|
 |
Chinese cannot be Latinised ! | ||
Tags: Chinese Characters | Mandarin | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| minus273 Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5765 days ago 288 posts - 346 votes  Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Ancient Greek, Tibetan | Message 25 of 77 14 July 2009 at 2:42pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Bad orthography doesn't mean that a good orthography isn't possible. Personally, I would write: Báihuàwén, yì chēngzuò yǔtǐwén, shì zhǐ yǐ mínguó guānhuà wéi jīchǔ, jīngguò jiāgōng de shūmiànyǔ. Báihuàwén-yùndòng yǐhòu, báihuàwén cái qǔdài le wényán, chéngwéi xiězuò de zhǔliú, zhìshǐ wényán zhújiàn tuìchū le lìshǐ-wǔtái. It isn't too hard to read, either. And I write a lot like this. As alphabetical writing commands a more colloquial style, a better-worded version would be: Báihuàwén (daBÁIHUÀ xie de WÉNzhang), you jiaozuo yǔtǐwén (yong yanYǓ de TǏcai xie de WÉNzhang), shi zhide yi minguo guanhua wei jichu, jingguo jiagong de shumian-yuyan. Baihuawen-yundong yihou, baihuawen cai qudai le wenyan de weizhi, cheng le xiezuo de zhuliu, shide weiyan zhujian tuichu le lishi-wutai. Note: Central Asian Dungans write enclitical particles joined to the word, a position that reflects more the phonological reality of spoken Northern Chinese. So in mock-Dungan, it would be like: Chengwei xiezuode zhuliu, zhishi wenyan zhujian tuichule lishi wutai. Without tone marks, xiezuo would be either "writing" (xiězuò) or "collaboration" (xiézuò), zhishi could be "is only, but" (zhǐshì), or "cause" (zhìshǐ). Edited by minus273 on 14 July 2009 at 2:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| gaa1gaa1 Newbie China Joined 5614 days ago 30 posts - 39 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 26 of 77 14 July 2009 at 3:02pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
The possibility mostly depends on how fast and how fluently people can understand written form without any alternative meanings, instead of considering the possibility as the writing system which matches the demand of Chinese itself, it wasn't a surprise for you to understand what I wrote(though you haven't written them out with characters), because not all the articles belong to such an easy level. Chinese language mainly consists of Monosyllabic Single Characters, instead of polysyllabic vocabularies of European languages, in daily conversation, both Chinese and Westerners communicate with each other by listening to the polysyllabic sounds, and then they can understand the meanings, and exchange the feelings, but usually, the written form of Chinese language isn't quite the same with colloquial form, the written form seems more succinctly, elegantly than colloquial form, and shorter or much shorter than European languages, too. But even so, written form can always convey its ideas. Written form contains 2 style, one is modern style, the other is classical style (Wenyan), especially the latter one must express its meanings by Chinese characters, of course, to a large extent, the former one also can't survive without characters in formal places. Japan even wanted to give up Chinese characters Kanji, but it ended up with failure for times, and korean gave up characters and just kept a little, actually it wasn't a successful action, and now korean experts repeated the importance and neccessarity of using Chinese characters. In brief, Chinese can't, & don't want to give up Chinese characters and choose Latin alphabet as standard, because it's not so hard for native Chinese, and for clever western learners. When Chinese people are reading an article, the most important way is visual reflection, not the analyzation of polysyllabic sounds. It largely means, when we see each character, we can understand what it means right away, sometimes, even without any hesitation or ambiguity. Chinese character is the best writting system which matches demands of the speciality of Chinese language, and Latin system won't be able to replace the characters in future. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| minus273 Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5765 days ago 288 posts - 346 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Ancient Greek, Tibetan | Message 27 of 77 14 July 2009 at 3:21pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
I agree with most words you are saying here. Yet, you can't put up a pile of bad orthography and claim that the Chinese don't want an alphabetic system. Only that they don't want a bad alphabetic system like yours. Edited by minus273 on 14 July 2009 at 3:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| dbh2ppa Diglot Groupie Costa Rica Joined 5688 days ago 44 posts - 74 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Italian, Japanese, Sign Language | Message 28 of 77 14 July 2009 at 9:44pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
|
it's not like it's that hard to learn how to write those characters, even less so reading them. They are pretty, convey subtlety in meaning, and are very much easier to read than pinyin (though, of course, their prettiness and easiness are a matter of opinion).
yes, in china you have to go through 10+ years of education in order to learn them, and that's a problem with the educational system, not the orthography. they can be learned in a lot less time (in some cases even 1 year or less, give the right tools and time). i really don't get people's obsession with standardizing everything... Chinese characters are (an important) part of chinese culture! which is why, i think, some chinese people react so badly when told pinyin is better than characters, it's the same as saying "my western culture makes more sense than yours". 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6894 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 29 of 77 14 July 2009 at 11:28pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Is that what you find it? Indeed?
?
??
??? An impressive series of opinions, all of which belong in the category you yourself dismiss as moot a little further up. If you read your own advice, and followed it, before preaching it to others, we might all be spared some embarrassment. I don't actually enjoy seeing someone make a fool of themself.
You are free to have your opinion, and if you feel it is supported by something in a book, you are very welcome to give a short summary of what the book has to say about it. It could be interesting and it might make some of us want to get the book and find out more about it. Dismissing the contribution of other posters by simply dangling a book title in front of their faces is just an incredibly pompous and self-righteous debating technique that, though you might wish the opposite, does nothing to support your own opinions.
Much as I hate to sound rude, this is the right question directed at the wrong person. As a tip, try a mirror. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5735 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 30 of 77 15 July 2009 at 3:15am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
|
Henke, it was rude, but I do get your point. So, sorry about appearing 'pompous', it's just that it tires me to read the same old arguments over and over again when they really have been discussed to death.
So as to '?' and '??': As dbh2ppa wrote above it takes at least a good year of study to get up to speed with characters. This is hardly a problem for city people, but it is a major one for the people in the underdeveloped country side of mainland China. The problem is that in Chinese script it is impossible to write down what you want to say unless you know the character(s) for it, even if you can say it. Now if we assume that literacy makes for a better life, be it that you can transfer knowledge, write your shopping lists, read a book for enjoyment, or just compose a love letter, it follows that not being able to write what you can say leads to something far less than perfect. In some sort of alphabet script, people are always able to write down what they can say, and, the closer the writing is to the pronounciation, they are also able to read. Now you will forgive me, I hope, if I don't write out all the chapter about that in the book, but I assure you that this is a real problem for problem even to this day. Moreover, Chinese writing would increase in flexibility, when written with an alphabet. This would give it the ability to represent dialects, transliterate foreign languages, and more. Some examples and more and better writing about that than this here can be found in this article: http://www.pinyin.info/readings/moser/chinese_characters.htm l . May I dangle webpages if they are openly accessible and not to long and actually help me to 1) make my point and 2) advance the conversation? As to '???': I'm not sure what your question here is. As others have said before, written Chinese differs from spoken Chinese. For example, single-syllable words that you couldn't use in your speech because they sound exactly like 50 other words can be perfectly represented by a unique character. Thus, if you translate all the single characters to their pinyin equivalent, the text would often be pretty unintelligible. Meaning, to write Chinese without characters, you would have to write differently than with characters. Again, though, I think this would help China and Chinese more than take away from it. I'll dangle another article by the same fine author. It's a bit longer, 14 pages, but well worth the read. The author describes some of the problems with characters that exist in China, and even goes into detail about the problems they hold for lesser educated people. Here it is: http://www.cognitive-china.org/resources/WritingontheWall.do c If you disagree with my points, as many of you do, please go and read at least these articles. I don't write this to be "pompous" or condescending, I write this because I know that what I can write here is just a very very bad summary of a few of the important points. And because I'd like people to read well-written and well-informed articles instead of *my* rants ( :P ). Lastly, here's the index and a sample chapter of the "Facts & Fantasy" book for those of you (Henke? ;) ) that might consider buying it: http://www.pinyin.info/readings/chinese_language.html . DeFrancis goes into even more details than Moser, but Moser really states the main points already (though DeFrancis also discusses the alternatives, which Moser doesn't do). Please, do yourself and me and this thread a favor and at least *skim* the 'Writing on the Wall' one: http://www.cognitive-china.org/resourc es/WritingontheWall.do c There, is that better? Can we be nice again? PS: I just read another interesting text. For those of you that share interest in this topic, check it out. It's an excerpt from the book "The Writing on the Wall: How Asian Orthography Curbs Creativity" by William C. Hannas. This chapter discusses the link between the Chinese writing and the Chinese language: http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/chinesewriting.html Edited by Pyx on 15 July 2009 at 5:28am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6894 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 31 of 77 15 July 2009 at 8:32am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
If you are tired of reading them it seems a contradiction to keep writing more of them yourself.
The question marks just show where you contradict yourself, as was clearly explained further down. It could have been "LOL" instead of question marks, but I tried to be as nice as possible. The same goes for most of your latest post. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5735 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 32 of 77 15 July 2009 at 8:58am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
|
Alright, I tried. Think what you want.
1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
