Eastern writing is a real education.

Post #64,242 by static 11/21/02 5:55:26 AM Reply	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."
Post #64,394 by dmarker 11/21/02 9:09:05 PM Reply	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)
Post #64,446 by dmarker 11/22/02 2:56:36 AM 11/22/02 3:15:24 AM Reply	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 Expand All History
Post #64,602 by static 11/23/02 12:27:47 AM Reply	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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