Characters are objectively harder, even for Chinese

[shibo77]

This might be interesting:

http://www.luntan100.com/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=9

-Shibo

[ala]

From the link shibo gave:

在中国各地有不同的方言，差异很大，很容易影响人们之间的沟通，现在国家主要通过推广普通话来解决这一问题。尽管方言差异大，但是书写的文字，完全一致。有人说这是汉字奇妙之处，说这是优点。

恰恰相反，汉字是造成各地方言差异大的根本原因。从文字理论上言，汉字是用来记录汉语语音的，但是汉字不是直接记录语音的。从字面上，你根本不知道这个字怎么读，完全依赖父母，老师，周围环境的影响。拼音文字就不一样，只要你学了标准音标，你就可以差不多读出任何单词的音，发音是相对固定的，你完全可以自学,这样形成一个自我矫正的智能反馈系统。

只要我们制定一套普通话的拼音文字，这将对于消除方言，增强沟通，起到至关重要的作用，这将是一种高效率的推普方法。

THIS IS NOT A GOOD REASON FOR ROMANIZATION. If anything, Romanization will force dialects to develop their own romanization, and create greater distance between the Chinese dialects, and make Chinese dialect speakers more functionally literate in their own dialects.

汉字是造成各地方言差异大的根本原因

This is nonsense. Hanzi has consistently prevented "dialects" to develop their own standardized grammar system because it is so clumsy in representing inflection and grammatical particles. So instead, grammar always tend to side with whatever written standard is official. Vernacular Shanghainese by 1900's had developed a much more sophisticated grammar than Mandarin, only to lose the bulk of them due to the difficulty of writing them down, and the later influence of Mandarin as the official tongue.

I am in strong favor of dialect alphabetization, but the above author misses the point and instead encourages alphabetization for the goal of eliminating differences in dialects, as a sort of dulled down averaged newspeak. I would never support such a goal in alphabetization.

[ala]

I wonder if the first-letter capitalization of all nouns in addition to word partition rules and tonal markings will clear off many ambiguities. I translated a paragraph from Kokoro into Shanghainese in romanization, with first letters of all nouns in caps, and my friend was able to translate it into English with high accuracy. Of course, he was also generally familiar with the text.

As in German, I did not capitalize any adjectives, even if they expressed nationality. German car = takkoch Tsuotzi or Japanese women = zappun Nyunin. I capitalized nationality that serves as a noun: Zappunnin (Japanese person). I didn't capitalize the personal and demonstrative pronouns (wo, non, yi, aera, na, yira, étach, gattach, émi, gammi, etc). I capitalized all proper nouns, but not titles/headlines except the first letter and nouns.

BTW, color can be a noun or adj, but when it is used as a modifier, it will always be lowercased. "color printer" will be tsesach Tanyinci. colorful printer will be tsesach äch Tanyinci. b/w printer: habbach Tanyinci. Stoplight: Önrottun (红绿灯) is an independent noun. A red light: önnesach äch Tún, red light: ön Tún. Zappun äch Önrottun-rishan äch roch Tún zatciran zi renesach äch. (The green lights in Japan's stoplights are actually blue). For this Shanghainese phrase, only one high pitch mark (acute accent) was needed (on the Tún), as all other syllables were of the same flat toneme. The umlaut is used to indicate that the vowel is breathy, it does not serve as a pitch mark.

"Yesterday" is both an adjective and a noun. adj: zaenich Yadou (yesterday night), noun: Zaenich äch Shínvun (yesterday's news). Same for "today", etc. cíntzo Yadou (tonight), Cíntzo äch Shínvun (today's news).

I find that with simple capitalization rules like this, reading and navigating through Chinese romanization suddenly becomes much easier.

[sm_sung]

skylee, you're right, there's been a misnomer . The text I posted was a tongue-twister, not a poem. There's one interesting observation to be made here though. No one could tell me anything about the text 5 days after I posted the pinyin version(shibo77 claimed he wouldn't be able to understand it even with excellent pinyin skills), but less than half an hour after the character version was posted skylee pointed out that the text was in fact a tongue twister. Doesn't this mean hanzi convey information more effectively than pinyin?

[sm_sung]

ala wrote:

I translated a paragraph from Kokoro into Shanghainese in romanization, with first letters of all nouns in caps, and my friend was able to translate it into English with high accuracy. Of course, he was also generally familiar with the text.

As I had said earlier, doesn't knowing more or less what something is about aid understanding greatly?

For example,from Why Chinese is So Damn Hard:

"Hndsm. SWGM, 24, 160, sks BGM or WGM for gentle S&M, mod. bndg., some lthr., twosm or threesm ok, have own equip., wheels, 988-8752 lv. mssg. on ails. mach., no weirdos please.”

I'm sure there are ppl out there to whom this ad is a piece of cake, but then they already knew what to expect from the advertisement before they read it.( I tried very, very hard for a long, long time to understand this btw. )

Or how about SMSes:

John, rmb de bk u brwed frm me on sat? 1 it bk by 2mrw. pass 2 me in sch, eng cls. sms me. l8r, luv, Mary.

If you had borrowed a book from Mary on Saturday, are going to school tomorrow, have an English class sometime during the day, have a mobile phone with short messaging service functionality and know that rmb=remember, de=the, 1=want, bk=book, back(depending on context)l8r=later , I'm sure you will find this message completely comprehensible. As you can see, lots of background information is required to understand the message well, something most people won't have the luxury of having. (Not much better than wenyanwen IMHO)

[skylee]

sm_sung, good observation. Characters do convey information to me much more effectively.

The truth is I am usually very impatient with things written in pinyin and wouldn't bother to read them (headache) unless I absolute have to. With things written in characters, I don't even have to read through them, just a glance and I could capture the keywords and get the general idea of the passage. I am unable to do this with things written in pinyin.

(NOTE - "to me" was added afterwards.)

[ala]

Characters do convey information much more effectively.

And I suppose you can look at 器 and guess its pronunciation before you memorized it. Characters don't even carry analyzable semantic information that effectively BTW. >90% of Chinese characters is just a radical (that kind of gives a hint) plus a rather arbitrary phonetic component. The information you say characters convey, is something you had to cram into when you were in school. One can design a pinyin system that incorporates all the radicals in various spellings (thus being semantically identical to hanzi), and it will still convey more phonetic information than characters. Of course, the learning curve will be much steeper, but probably still less than the characters.

[ala]

Or how about SMSes:

John' date=' rmb de bk u brwed frm me on sat? 1 it bk by 2mrw. pass 2 me in sch, eng cls. sms me. l8r, luv, Mary.

If you had borrowed a book from Mary on Saturday, are going to school tomorrow, have an English class sometime during the day, have a mobile phone with short messaging service functionality and know that rmb=remember, de=the, 1=want, bk=book, back(depending on context)l8r=later , I'm sure you will find this message completely comprehensible. As you can see, lots of background information is required to understand the message well, something most people won't have the luxury of having. (Not much better than wenyanwen IMHO)

[/quote']

Your examples of SMS and ads are flawed. Because these styles of writing are precisely what has always plagued Chinese character writing: allusions and unsystematic usage of characters. Writing that is rather detached with formal speech.

Yeah, my friend had general knowledge of Kokoro. So what? We read it in 8th grade. Do you think you can be given a quotation from a paragraph of a text you read years ago, and expect to draw much from memory? I'm not talking about a paragraph from the Cliff Notes of Kokoro.

[高可文]

Your examples of SMS and ads are flawed. Because these styles of writing are precisely what has always plagued Chinese character writing: allusions and unsystematic usage of characters.Writing that is rather detached with formal speech.

I'm not sure if pinyin would solve this problem. Even if Chinese was written alphabetically, the problem of overly formal writing would likely remain. With characters it's already possible to write in colloquial Chinese, yet nevertheless there is a inclination to use 书面语. Furthermore, certain alphabetically written languages such as Greek and Russian maintained differences between the written and spoken forms for years (although both these examples now write much more like they speak). As long as people want to show off an education, they will keep writing with obscure words and references.

[sm_sung]

Your examples of SMS and ads are flawed. Because these styles of writing are precisely what has always plagued Chinese character writing: allusions and unsystematic usage of characters. Writing that is rather detached with formal speech.

Isn't modern baihuawen basically free of allusions? And with the exception of perhaps transliterations, what do you mean by unsystematic usage of characters?

[skylee]

And I suppose you can look at 器 and guess its pronunciation before you memorized it.

As I dare not argue with you (I am not as informed and persistent as you are, IM very HO), I have amended that sentence to read "convey information to me".

[高可文]

However characters like 器 seem to be the exception. Most characters do have the radical and phonetic complement, and it is possible in some cases to approximate the pronunciation of a character.

[pazu]

And I suppose you can look at 器 and guess its pronunciation before you memorized it.

You have misunderstood the concept. Don't you know that 器 cannot review the sound or meaning to those who haven't ever learnt Chinese? But for all fluent Mandarin speakers, qì means too many things to them (and thus = nothing). In this situation, 器 has more information than qì.

One can design a pinyin system that incorporates all the radicals in various spellings (thus being semantically identical to hanzi), and it will still convey more phonetic information than characters. Of course, the learning curve will be much steeper, but probably still less than the characters.

Again, again, there's problem with your way of thinking because you use too much theory, hypothesis, or just wild thinking without any given proof. Probably. Maybe. It's okay to imagine, indeed it's good to imagine, imagination is a gift to human beings (well, maybe to other animals, I never know) but you can't put that as if you already have some hard facts. Or you're going to produce another pinyin-cum-radical for a translation of Bocchan?

You can find some more confusions in many other pinyin translations than a translated version of a single paragraph from Kokoro in Shanghainese-pinyin-minus-radical-plus-Capital.

As long as people want to show off an education, they will keep writing with obscure words and references.

Indeed this is not a way to show off only but with some practical use, a difference in written form condensed the language (usually the written form is shorter than the spoken form), thus save some space (and time). This is most obvious in newspaper headline.

[ala]

Again, again, there's problem with your way of thinking because you use too much theory, hypothesis, or just wild thinking without any given proof. Probably. Maybe. It's okay to imagine, indeed it's good to imagine, imagination is a gift to human beings (well, maybe to other animals, I never know) but you can't put that as if you already have some hard facts. Or you're going to produce another pinyin-cum-radical for a translation of Bocchan?

I was trying to address skylee's view that characters contain a lot of information. My point was that much of these information are by no means inherent to the character, but are LEARNED through rote memorization. I wasn't proposing a romanization, or using anything as proof, it was just an analogy. I might as well use numbers for a writing script, and assign semantic value to them with rote memorization, after 20 years of studying, I bet those combination of numbers will contain a lot of information too.

[ala]

Isn't modern baihuawen basically free of allusions? And with the exception of perhaps transliterations, what do you mean by unsystematic usage of characters?

There are many places where baihuawen is contracted, and require characters to disambiguate. One of the most notable is newspaper headlines. A linguistic argument is that if baihuawen were truly free of allusions and could be fully understood when read out loud, romanization could also be feasible. This romanization of course does not necessarily mean hanyu pinyin at its current state. What I mean by unsystematic usages are the current imprecision of words (inappropriately dissecting a single ci into two words), PERVASIVE 错別字 and nonstandard grammar on forums, dialect writing, etc. Today 现代汉语规范化 is a very pressing concern, and this problem would not exist as severely without characters and with word spacing.

[pazu]

I might as well use numbers for a writing script, and assign semantic value to them with rote memorization, after 20 years of studying, I bet those combination of numbers will contain a lot of information too.

You always have some innovative and funny ideas.

Nobody has said that a single character should mean a whole paragraph in Kokoro or Totoro. But the fact is, Chinese character contains much more information than a single-syllable equivalent. It's the design or limit of the system, you can't go beyond that in the other alphabetical system in this world even with supreme memory.

This is, indeed, a fact.

[sm_sung]

I might as well use numbers for a writing script, and assign semantic value to them with rote memorization, after 20 years of studying, I bet those combination of numbers will contain a lot of information too.

Hahaha, ala come on, do you really believe in this? Ｔhere's much more system to learning Chinese characters than simply memorization.Many will not be able to guess what 器 means if they saw it for the first time. But if one day I　told　them　ｉｔ　meant　"utensil"，　and provided a memory aid like "important thing that needs to be guarded by a dog，don't you think it'll be much easier for them to remember?

Once you know what 并 sounds like, isn't it rather easy to learn characters like　饼，摒，屏，栟，瓶，帡，洴，姘　etc．　And if you knew 宾，how hard would it be to learn　滨，槟，殡，膑，镔，摈，缤，傧，髌，嫔？I apologize for typing such a long string of characters, but I just wanted to make my point clear.

If I gave you a string of numbers like 1223, 0542, 2284, 5812, 3176 how are you going to memorize their meanings and pronunciations? Pure rote memorization I suppose.

　

[Green Pea]

Quote:

I might as well use numbers for a writing script, and assign semantic value to them with rote memorization, after 20 years of studying, I bet those combination of numbers will contain a lot of information too.

Hahaha, ala come on, do you really believe in this? Ｔhere's much more system to learning Chinese characters than simply memorization.Many will not be able to guess what 器 means if they saw it for the first time.

Ala is right, except it would take a lot less than 20 years. Characters only contain information because people assign information to them.

[wushijiao]

As far as I know (someone can correct me), Chinese characters have 188 radicals and 1,832 phonetic paterns. By learning those, or at least the most important ones, one can quickly guess the meaning or sounds of many characters.

I'd like to hypothosize that:

1) Implementing an alphabet before the era of mass communication would have been impossible in China. With such huge differences in dialects and languages, getting people to understand an alphabet that didn't match their spoken language would have been impossible before the invention of tapes, radios, videos, tv....etc.

Eventually, the people defending their dialects and corresponding alphabets would have developed strong regional identities, leading to war.

2) After the invention of modern electrical devices, there was only a short window of oppurtunity to switch to pinyin (or several pinyins). I'd say this was 1930-1965 or so. Clearly on the mainland this would have been impossible until about 1949 or after.

In any case, now that most people can read characters, they're not going to switch to pinyin. It's a bit like why the US will probably never switch to the metric system. It's tradition. But while your average American Joe Smith might get a bit angry about switching to metric, I think your average Chinese 李建国 would be furious at the idea of wiping out characters to replace with a soul-less alphabet, regardless of its efficiency

[ala]

Here's some Shanghainese (post-1970's) Romanization experimentation. Nouns are capitalized, spelling is phonetic and systematic, and all tonal markings are made (acute accent represents high pitch). Word separation is determined by sandhi phrases.

tsesach Tan'inci = Color printer

tsesach Cikkuan-tan'inci = Color laser printer.

tsesach Youmoch-tan'inci = Color inkjet

tsesach Foein = Color copy

tsesach Foeinci = Color copier

tsesach Dizici = Color television, also: Tsedi

tsesach Binmuo = Color monitor

tsesach Nyeutzipich = Color ballpoint pen

tsesach Kánpich = Color fountain pen

tsesach Khépich = Color pencils, also: Tsesappich

tsesach Tzophi = Color photo

tsesach Saein = Color photography

tsesach Vuyinnecin = Color contacts (contact lenses)

Sattse, Nessach = Color

Itzi, Atun = Chair

Detzi = Table

Shazide = Desk

Shinshidde = Information desk

Sóunïnde = Cashier's register, check-out

Vovvude = Service desk

Guede = Counter

Vovvuguede = Service counter

kócich Vovvuguede = Advanced service counter

kócich Kónzunsi = Senior engineer

kócich Ditzi-kónzunsi = Senior electric engineer

Cië = Machine

Ciëhuo = Mechanization

cië = adj. Unflexible, stiff, adamant

kócich Cië-kónzunsi = Senior mechanical engineer

Kókhuji = High technology

Sumuo-khúji = Digital technology

Cikkuan-khúji = Laser technology

Shinshich-khúji = Information technology

shícin Khúji = Advanced technology

shícin Sumuo-khúji = Advanced digital technology

Sél = Cell (as in electronics, not biology)

Dizisel = Battery cell

e = adj. Late; verb: To love.

Ejin = Love

Ejin-kuzi = Love story

Ejin-sékoeyin = Love triangle

ezan = To fall in love

eshich = To cherish

emoch = To adore

huéshi = To like; Also: héushi

chissach, chisshi = To consume passionately

Héuin, héuin = Welcome, to welcome; Also: héunin

Eshin = Compassion

Eho = Hobby

Enin = Spouse

Esach non. / Wo esach non. = I love you. (-sach is intensity suffix)

Wo emossach non. = I adore you.

Wo ro huéshi non äch. = I like you a lot.

Ekottzini = Patriotism

Tzónkoch = China

Kánneu = Jiangnan, Yangtze River basin

Minzoch = Ethnicity, nationality

Zide = Era, period

yide = adj. Modern

Öu-yidetzini = Post-modernism

Öu-yideshin = Post-modernity

Zuowetzini = Socialism

Zuowewoddon = Social activity

Zuoweyundon = Social movement

Zuowefoeri = Social welfare

Zuowe-poshi = Social insurance

Zuowe-khúyich = Social sciences

Zuowe-pecin = Social background

Zuowe-kekach = Social reform

zuowe äch = adj. Societal (zuowe äch Muoyin = societal models)

Zuowe äch = Society's (Zuowe äch Tza = society's debt)

Tzípuntzini = Capitalism

Tzípunka = Capitalist (person)

Shóutzuntzini = Revisionism

Inshanpha = Impressionism

Öuji-inshanpha = Post-impressionism

Nindotzini = Humanism

Zizeu, zizeu äch = Nature, natural

Zizeutzini = Naturalism

Zizeuzunöch = Deism

iouzi äch Wekue = Infantile regression

Ioulyeu = Kindergarten

Shonin = Child

Shoöch = Elementary

Daöch = University

Öddan, Öeyo, Össhjo= School

Öerich = Degree (educational)