Hanzi to write English

[fenlan]

Is it not obvious that one day native English speakers will be required to write English in Chinese characters. I propose the following system: 1) Reject the Viet style chu nom system; 2) only use characters that are among the 60,000 in Wenlin with use of occasional wellknown Canto characters; 3) use simplified characters where possible; 4) adopt a Japanese style system where a character can have an English pronunciation or may be borrowed for the Mandarin pronuncation, but have a different meaning; 5) just as Mandarin can have an -r suffix, which is not a whole syllable, we need suffixes to express English grammar; 6) a character could have more than one reading, as in Japanese.

The first sentence to be written in 英字 is: "I want to go to the shops to buy a book." Vocabulary as follows:

1. I - written as 我 (borrowed for meaning)

2. want - written as 要 (borrowed for meaning)

3. to - written as 吐 (borrowed for pronunciation)

4. go - written as 去 (borrowed for meaning)

5. the - ideally we need a character pronounced in Chinese as "de" with a mouth radical to show this is a grammatical word. I propose using the Canto character 哋.

6. shop - 商 (borrowed for meaning)

7. To make shop plural, we need a suffix, -s. I proposed using 斯, so that "shops" is rendered as 商斯.

8. buy - 买

9. a - 啊

10. book - 书

The whole sentence is:

我要吐去吐哋商斯吐买啊书。

Difficulties present themselves owing to the difference in grammar. I propose using 斯 to show a plural "s", except where the voicing of the previous sound leads it to be pronounced "z". In other words, if "wife" is 妻, "wives" cannot be 妻斯, as this would be "wifes". "wives" and words like it must be handled differently. I suggest 妻兹, so we have:

the wife = 哋妻

the wives = 哋妻兹

am = 俺

-ing as a suffix = 逜 (tthis is in Wenlin as pronounced ying2 or wu4 or wu3, but no indication of what it means). So, "I am going to the shops" is:

我俺去逜吐哋商斯。

[atitarev]

Hilarious,

I imagined having to write Russian in Chinese characters - just pure Chinese would be impossible but Japanese style could be adopted. However, as words can change/drop/add letters inside the root and word inflexion is so big, then certain words would need to be transliterated.

Example: pyet' - to sing; but

I sing - Ya poyu

You sing - Ty poyosh

He sings - On poyot

Only one letter of the root word remains unchanged.

As for English - changes to pronunciation, for example: drop (root) + ing, changes to dropping probably doesn't need to be rendered, just one picture for "drop" + one picture for "-ing"

How are you rendering to be, am, are, is, was, were, has been have been, will be, etc - just 是?

[fenlan]

Anatoli, it hasn't been fully thought out yet, but obviously those clumsy 26 letters will just have to go!!

[in_lab]

Sounds good so far.

For shop, I would choose 店 instead of 商.

And 要 for want is ok, but how about 哇, or something like that?

For -ing, something like 穎

I want to go shopping.

我要吐去商穎。 or 我哇吐去店穎。

So, shopping will be written as 店穎, but eventually 瞎拼 will be imported from Chinese. When it makes its transition back to English, it will be pronounced as blindpin.

[lau]

about that part "to go to the shop"...

don't you think that these two "to"-s should be differentiated?

one of them is a part of the infinitive (like: to go, to do, to see)

and the other "to" is more like a part of speech that indicates the direction....

so i guess 吐 and 途 should be used, the second one adopted both for the pronouncation and the meaning

[fenlan]

yes, that would be a good idea to differentiate the "to's".

[fenlan]

I agree with using 店 for "shop". So 商 means "commerce". I want to use 要 for "want" in order to, as much as possible, borrow the Chinese characteres for meaning, in preference to borrowing them for pronunication if there is a choice. For -ing, 穎 means bright or something - I forget - so I chose the other character, firstly because it is rare (thus allowing common Chinese characters to be borrowed for their meaning), and second because I thought the radical was appropriate for the "ing" meaning.

I am starting to realise how complex English is. English is composed of roots and affixes, and so characters need to reflect that. Eg reindustrialization. This is prefix re- followed by root industri- followed by suffixes –al, -iz, -ation. I suggest

Re- = 复

Industri- = 工 (which will be a duoyinzi along the Japanese model, with alternative reading “work”)

-al = 日 (borrowed for sound)

-iz = 化

-ation = 呻 (or some rare character pronounced shen)

so: reindustrialize = 复工日化呻

Verbs:

I go: 我去

I am going: 我俺去逜

He goes: 他去兹

He is going: 他是去逜

Dealing with English “strong” verbs – 300+ irregular vergs, eg fight, fought, will be difficult. I need to think about that.

[lau]

using 是 for "is" would be acceptable, but what about the form "to be" like in a phrase "I want to be with You"? "吐哔"?

Anyway, that forces the "yingzi" writing system to use the best "yingzi" 是 for something else, NOT the root, the basic word - to BE

[in_lab]

What about all the verb tenses? If you want to avoid using new characters for every irregular verb, then you would probably have to depart from Chinese-style orthography. For example for go (去)--> went 去了, gone: 去過

[Ncao]

My grandma had this book that try to teach English to Cantonese speakers by using Hanzi. If I still had it I would scan a page and post it.

[atitarev]

I think I saw somewhere how English letters are transcribed with Chinese characters. I am interested. Also, what are pinyin letters and tone marks called in Chinese?

[devi9]

拼音 (pin1 yin1)

声调 (sheng1 diao4)

[skylee]

pinyin letters - 拼音字母

tone marks - 聲調符號 or 調號

Take a look -> 漢語拼音方案

[atitarev]

Thanks to both who replied. I meant how each tone mark is called in Chinese and English/pinyin letters called in Chinese with each letter having a Chinese character for its sound, for example letter W is not called "Double U" but "Wu" and there is a Chinese character for it (with the same reading). It's not too important for me - just curious. I saw it t somewhere.

[fenlan]

Tone 1 - 阴平声

Tone 2 - 阳平声

Tone 3 - 上声 (note, shang3sheng1, not shang4sheng1)

Tone 4 - 去声

[skylee]

As in 漢語拼音方案 (see hyperlink given in post #13).

[shibo77]

Is this what you are looking for?

HANYU PINYIN ALPHABET:

A a1

B be1

C ce1

D de1

E e1

F ef1

G ge1

H ha1

I i1

J jie1

K ke1

L el1

M em1

N ne1

O o1

P pe1

Q qiu1 (qiou1)

R ar1 (aer1)

S es1

T te1

U u1

Ü ü1

V ve1

W wa1 (ua1)

X xi1

Y ya1 (ia1)

Z ze1

-------------------------------------------------

INITIALS:

b 玻bo1

p 坡po1

m 摸mo1

f 佛fo2

d 得de2

t 特te4

n 讷ne4

l 勒le1

g 哥ge1

k 科ke1

h 喝he1

j 基ji1

q 欺qi1

x 希xi1

zh 知zhi1

ch 蚩chi1

sh 诗shi1

r 日ri4

z 资 zi1

c 雌 ci1

s 思 si1

y 衣 yi1

w 乌 wu1

-------------------------------------------------

FINALS:

a 啊a1

o 喔wo1

e 鹅e2

i 衣yi1

u 乌wu1

ü 迂yu1

ai 哀ai1

ei (ê) 欸ei1 (ê1)

ao 熬ao1

ou 欧ou1

an 安an1

en 恩en1

ang 昂ang2

eng 亨heng1

ong 轰hong1

ia 呀ya1

ie 耶ye1

iao 腰yao1

iou 忧you1

ian 烟yan1

in 因yin1

iang 央yang1

ing 英ying1

iong 雍yong1

ua 蛙wa1

uo 窝wo1

uai 歪wai1

uei 威wei1

uan 弯wan1

uen 温wen1

uang 汪wang4

ueng 翁weng1

üe 约yue1

üan 冤yuan1

ün 晕yun1

----------------------------------------------------

TONES:

阴平(天)yin1 ping2 (tian1)

阳平(平)yang2 ping2 (ping2)

上声(上)shang3 sheng1 (shang3)

去声(去)qu4 sheng1 (qu4)

----------------------------------------------------

English lettres are called the same as in English, but some learners have a difficult time remembering the English sounds, so they write an approxiamate pronunciation in Chinese.

W "double u" 大步遛

-Shìbó

[Taibei]

Is it not obvious that one day native English speakers will be required to write English in Chinese characters...

DeFrancis wrote about this in "The Singlish Affair," which is the introduction to his essential book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy.

Amazingly, a lot of people failed to understand he was kidding.