Post #63,583
11/18/02 11:28:37 AM
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Yes, apparently the Korean ideogram for "nuclear weapon..."
..is the same as that for "extra hot and spicy kimchee". Only the pronounciation is different.
-drl
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Post #63,731
11/19/02 2:46:06 AM
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Re: I think the NKians have corrected the mistake :-)
Latest reports here in China are that there was an incorrect interpretation of their remark.
They claim they said that NK has 'a right to' Nukes - not has nukes - as was widely reported.
I think it is as you said, the hangul charaters they wrote it with are phonetic & failed to convey the correct meaning.
(Seriously, todays Sth China Morning Post did write about a correction of the meaning).
Cheers
Doug
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Post #63,890
11/19/02 8:18:44 PM
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Ah... asian glyph games...
It's fascinating to learn how the various characters are constructed, pronounced and put together, but there's so much to learn... One book I have about learning to read Kanji asks rhetorically what would Chinese be like if they had shifted to a phonetic character set instead of just enhancing their pictograms.
At least modern chinese speakers can fairly easily read Confucious' works in his original writing. We can't do the same thing with Beowulf. :-/
Wade.
"Ah. One of the difficult questions."
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Post #64,005
11/20/02 9:23:04 AM
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Re: Ah... asian glyph games...
as to why locally raised Chinese appear to think and see things soooo
differently from typical westerners.
Having lived among Japanese & Chinese & Koreans I see a distinct
difference between the Koreans & Japanese and the Chinese - both Korea &
Japan invented their phonetic alphabets to augment Kanjii
(pictographs)and both these countries proved they could adapt to western
writing, technology and ideas very quickly. Sure Japan is in a bind over
its political will to reform banking but the fact that they had
phonetics and added a fourth script called Romanji (A-B-C) allowed them
western words very quickly without confusion.
But poor old China has no effective phonetic writing charaters, just the
PinYin approach, invented by a chinese, used by bemused westerners but
*not* used or understood (nor do they care) by the ordinary Chinese
because PinYin relies on A-B-C and not that many mainlanders use A-B-C
in everyday life - contrast that the the 100s of years of use of
Katakana in Japan & Hangul in Korea.
Japan went 1 further by having one phonetic alphabet for Japanese words
(Hiragana script) and another for introduced or foreign or foreign
sounds (Katakana script) so in all they have four ways of writing
(Kanji, Hira, Kata & Romanji).
Until I had worked among mainlanders & those who don't have a phonetic
script, I hadn't appreciated the challenge they face in learning to
communicate in a modern world.
I am willing to predict that lack of a phonetic script will cripple
China in many aspects of dealing with the west & may partially derail
their impressive modernization. Some may argue that China's lack of
inventing a universal phonetic script reflects the gap in IQ between
Koreans plus Japanese and the Chinese - from my experience, I might be
inclined to agree. This may seem a harsh judgement and 2 years ago I
would not have said so but today I will.
Learning technical Kanji is a frightening experience that gets mangled
by the differences between China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.
If China doesn't quickly sort out this issue of phonetic writing for the
masses, I can only see it doomed to ultimate gridlock in dealing with
the non Chinese world.
Doug Marker
$$$ Posted from another users account due to blocing of my own account somewhere
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Post #64,128
11/20/02 4:49:51 PM
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Perhaps with the Ancien Regime retiring (remarkable!)
there may next appear some appreciation of these points [?]
If for no other reason; merely to co-survive in a world totally dominated by folks with the shallow mindset of [the vulture form of] 'capitalism', and the evident rampant desires for Everyone to have a safe-deposit box with a few WMDs - inability to reform could be suicide, notwithstanding their huge population.
Imagine trying to break the nuance-barrier, a la Fail Safe Hot-line scenario, in some future Doomsday event with an Absinthe-besotted cabal. (say, some head of a Big Power who ascended via a.. coup d'etat? has delusions of Empire and.. isn't very smart?)
Language (absence of) Can Kill ya in minutes, these days.
Ashton
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Post #64,132
11/20/02 5:19:15 PM
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Eh, I find the order Korean chinese and Japanese last
but I dont have as many years in as you do. Although lets compare the chinese hitech with another pictgraphic language hebrew. They use a foreign language, either english or Russian to write technically and they do OK.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
"Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic." Correction: All that can be achieved with 51 percent of the voters!" Ilanna Mercer
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Post #64,135
11/20/02 5:22:35 PM
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While sorting IQs - where fit in TheMuricanPeepul\ufffd, then?
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Post #64,136
11/20/02 5:25:50 PM
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we are cunning not smart Rube Goldberg was invented here
we are not hidebound (too much) to ancient patterns of thinking which allows us to advance technically fastere than other cultures by using a good idea patched to a hack and widely copied and streamlined. As far as IQ's go Ill match many of the members of this board with anyone you pick from those countries.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
"Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic." Correction: All that can be achieved with 51 percent of the voters!" Ilanna Mercer
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Post #64,142
11/20/02 5:40:45 PM
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Cunning enough for self-government__Yet?__Soon? ____Ever??
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Post #64,147
11/20/02 5:47:57 PM
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The hebrew script isn't pictographic. - Right, BLuke?
What on Earth gave you the impression that it was, BOx?!?
(And what's next -- "That *other* other well-known pictographic script, Greek..."? :-)
Christian R. Conrad
Microsoft is a true reflection of Bill Gates' personality - the sleaziest, most unethical, ugliest little rat's ass the world has seen unto this time. -- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=42971|Andrew Grygus]
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Post #64,155
11/20/02 6:13:03 PM
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Future Univ. Lang: \ufffd Corp Logo-pictograms: for the video gen
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Post #64,224
11/21/02 3:19:05 AM
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Re: But which Chinese ?
There is a difference between modern ...
1) Western Chinese
2) Singapore Chinese
3) Hong Kong Chinese
4) Malay & Indonesian Chinese
5) Taiwanese Chinese
6) Mainland Chinese
- Han Chinese mainlanders
- 55 or so Minorities Chinese (Esp in Yunnan (southwest) which has more
minorities than any other part of China)
Hong Kong companies like to hire Chinese from 1, 2 & 4 as they tend to be more creative compared to locals
Actually Mainlanders consist of an estimated 55 ethnic groups of which the Han Chinese (popularly called Chinese culture) are 92% of the population. The Han moved from the middle to upper part of China, to other regions and to the south.
[link|http://www.c-c-c.org/chineseculture/minority/minority.html#ethnic|Chinas Ethnic Groups by Name & region]
[link|http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/chinethn.html|What defines an ethnic group in China]
Doug Marker
(The order used in the list does reflect my limited opinion)
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Post #64,333
11/21/02 4:42:10 PM
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Have worked with Hong Kong mostly
fukien and a couple from the yellow river region as well as a few Northern chinese. All (in the most) seemed adabtable to quickly changing tech stuff except to Fellow in "the Capital" whose ignorance I think was based on politics. He wouldnt get anyone else to help him because of fear that he would be found out he wasnt up to snuff. That wasnt the issue, I needed info he didnt have and it took 2 weeks to convince him he wasnt shooting himself in the foot by getting it for me. When he did get me the network engineer I praised the admins skills to the roof and after that he would hop to when I called.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
Whenever you can stab them in the back.
Better yet stab them in the back in the dead of night.
Best of all stab them in the back in the dead of night while their asleep.
If you've got to stab them in the front, try a low blow.
If none of that works, then use all your skills as best you can, you stupid dummy.
Rodrigo Sfondrati-Piccolomini
A man after my own heart
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Post #64,242
11/21/02 5:55:26 AM
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Eastern writing is a real education.
I started learning Japanese a few years ago. I can read and write Hiragana and Katakana to some extent and also a very little Kanji. Actually, I found it very interesting, but Japanese is a difficult language to learn for a speaker of a germanic language. :-) I also discovered that the Japanese unashamedly pinched the chinese characters about 400 years ago - before that they had no writing. But that they were willing and able to leverage this discovery for themselves demonstrates what you said.
Incidentally, I discovered you can't learn a foreign language without learning about the culture. It changed my views of East Asia forever.
Wade.
"Ah. One of the difficult questions."
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Post #64,394
11/21/02 9:09:05 PM
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Re: Yup a real challenge
Totally agree on that score.
The big challenge I find when working with Chinese Kanxi (as they spell it) is trying to place the characters in context. AS you will understand, not only are the individual characters built from a bunch of smaller characters (the base 214 radicals), but each word is often built from a couple of characters so we westerners read the characters ok but have to ba able to put them into their real context. Even Chinese take considerable thinking time (by comparison to reading English) to do this.
Classic case in point is that the words 'Be Careful' are built from the two primary characters (which are also base radicals) 'Small Heart'. Any Chinese will immediately read that as 'Be Careful' unles it is a medical work describing someones heart. Then we get dialects. In Cantonese (Guangdonghua) the above is 'Siu Sam' but in Putonghua (Mandarin) it is 'Xiao Xin'.
Interestingly when we look at a lot of English words, (esp Germanic) they are build from multiple smaller words. Gerspringenwerken (just a guess :-).
Cheers
Doug
(posted from an alt account due to blocking of the original post)
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Post #64,446
11/22/02 2:56:36 AM
11/22/02 3:15:24 AM
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Re: Question re your dates for Kanxi becoming Kanji
When I first saw your date of 400 years ago, thought that seems remarkably modern as Hiragana is older than that but came after Kanji.
Did some QAD research & the est I come across say that Kanxi made its way to Korea & Japan in about 4th century AD but some articles say it was in the 5th century.
[link|http://members.aol.com/Joyo96/Kanji.html|History of Kanji - 4th century]
[link|http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2046.html|Kanji via Korea in 5th Century]
[link|http://www.csuchico.edu/~cheinz/syllabi/asst001/fall97/mat-wite.htm|A more detailed history - also argues for 5th century]
Hiragana [link|http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2047.html|(Very Brief Hiragana History plus how they look)] was originally devised by women in the imperial court around 900AD & used to write poetry using phonetic symbols. The link says that Hira was based on original Kanji but I have never noticed the similarity.
I always believed Katakanta was more recent (despite the link I posted above which says it was developed at the same time as Hira - but I can't see why or for what purpose back in 9th century) [link|http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2048.html|(Very Brief Katakana History plus how they look)]
If one takes each matching phonetic character from Hira & Kata and compares them, you will notice that the Kata is a small portion of the hira character but uses mostly simple straight lines whereas hira has a distinct looping & flowing style. Because Japan was a closed country, I can't see at all why they needed kata in the 9th century when few foreigners were in the country. That really began about 4-500 years ago when the Portugese were accepted and allowed to establish trading posts starting in the 16th century.
I had always understood that Kata was made simple because it became prominent when the telegraph was introduced to Japan and early teletypes with 7 pins could print any Kata symbol. The Japs then led the way with 9-pin printheads.
In the 1970s the Japanese further introduced 24 pin printheads which then allowed smooth printing of Kata, Hira and Kanji.
Korea's hangul was invented in about 15th century AD IIRC by a well known King. The appearance of Hangul is related to simple angles & circles.
[link|http://www.sigmainstitute.com/koreanonline/hangul_history.shtml|History of Hangul - considered one of the most efficient alphabets]
Cheers
Doug
#1 added link to histor of Hangul
Also - claimed reason for Katakana being introduced soon after Hiragana was that monks taking notes neede a simple quick style of writing & kata emerged in pref to hira which was used as already mentioned. Also many famous books by women were written in hira.
Edited by dmarker
Nov. 22, 2002, 03:15:24 AM EST
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Post #64,602
11/23/02 12:27:47 AM
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Yes, why did I say 400 years? :-)
I was quoting from memory and obviously got it wrong.
I've got some pages copied from a Japanese book about the origins of their characters. Kanji came first, probably around AD400 as you indicated (that would be where I got "400" from :-). Both Hiragana and Katakana were derived from a Kanji - I've got a chart showing the original characters* - but for different reasons and by different people. From the literature I have, the idea of reserving Katakana for foreign loanwords and onomatapeia is not mentioned. I suspect Katakana was used for particles and word endings before the male scribes got a hold of Hiragana - that's what a Japanese language teacher told me Katakana was devised for anyway - but knowing the Japanese aesthetic, someone probably decided Hiragana would look better doing that job.
Wade.
* When I find it, I'll scan it and post it up.
"Ah. One of the difficult questions."
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Post #64,098
11/20/02 2:17:24 PM
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ROFL.....stop it, Ross!!
jb4
"They lead. They don't manage. The carrot always wins over the stick. Ask your horse. You can lead your horse to water, but you can't manage him to drink."
Richard Kerr, United Technologies Corporation, 1990
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