On "loan characters" vs wrong characters

[陳德聰]

My point is Chinese characters should convey meaning. So if you only use homophones, it loses the point.

What you are saying is that, despite the reality (ie. when we read characters we simply look at the form of the character and know the sound and meaning simultaneously), you personally think characters should convey meaning (only).

 

It's not that you should drop it, it's that you clearly don't know what you're talking about. Could you elaborate on your background with Chinese characters a bit? It seems like you have some fundamental misunderstandings, and that your teacher's explanation of 通假字 is only making the situation worse.

[sparrow]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_Dictionary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language#History

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Chinese_language

 

Then maybe read the book that was suggested to you.

 

 

Did you know that some think Chinese did not used to have tones. In keeping with your desire to go back to how Chinese was meant to be, I say we eliminate tones from Modern Chinese. Good idea, right?

 

Also, for most of Chinese history, 99% of Chinese people could not read or write—Chinese was mostly a spoken language. If you really want to go back to where Chinese came from, we should eliminate the Chinese written system altogether, don't you think?

 

My point is, the way things were has nothing to do with how things are meant to be. And if you want to have an honest conversation about what things are meant to do, language is, in a large way, meant to make communication easier. Since Chinese Characters aren't the easiest way to communicate, they do not fulfill their original purpose as well as other writing systems.

 

In short, if you want to take your argument to one of its logical conclusions, one might argue Chinese should relinquish characters altogether. We can switch to writing Chinese using only 注音符号. I just began learning it this week, so I wouldn't mind. ㄏㄠˇㄅㄨˋㄏㄠˇ?! (好不好）

 

That might not be what you want, but that is definitely one destination that your argument about the original purpose of Chinese language can take you.

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

I'm not the one who think that. It's also my friends. But if I persisted, it wouldn't do any of us any good, which is why I said I will drop it.

 

I won't be coming back to these forums because all I have managed to do is bring about trouble instead of contributing.

[sparrow]

@Hwong:

 

Please do come back. There is nothing wrong with debate—which is certainly contribution in itself. =\

 

And by the way, this discussion led me to read a bit about the origins of Chinese characters, so I for one benefited. I hope at least you followed some links and did some reading, got a good book recommendation, or at least were compelled to think about the topic a bit.

 

But if the argument left a sour taste in your mouth, perhaps that is my fault and I'm sorry. I'll try to be less contentious.

[li3wei1]

Of course, the simplified script now conveys sounds more so than the proper characters (正體字), which still convey meanings

 

Less so in simplified characters, since they are more of a phonetic script than meaning-conveying characters.

 

 

If you do come back, maybe you could explain the above. Why does the simplified version of, for instance, 国, convey more sound and less meaning than its traditional counterpart? I don't think you can describe any kind of Chinese characters as a 'phonetic script', unless you think Pinyin is 'simplified characters'.

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

Well my reputation points is still decreasing every time I check it and despite my efforts to make my rep become 0 again, I haven't suceeded so far. And I irritate a lot of you, which is not something I want.

 

Pinyin is not simplified characters. I was just bringing up a point I made when talking to a friend who hates Japanese kanji:

Simplified characters are more phonetic-based than traditional characters, which I would consider more meaning-based.

Take for instance the word 後. In trad characters it means "back/rear", but in simp characters, it is written as 后, which is a homophone of 后 (trad Chinese, meaning "queen"). Also, as I pointed out earlier, 華 is simplified as 华 because of the Mandarin pronunciation (and probably some other Chinese languages/dialects) is close to 化. So I was just trying to say it is relatively more phonetic-based (and relatively LESS meaning-based) than trad characters.

[renzhe]

OK, now take these examples: 泪 国 广 刘 厂 网 阳 阴 叹.

How do you propose that they are more phonetic than their traditional counterparts?

The fact is that simplification concentrated on reducing the stroke count. Sometimes this made the new characters more phonetic, sometimes it made them less phonetic. You would need a detailed study to determine if there was a large shift.

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

Those don't, but my point still stands. Simplified characters are more phonetic-based than traditional characters. I'm not saying simplified characters ARE phonetic.

Although, not always. I think there are some instances where the strokes count actually increase by one or two, but then I cannot read simplfied characters a lot.

[renzhe]

You would need a detailed study to determine if there was a large shift.

[OneEye]

No, all he needs is his own misinformed opinions. That, and those of his teacher. And his friends. What more proof do you need?

[sparrow]

@Hwong_DsiKiem:

I didn't realize there were reputation points on this forum. I suggest you ignore them because people seem to use them incorrectly. They're supposed to measure how much a comment contributes to a discussion, but people often use them as agree/disagree buttons.

 

Hwong, all your topics create a lot of (controversial) discussion—which I really enjoy. Haters gonna hate. Ignore them.

[OneEye]

The rep points are supposed to measure helpfulness. OPs posts haven't been helpful, and in fact he's spreading misinformation when he's already been given ample evidence that he's wrong, so of course his posts get down-voted. I don't know if you've picked up on the pattern, but it goes something like this:

 

OP: Chinese is like this: (nonsense about Chinese that the OP wouldn't believe if he bothered to read a book on the subject)

More knowledgeable posters: No, it's like this (better-informed post correcting the OP, with examples or even citations)

OP: No, I don't think that's how it is. My teacher said this.

MKP: (More explanation and insight)

OP: Well, it doesn't seem that way to me.

MKP: It is that way. Here's some more stuff you can read about it.

OP: I don't feel like it. I still think Chinese is like this.

MKP: This conversation is over.

OP: Why is everyone getting irritated at me?

 

 

Now, it's not that he posted nonsense in the first post. Lots of people believe lots of ridiculous things. The problem lies in the fact that when presented with evidence to the contrary, instead of engaging in a discussion, he simply ignores the evidence against him and insists that his opinion is the correct one.

 

OP, some of us are irritated because we like to have reasonable discussions on this forum, and you've refused to meet us halfway. We've given you citations and suggested readings, and you've ignored or outright refused them, and continued on your merry way, posting a bunch of nonsense rather than actually engaging anyone trying to discuss the topic with you in a reasonable way. You're wasting our time, and that's irritating. You've shown yourself to be lacking even the most fundamental knowledge of how the Chinese writing system works, and yet when we try to give you a way to remedy that, you refuse and just insist that you're right because, what, once upon a time some teacher told you some nonsense that they didn't even understand themselves? And we're supposed to just agree with that?

 

One of the reasons this forum works as well as it does is that the members here generally have a higher standard than at many other forums. If you refuse to play along, you can expect people to get irritated with you. If you decide you want to learn something, I would be happy to discuss this stuff with you, and I'm sure others would be too. But there is a massive amount of research out there on this topic, and if you want to engage other people intelligently on the subject, you have to at least be familiar with the basics.

[roddy]

Seconded. You come across as if you're here to tell us all about Chinese, without thinking that there might be people on here equally, and better, informed. Your stroke order post is an example - that's basic level stuff, available easily on a thousand webpages and in the first chapter of hundreds of textbooks. It's a bit like turning up on studyenglishforums.com and saying "Hi guys, let me show you the alphabet. A... B.... C..."

You're welcome and encouraged to keep posting, but maybe do a bit more reading, a little less posting, and try and answer the questions people are actually asking, rather than telling them what you think they need to know.

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

"Those don't, but my point still stands. Simplified characters are more phonetic-based than traditional characters. I'm not saying simplified characters ARE phonetic."

 

However people disagree with me, this is what I have been taught. If something is more, it is not necessarily absolute.

[renzhe]

This is how it works: if you name two characters to illustrate your point, and I name 9, your point does NOT stand.

There are about 7000 characters in common use today. Many of them have a simplified and several traditional variants. During the simplification process, many principles were used. Some of them made the characters more phonetic from today's Mandarin perspective (phonetic loans, part substitutions, etc.), others made them less phonetic (reverting to ancient forms, picking simpler variants, borrowing from cursive forms).

A systematic study of all ~7000 characters would be interesting. I'd like to know if simplification made the script more phonetic overall. This is how you should argue your point: you should find a study (there must be one) which actually counted and then tell us about it. Or you could go over to wiktionary.org and count yourself. Then come back with conclusive numbers and you'll get lots of props.

[Hwong_DsiKiem]

Listing more does not mean your point stand. I said, "Those don't, but my point still stands. Simplified characters are more phonetic-based than traditional characters. I'm not saying simplified characters ARE phonetic."

 

You are the one who cannot understand the sentence. All of my teachers agree. More phonemic is not totally phonemic. As long as there are more phonemic-based characters than traditional characters, it is.

 

You can argue and downrep me all you like. I will not argue with people who do not reason, which is why I'm leaving here. Because downrepping me and not knowing what more means certainly does not make you right.

[sparrow]

@Hwong_DsiKiem #36:

 

You're right, it does not mean his point stands. But it still means that your point doesn't stand either—and that's the part that you're missing, Hwong: Generally, people are not saying you're wrong and they're right. What many of them are saying is that you're not necessarily right, even though you keep telling us that you are. They're aren't saying they know the correct answer—they are simply saying that your comments have flaws.

 

Unless someone brings a study to light—even if someone personally goes and looks at 1000 randomly selected characters—then then you would have a better case. The thing is that it is not clear to most people on this forum if the Simplified set tends to be more phonetic than the Traditional set.

 

And by the way, quoting your teachers is only slightly more meaningful than meaningless. Again, an actual investigation would hold more weight because nobody knows your teacher's sources. Being a native speaker or a teacher is not enough authority in this situation because this situation requires a statistical analysis of Chinese characters.

 

 

By the way, Hwong, I recently posted a spreadsheet of the 10,000 most frequently used characters—which includes simplified and traditional characters. If I actually cared about the result of the debate, I might spend 20 minutes using that spreadsheet to randomize a the list of characters, then use that list to investigate this matter. You could do that if you wanted.

 

I personally don't care whether Traditional characters have more meaning. I memorize them by brute force, not via stories. When I read Chinese and encounter words I don't know, I use context, not 部首 , to figure out the meaning because, in my opinion, it tends to be faster and more accurate.

[roddy]

You're welcome to invite your teachers to come and join in.  

[li3wei1]

All of my teachers agree

 

It doesn't take a lot to be a teacher. Hell, I'm a teacher. I've been taught a lot of stuff by various teachers that I've been led to question, and eventually discard, because of overwhelming evidence, or sometimes lack of any evidence.

[renzhe]

As long as there are more phonemic-based characters than traditional characters, it is.

But you haven't shown that there are more phonetic characters in the simplified set. You showed a few examples, I showed a few counter-examples.

So the only logical conclusion is "we don't know for sure".