Re: intrinsic advantage of Latin alphabet over bopomofo (for Chinese)??

"Peter" == Peter T Daniels <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

>> (But  it is unambiguous when converted to idea: sun/day.)

Peter> If you think that "sun" and "day" are a single "idea," then
Peter> your universe of ideas must be very limited indeed.

That's the case in Chinese/Japanese. It's a _unified_ idea. This is
a place where English and Chinese/Japanese differs. "sun"/"day" is a
unified concept. "moon"/"month" is a unified concept. "goat"/"sheep"
is also a unified concept in Chinese, too.

It seems that you have problems with unified, abstract ideas, such as
the generic currency symbol.


>> You  may think  that this  example won't  work in  a  sentence,
>> right? You're wrong.   The name of Japan,  日本 can be
>>  pronounced <nihon> or <nippon>,  depending  on  how  the
>>  reading  likes  to  pronounce  it.

Peter> Is it now your claim that two people with different accents
Peter> are not saying the same word when they pronounce what
Peter> everyone else would consider the same word differently?
Peter> E.g. AmE <greasy>.

You still haven't defined "word".


>> Whichever  pronounciation is  used,  the meaning  is  still the
>>  same: "Japan".  So, it converts  ambiguously to speech, but
>> unambiguously to ideas.

Peter> There is absolutely nothing whatsoever "ambiguous" about
Peter> that example.

The ambiguity is in how it should be pronounced. Tell me how 日本
should be pronounced. Nippon? Nihon?

The unambiguously is in what it means: 日本 is "Japan".


>> Now,  you've  more  and  more  convinced me  that  according
>>  to  YOUR definitions of  "writing" and "ideograph", Kanji's in
>>  Japanese is NOT "writing", but IS ideographic.

Peter> I'm sorry that you have such a poor understanding of
Peter> English. Maybe you wasted too much time learning Esperanto.

Much less than arguing with you.


--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}

E-mail: danlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
.

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