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Chinese characters - inefficient? | ||
Tags: Chinese Characters | Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6772 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 41 of 132 21 October 2009 at 4:02pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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It seems pretty clear that you can't "convert" Classical Chinese to an alphabet or transcription method that purports
to be phonetic, because we have no native speakers of that language and no way of knowing for sure how anything is pronounced. Plus, if Chinese is anything like Japanese, there's a lot of subtle information that can be conveyed through one's choice of characters. That would be lost in the conversion to a phonetic transcription. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5525 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 42 of 132 21 October 2009 at 4:51pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Yes, there certainly is an amount of rather subtle information about words in the choice of character in Chinese too. Their MEANING is one example. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5571 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 43 of 132 21 October 2009 at 9:38pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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The characters are an integral part of Chinese culture. Chinese people are proud of them, and for good reason, as the characters are undoubtedly very beautiful. There's a reason you've never seen anyone with a Pinyin tattoo.
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| janababe Triglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5518 days ago 102 posts - 115 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German | Message 44 of 132 21 October 2009 at 9:51pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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OMG this is what I was looking for!
Chinese written in a way so that you can read and pronounce. Can u tell me more about that? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6913 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 45 of 132 22 October 2009 at 12:37am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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It's called romanization. There are a couple of systems around, and I'm quite sure that pinyin is the most used.
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| Raчraч Ŋuɲa Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5822 days ago 154 posts - 233 votes Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese | Message 46 of 132 22 October 2009 at 12:09pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
At first glance, that makes sense, but there were precedents already where Classical Chinese and Middle Chinese were reconstructed phonetically. This was done by Bernhard Kalgren for Classical Chinese and Edwin Pulleyblank for Middle Chinese. An example of this is found on page 156 of John deFrancis's book "The Chinese language: fact and fantasy" which can be viewed on Google books, where 'teacher' (先生) is reconstructed as *tsiənseng, after comparing modern xiānsheng (Mandarin), sensei (Japanese), sŏnsaeng (Korean), and tiên-sinh (Vietnamese). Besides , it doesnt need to be 'sure', it just needs to be 'highly likely'.
Because as Phillip Dick says it "Reality is what won't go away when you stop believing in it." How can pinyin represents the sounds of the language faithfully when the oral and written languages are different, as stated in an earlier post "in the higher registers, it approaches Classical Chinese"? Pinyin represents Modern Chinese, not Classical Chinese. Pinyin is one way of reading hanzi.
As a matter of fact, these reconstructed syllables are the purported pronunciations of Classical Chinese, so they are arguably in existence before. See my illustrations of 先 生 above. Well, its not a a big task. If English speaking people can disambiguate orally /'raɪt/ what is written as write, rite, right and wright, then why not Chinese?
No, I am not mad, its only because you think I think what you think I think. I know that Classical Chinese is isolating/analytic, moreso than Modern Chinese, and that Hebrew/Egyptian are mixed fusional and agglutinative. Well, its quite evident here who is short of facts. Hieroglyphics is indeed alphabetic.
I don't think so. A lot of sinologists thinks so too that it is possible to romanize. I think its the other way around. Edited by Raчraч Ŋuɲa on 22 October 2009 at 12:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| cameroncrc Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6521 days ago 195 posts - 185 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Ukrainian | Message 47 of 132 22 October 2009 at 12:27pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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I would be truly devasted to see the use of pinyin take over characters. They are difficult to learn and take a lot of hard work, but that isn't the issue. So many great traditions and values are dying today for the sake of "efficiency". I think people need to reevaluate their priorites. Chinese writing is beautiful and is the product of thousands of years of language evolution. It's a part of Chinese culture. I would hate to see it's place taken by some 'universal' system. That sort of mentality is leading the world away from multi-lingualism.
On the other hand, it won't happen with Japanese. The kana system not organized well enough to stand on it's own. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| OneEye Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6854 days ago 518 posts - 784 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Taiwanese, German, French | Message 48 of 132 22 October 2009 at 1:09pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
I'm not following you here. Just because the phrasing and structure approaches classical Chinese doesn't mean it is read with a reconstructed pronunciation. It is read in Mandarin, or whichever topolect is spoken by the reader. Help me see your logic here, because I'm having an awfully hard time following how you reached this conclusion just because the formal written language is different than the colloquial spoken language. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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