether the CBA would let Yao play in the United States. Shortly after Wang Zhizhi refused to return to China to play for the national team and was subsequently banned from playing for China,
13786-416: The way he treated Yao early in his career. The NBA began offering All-Star ballots in three languages—English, Spanish and Chinese—for fan voting of the starters for the 2003 NBA All-Star Game . Yao was voted to start for the West over O'Neal, who was coming off three consecutive NBA Finals MVP Awards . Yao received nearly a quarter million more votes than O'Neal, and he became the first rookie to start in
13908-452: The words in newspapers, and 60% of the words in science magazines. Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, initially based on Chinese characters , but later replaced with the hangul alphabet for Korean and supplemented with kana syllabaries for Japanese, while Vietnamese continued to be written with the complex chữ Nôm script. However, these were limited to popular literature until
14030-517: The written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese . Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period . Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with
14152-453: Was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court. In the 1930s, a standard national language ( 国语 ; 國語 ; Guóyǔ ), was adopted. After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation,
14274-553: Was also voted to be the starting center for the Western Conference in the 2004 NBA All-Star Game for the second straight year. Yao finished the season averaging 17.5 points and 9.0 rebounds a game. The Rockets made the playoffs for the first time in Yao's career, claiming the seventh seed in the Western Conference. In the first round, however, the Los Angeles Lakers eliminated Houston in five games. Yao averaged 15.0 points and 7.4 rebounds in his first playoff series. In
14396-495: Was given special treatment to help him become a great basketball player. In a 2015 AMA post on Reddit , Yao stated that this was not true and that he started playing basketball for fun at age 9. In 2009, Yao provided the voice for a character of a Chinese animated film, The Magic Aster , released on June 19. Yao enrolled at the Antai College of Economics & Management of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2011. He took
14518-485: Was hidden by their written form. Often different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes the final choice differed between countries. The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language. For example, in Japan, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines, over half
14640-400: Was the tallest active player in the NBA , at 7 feet 6 inches (2.29 m). Yao, who was born in Shanghai , started playing for the Sharks as a teenager, and played on their senior team for five years in the CBA, winning a championship in his final year. After negotiating with the CBA and the Sharks to secure his release, Yao was selected by the Rockets as the first overall pick in
14762-441: Was to keep Yao healthy in the long term. On December 16, 2010, it was announced that Yao had developed a stress fracture in his left ankle, related to an older injury, and would miss the rest of the season. In January 2011, he was voted as the Western Conference starting center for the 2011 All-Star Game for the eighth time in nine seasons. Injured All-Stars are usually required to attend the All-Star functions and to be introduced at
14884-534: Was unable to play in what would have been his fifth All-Star game; he was medically cleared to play on March 4, 2007, after missing 32 games. Despite Yao's absence, the Rockets made the playoffs with the home court advantage against the Utah Jazz in the first round. The Rockets won the first two games, but then lost four of five games and were eliminated in Game ;7 at home; Yao scored 29 points—15 in
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