Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

The end of Hanzi/Kanji?

  Tags: Hanzi | Kanji | Writing System
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages Post Reply
66 messages over 9 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 8 9 Next >>
Lucky Charms
Diglot
Senior Member
Japan
lapacifica.net
Joined 6950 days ago
752 posts - 1711 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: German, Spanish

 
 Message 57 of 66
17 November 2010 at 4:00am | IP Logged 
Gusutafu wrote:
Lucky Charms wrote:
[QUOTE=chucknorrisman]
I wasn't talking about atejis or a new system. I was thinking about making new characters. For example, instead of writing アニメ for "anime", a new kanji that will just take up one spot (and look nicer) will be invented instead, from semantic or phonetic compounds.
/QUOTE]

I don't think that would be practical for foreign loanwords in Japanese. One reason is that since loanwords like アニメ are multisyllabic, how can one single character contain all the necessary phonetic components?


No problem at all, kun-readings of almost all characters are already multisyllabic. Why do you think that it would be harder to say that character X is to be read "anime" than to say that character 承(る) uketamawa(ru)?

If you're still not convinced, there are already a few examples of non-chinese loanwords written with single kanjis.


Yes, I agree that multisyllabic loanwords can be easily represented SEMANTICALLY by Chinese characters. But chucknorrisman's post was suggesting that foreign loanwords be represented semantically AND phonetically by a single character! What phonetic radical(s) would you put on 承 so that anyone can look at it and understand that it's pronounced 'uketamawa(ru)'?

It seems like with multisyllabic loanwards, we have to choose either one or the other: semantic representation, or phonetic representation, but trying to cram in both would result in something too unwieldy.

By the way, I'm not sure whether semantic based representations or phonetic representations for loanwords are preferable for Chinese, but personally I'm rather fond of the semantic-based ones like 篮球 (literally, basket + ball) which take on a life of their own rather than attempting to imitate foreign pronunciation.
1 person has voted this message useful



Bao
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5
Joined 5767 days ago
2256 posts - 4046 votes 
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin

 
 Message 58 of 66
17 November 2010 at 4:17am | IP Logged 
CheeseInsider wrote:
Also I would like to contest that there is no NEED for characters. My friend from the mainland and I communicate to each other using only Han Yu Pin Yin. And we don't even write the words with tones. Like this: "Ni hao ma?" And we expect each other to understand everything that is said based on the context. And so far, we've never had any trouble understanding each other.

Do you have scientific discussions? Do you write love poems? Do you write about current political affairs and historical ones?
Just wondering.

Edited by Bao on 17 November 2010 at 4:18am
2 persons have voted this message useful



furrykef
Senior Member
United States
furrykef.com/
Joined 6473 days ago
681 posts - 862 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian

 
 Message 59 of 66
17 November 2010 at 5:51am | IP Logged 
Sorry, I somehow missed this post earlier.
OneEye wrote:
The reason pinyin is a poor choice for written Chinese has already been discussed. For Mandarin, yes, it would work. But people don't write Mandarin, they write Chinese. The written language may be based on Mandarin, but it isn't the same. Mandarin is a spoken language.

This is where we're going wrong. When you said "Chinese written in pinyin would be unreadable", you were thinking of Written Chinese. When I said it would make a perfectly reasonable writing system, I am thinking of transcribing spoken Mandarin. Therefore we are obviously talking about different things. How we ended up talking about different things I don't really know, considering I must have used the name Mandarin a zillion times in this discussion, but I guess that's nonetheless what happened.

(I have to admit I don't understand what the point of writing Written Chinese in pinyin would be in the first place. I guess I figured that if one were to write in pinyin, it wouldn't be a large leap to write the same way one speaks.)

Anyway, I suppose at this point we both understand where the other person is coming from, so I guess we can finally put this argument to rest and move on with the thread...


Edited by furrykef on 17 November 2010 at 5:52am
1 person has voted this message useful



OneEye
Diglot
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 6851 days ago
518 posts - 784 votes 
Speaks: English*, Mandarin
Studies: Japanese, Taiwanese, German, French

 
 Message 60 of 66
17 November 2010 at 6:04am | IP Logged 
Ah! All that grief and we don't even disagree! :)
1 person has voted this message useful



CheeseInsider
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5123 days ago
193 posts - 238 votes 
Speaks: English*, Mandarin*
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 61 of 66
17 November 2010 at 8:13am | IP Logged 
Lucky Charms wrote:



2. Writing as the language is spoken would restrict the intelligibility to those who understand that specific language/dialect. Since there is a huge wealth of linguistic variety in China (and not everyone speaks, or should have to speak Mandarin), that would be like everyone in Europe having to write in French or something. As it is now, the written language does not represent Mandarin or any single spoken variety of Chinese, and can be equally accessed by all.



I would like to point out that Mandarin is the official language of China. Everyone who goes through the current education system is required to learn it as their operative language. Everyone MUST be able to speak Mandarin. It saddens me to say this but, the other dialects of China (Not including Taiwan and Hong Kong, because they are autonomous) are languages without a country. They will die out.
1 person has voted this message useful



CheeseInsider
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5123 days ago
193 posts - 238 votes 
Speaks: English*, Mandarin*
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 62 of 66
17 November 2010 at 8:16am | IP Logged 
Bao wrote:
CheeseInsider wrote:
Also I would like to contest that there is no NEED for characters. My friend from the mainland and I communicate to each other using only Han Yu Pin Yin. And we don't even write the words with tones. Like this: "Ni hao ma?" And we expect each other to understand everything that is said based on the context. And so far, we've never had any trouble understanding each other.

Do you have scientific discussions? Do you write love poems? Do you write about current political affairs and historical ones?
Just wondering.


We have discussions of all sorts, it is a friendship like any other. What we talk about is not restricted because of the way we write our language.

And yes... I write love poems to him, he's slowly discovering his bisexual side.
1 person has voted this message useful



Huliganov
Octoglot
Senior Member
Poland
huliganov.tvRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5356 days ago
91 posts - 304 votes 
Speaks: English*, Polish, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Esperanto, Czech
Studies: Romanian, Turkish, Mandarin, Japanese, Hungarian

 
 Message 63 of 66
20 November 2010 at 11:19pm | IP Logged 
By the way, what do Sinologists think: is there any point in even studying bopomofo now or should it be consigned to the gallery of historical curios?
1 person has voted this message useful



CheeseInsider
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5123 days ago
193 posts - 238 votes 
Speaks: English*, Mandarin*
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 64 of 66
21 November 2010 at 3:33am | IP Logged 
Huliganov wrote:
By the way, what do Sinologists think: is there any point in even studying bopomofo now or should it be consigned to the gallery of historical curios?


It's worth studying if your keyboard is from Taiwan, or if you're hoping to teach Mandarin in Taiwan. If you're learning Mandarin in Taiwan through classes, you most likely will learn bopomofo. But in the mainland, knowing bopomofo won't be very useful.

Edited by CheeseInsider on 21 November 2010 at 3:34am


1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 66 messages over 9 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.7656 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.