Re: Invention of the Alphabet

Alan wrote:
"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:42ECD896.3371@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Do you have any trouble reading Thai or Chinese? No word divisions in
either script.
--
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@xxxxxxx


Am I misunderstanding you? Thai "script" may very well have no word divisions, but how can you say the same for Chinese? Every word has its own character

That's a misconception. Many words in Chinese consist of multiple syllables/characters, such as Chong1guo2, the name for China, or ci2dian3, a word for "dictionary", or fu2wu4yuan2, a word meaning "waiter".

and all characters are distinct and stand independent of one another. Whether the Chinese text is written top-to-bottom, right-to-left, or left-to-right, even someone totally unfamiliar with Chinese would certainly be able to perceive the boundaries between the words. 
.

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