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Why did Korean abandon Hanja? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| aegi Diglot Newbie Korea, South Joined 5985 days ago 33 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English*, Korean | Message 113 of 116 22 August 2011 at 2:40am | IP Logged | ||
There are a few mistakes. The meanings of Sino-Korean characters are determined by literary Chinese, not modern Chinese. Thus, 其 = 그(것): A common example is 其他.[彼 = 저(것)] 之 = 의: A common example is 無用之物. [的 usually means 'certainly' or something like 'What on Earth?' in literary Chinese. In modern Korean grammar, it means '-ally', as in 文化的.] 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ParkeNYU Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4919 days ago 11 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 114 of 116 22 August 2011 at 9:42am | IP Logged | ||
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paranday,
I’d never heard of Blissymbolics until you mentioned it here. I will research this as soon as I can, thank you. egill, I am well aware that the vast majority of Chinese characters are phonetic-semantic compounds. I think you misread or misunderstood what you were quoting from me. The “pictographs” to which I was referring include 3 of the 6 traditional constructions of Chinese characters: the pictographs proper (e.g. 日月火水木), the symbols/signs (e.g. 一二三上下), and the semantic compounds/ideographs (e.g. 明林森好買). The first two of these three groups largely constitute the Kangxi radicals. When I said that “they provide the basis of construction for the vast remainder,” I was specifically referring to the semantic-phonetic compounds, which indeed account for 90% of all Chinese characters. While one part of each of those characters hints at the arbitrary syllable assigned to the word being represented, the other part provides a semantic clue; so while these characters are not entirely semantic, semantics none the less play an important role. The basis of construction for these semantic-phonetic compounds entails the placement of a radical on one side (used for its meaning) and an ideograph on the other (used for its pronunciation alone rather than its isolated meaning). A couple examples of such a construction are 銘＝[金＋(夕＋口)] and 盟＝[皿+(日+月)]. Of course, the phonetic component could often be a radical as well, like 青 in 晴精清情. It would be like if, in English, we wrote “two” as 2TU. The semantic component (2) tells us that the meaning has to do with two, but the phonetic component (TU) tells us that it is indeed the word “two” and not “twice,” “second,” “couple,” “double,” “pair,” or “dual.” The character TU on its own could represent the sound of “to,” “too,” “two,” or a foreign loan-word with a similar sound, and thus holds only phonetic value. The character 2 on the other hand conveys the idea of two-ness, though we aren’t sure which related word is implied. To clarify, I certainly do not regard Chinese characters as mystical pictures or codes, as I both understand and admire the logic and genius behind the system; it is because of this understanding that I am able to learn new characters so easily, constantly adding to my mental bank of over a thousand. Also, your questions about surpassing the labeling stage with a purely written language would be answered in much the same way as those regarding a spoken language; we are simply adapting our eyes and hands to take on the tasks of our ears and mouths (like sign-language, but in writing. See “Blissymbolics”). Would we have to invent a new language? Probably, yes. Such a project is certainly not outside of our ability. Chinese characters would provide a fantastic starting point too. Aegi, Thank you for your corrections. I should have fact-checked my examples, but I am happy that your examples supported my statements nonetheless. Edited by ParkeNYU on 22 August 2011 at 6:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cntrational Triglot Groupie India Joined 5127 days ago 49 posts - 66 votes  Speaks: Hindi, Telugu, English* Studies: French | Message 115 of 116 22 August 2011 at 5:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I should point out that the "pictographs" are rarely actual pictographs. (月 is a pictograph for the moon? Maybe if I was squinting. While wearing sunglasses. And lying to myself. )
The "phonetic" part of the phono-semantic compound characters would be essentially arbitrary to our hypothetical deaf learner, just as they are arbitrary to speakers of modern languages. The former would have no use for them, and the latter cannot easily use them because the characters are phonologically a few thousand years out of date. And really, the semantic part isn't that useful either, because they can be mysteriously puzzling (what does jade (玉) have to do with logic (理)?) or really broad (池 so, that's a water radical there...what kind of water does this represent? ...maybe, a jug of water?), you'd need to look in a dictionary to get the meaning of most characters -- and last time I checked, you didn't need Chinese characters to do that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ParkeNYU Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4919 days ago 11 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 116 of 116 22 August 2011 at 6:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Obviously, as you well know, these characters were constructed so long ago that both the phonetic and semantic components often have values that are outdated, distorted, or otherwise mysterious. To truly understand their significance, one would have to be a scholar and historian of Chinese characters. To address the examples you've provided:
月 is indeed a pictograph of the moon; it, like most pictographs, has undergone so many changes in form and calligraphic style that its image has since been severely warped. To give you an idea of what roughly 3,500 years can do, I'll list all of those calligraphic phases: Oracle Bone > Bronze Inscription > Great Seal > Small Seal > Abbreviated > Square (in the same genus as the modern brush, pen, and typeface styles of 正體字) > Simplified (where Japanese and Chinese forms diverge). The Oracle Bone form of 月 really does look like the moon, and it continued to bear this resemblance until the formation of the Small Seal characters, which are the oldest forms to roughly resemble the modern ones. The radical 玉/玊/王 in 理 originally meant jewel/gem/jade, and this meaning has remained largely unchanged; however, the specific 王 form was also borrowed to represent the additional meaning of king, a person who (ideally) possessed great logic and truth. The character 池 represents the word related to 水 that sounds like 也 (at some point in history, that is). If you are arguing that these phonetic and semantic clues are not terribly helpful in discerning a concrete meaning at first glance, then of course I would have to agree with you. However, the principles remain, and some help is better than none. If one has an understanding of Ancient and Classical Chinese, they are even more helpful. Edited by ParkeNYU on 22 August 2011 at 6:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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