ㄅㄆㄇㄈ really suks

[cometrue]

Let’s see what we can discover from your examples:

ㄆ (p) ← 波 (po)

it SB 夕

ㄝ (ie, ye) ← 也 (ye)

actually it's from 世

Derived from characters by adding an extra mark:

ㄉ (d) ← 刀 (dao)

ㄌ (l) ← 力 (li)

yeah, you are right, but i m afraid english letters adding extra marks will become french, german and lots of other language.

ㄈ (f) ← 匚 (fang)

you mean C and 匚 are look alike?

ㄘ © ← 七 (the ㄘ is an ancient version of 七 and pronounced in Mandarin as ci; it also happens to look like hiragana ち chi)

ㄓ (zhi) ←ㄓ (archaic), modern: 之 (zhi)

yes, but theㄘㄓ are 篆书, u mean we can always put 行草隶篆 together?

ㄨ (u) ← 五 (ㄨ is the old Chinese numeral for five).

ㄞ (ai) ← ㄞ (archaic), modern: 亥 (hai)

ㄢ (an) ← ㄢ (archaic), modern: 菡 (han)

ㄟ (ei) ← ㄟ (archaic, ei). Similar to hiragana/katakana へ (he/e)

it disappeared since it was not reasonable.

Parts from characters, like in katakana

if somebody has only one leg, two fingers and one eye(on the leg) , wouldn’t u call him a freak unless you to his face?

the hiragana and katakana do really suck, they destroyed hanzi's original beauty at all, as you know, hanzi's beauty based on shape of square, the regulation is the more square, the more beutiful, but the hiragana and katakana are really like bunch of freaks, i would say the reform is failed and without logic... how come the 草书 and 楷书 live together?

[Guest cavebear]

well, I do not know the beans about bopomofo.

I can't argue on the technical side of it.

but there may be a lot passion and pride associated with the system. And the cultural subtlety.

[cometrue]

I don’t know any Japanese, but I know a little bit calligraphy of 草书, so let me guess where are the fr**k from:

あ←安 え←元 お←於 ゃ←也 ゅ←功 そ←首 と←上 に←仁 ぬ←奴 ね←收or数 の←四or的

ふ←不 は←德 め←女 も←毛or色 る←百or为

I m not sure if it's accurate, feel free to correct.

[Guest Yinyue Mike]

I thought I'd play devil's advocate and point out some flaws in both zhuyin and pinyin, in fact, both are inconsistent in some ways and each has its own strong points and faults.

Hanyu Pinyin's Faults:

*It's based on the Russian system, so a lot of the strange letters are from cyrillic, such as X for the "sh" sound, this equates to the cyrllic letter that looks like an X with a line through (sorry, not technical, I don't know russian).

*It is TOO concise. Pinyin abbreviates a lot, too much! For instance u + ei = uei but is shortened to ui, for instance hui. Just like i + ou = iou but is shortened to iu. Know wonder students struggle with how to pronounce jiu, hui, and words like this. Also a hard one, when ü is after an l or n is must be written to distinguish it from lu or nu, but because there is no u sound after y or x, yü and xü are written yu xu, which leads to mispronunciation. Zhuyin uses separate symbols for ü and u.

*You can't annotate pinyin very well over characters for learning purposes like zhuyin or furigana.

Zhuyin Fuhao's Faults:

*It is another step to learn for beginners in Chinese=a bigger learning curve.

*The point made earlier about u and o being confused a little in zhuyin is true, I agree. However, the argument that ㄐ is silly because it's said the same way a ㄐ一 is, in fact, very silly. It really does just stand for the sound "j" but is read "ji" as a name only. The fact that "b" is pronounced the same as "bee" when saying the letter on its own is not enlightening at all.

*It's not as well know outside of Taiwan. But it is fine for computer purposes, most people I have met from Taiwan use it to type Chinese.

Anyway, hope that brings a little perspective to everything. Have fun!

Mike

[cometrue]

Hanyu Pinyin's Faults:

*It's based on the Russian system' date=' so a lot of the strange letters are from cyrillic, such as X for the "sh" sound, this equates to the cyrllic letter that looks like an X with a line through (sorry, not technical, I don't know russian).[/quote']

hey,hey,hey, the han yu pin yin maybe established with russian helps, but it doesnt mean they have a russian pronunciation, actually the letter X in russian prononced "h" or "khah" the Ж=r or zheh.

*It is TOO concise. Pinyin abbreviates a lot, too much! For instance u + ei = uei but is shortened to ui, for instance hui. Just like i + ou = iou but is shortened to iu. Know wonder students struggle with how to pronounce jiu, hui, and words like this. Also a hard one, when ü is after an l or n is must be written to distinguish it from lu or nu, but because there is no u sound after y or x, yü and xü are written yu xu, which leads to mispronunciation. Zhuyin uses separate symbols for ü and u.

ditto!

[skylee]

...um ... but hanyu pinyin works, doesn't it? and it is widely accepted. and lots of people (like me) do learn to speak Putonghua using it. I think these are what matters. (I am no linguist )

And what is the use of the bopomofo system being more accurate ... I think Taiwan people's pronunciation is far from accurate (although this really depends on what the standard is).

[smithsgj]

Yinyue Mike:

> It is TOO concise

No it's not. It's parsimonious. Since there's no "wee" sound in Mandarin, 'ui' in 'hui' unambiguously represents the "way" sound. Mandarin doesn't have that many vowel sounds and i really don't see why it's difficult. Writing it 'huei' or 'hwei' just introduces unnecessary letters. You think 'ui' intuitively looks like "wee" because you're an English speaker: in Dutch, 'ui' sounds something like the "ou" in "out". It's what you're used to.

> However, the argument that ㄐ is silly because it's said the same way a ㄐ一 is, in fact, very silly.

Put like that it sounds silly. But consider how the Taiwanese learn the phonetic system and relate it to syllable-characters. For 比, the kids have chant "ㄅ,ㄧ,比" (b, yi, bi) and that makes sense. But "ㄐ,ㄧ,及" (ji, yi, ji) is almost as ridiculous as "ㄒ, ㄩ, ㄥ, 雄" (xi, yu, eng, xiong).

Is this strange chanting done in China too? And if so, what do they chant in the above cases?

Cometrue:

> you mean C and 匚 are look alike?

In my earlier post I meant that I thought 匚 was supposed to look like F (that's how it's pronounced). If the character is "fang", then Ala's explanation makes sense.

Cavebear:

> but there may be a lot passion and pride associated with the system. And the cultural subtlety

It's a tool for teaching kids to learn to read and a computer input technique for heavens' sake not some important cultural model that captures 五千年的歷史. I mean they're hardly going to get all dewy-eyed and start singing the national anthem over a bunch of nasty little Japanesey squiggles.

Skylee: exactly.

[Quest]

Is this strange chanting done in China too? And if so, what do they chant in the above cases?

Yes.

比: bo1 yi3 - bi3

及: ji1 yi2 - ji2

雄: xi1 yi1 ong2 - xiong2

[smithsgj]

OK. So in the case of 及: ji1 yi2 - ji2 they get round it by pretending that the second "component" of the sound bears the tone? (Because in Taiwan the Chanting is on the first tone, ji1 yi1- ji2)

[Quest]

That's how I was taught - ji1 yi2 ji2, I've heard ji1 yi1 ji2 too. I am not sure.

[ala]

Let’s see what we can discover from your examples:

ㄝ (ie' date=' ye) ← 也 (ye) [/quote']

actually it's from 世

No, it is from 也, which is a gliding i+ei sound /iê/. 世 is shi in modern Mandarin, si in Shanghainese, and se in Japanese. There is no gliding vowel in 世. All mainland and Taiwanese interpretations for ㄝ has been 也 since when Zhuyin was published. On the other hand, the Japanese hiragana せ se comes from 世.

regulation is the more square, the more beutiful, but the hiragana and katakana are really like bunch of freaks, i would say the reform is failed and without logic.

FYI hiragana and katakana are not Chinese characters, and were never meant to substitute Chinese characters. Zhuyin symbols are not Chinese characters either, and were intentionally altered to be different from the characters. So how can they be "ugly freaks" if they are not part of the same script? My point is that they were derived though from the original characters (either existing or obsolete), and had a rationale for their selection. By your senseless argument, pinyin beside Chinese characters is just as freakish, if not more. You are comparing apples with oranges and calling the oranges freaks.

I don’t know any Japanese, but I know a little bit calligraphy of 草书, so let me guess where are the fr**k from:

あ←安 え←元 お←於 ゃ←也 ゅ←功 そ←首 と←上 に←仁 ぬ←奴 ね←收or数 の←四or的

ふ←不 は←德 め←女 も←毛or色 る←百or为 I m not sure if it's accurate, feel free to correct.

You are wrong for え, ゆ, そ, と, ね, の, は, る. The hiragana symbols come from Chinese characters with very similar pronounciation. も=mo=毛, ね=ne=祢, ゆ=yu=由, ゃ = ya=也, ふ = fu=不 (originally /pu/), る = ru=留,　ま = ma=末, つ = tsu=川, に=ni=仁 (in 吴语的文读，仁　is still ni).

See:

http://www.omniglot.com/images/writing/hiragana.gif

[Lu]

It's a tool for teaching kids to learn to read and a computer input technique for heavens' sake not some important cultural model that captures 五千年的歷史. I mean they're hardly going to get all dewy-eyed and start singing the national anthem over a bunch of nasty little Japanesey squiggles.

It sets them apart from the mainland, that's the cultural/political thing. It has nothing to do with 五千年的历史， it is about Taiwan against China.

[ala]

It's a tool for teaching kids to learn to read and a computer input technique for heavens' sake not some important cultural model that captures 五千年的歷史. I mean they're hardly going to get all dewy-eyed and start singing the national anthem over a bunch of nasty little Japanesey squiggles.[/quote']It sets them apart from the mainland' date=' that's the cultural/political thing. It has nothing to do with 五千年的历史， it is about Taiwan against China.[/quote']

If that is your logic, then it was the PRC that wanted to be set apart from the Republic of China. Zhuyin Fuhao was first developed by the 讀音統一會 Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation set up by the new Republican government in 1912-1913 based off 章炳麟 Zhang Binglin's shorthands. It was officially proclaimed in 1918. Zhuyin fuhao was an immediate step following the fall of Qing; and was an indispensible part of modern Chinese language reforms started around that time. Shortly later, Gwoyeu Romatzyh (國語羅馬字, later called 譯音符號) was also invented (and officially sponsored by the government) as a less ambiguous transcription system for westerners and their library catalogs in 1926 by the Republican Government University 國民政府大學院 in Nanjing. Gwoyeu Romatzyh was able to contain tonal information without the additional use of diacritics and tone marks.

Hanyu Pinyin in the Mainland was redundantly invented precisely for Communist idealogical reasons, and to set its Education Ministry apart from the ROC's. Pinyin was approved in 1958 and adopted in 1979 by the PRC government.

It has nothing to do with 五千年的历史， it is about Taiwan against China.

No, it isn't about Taiwan against China. The PRC was the one hell bent on being different and new STYLISTICALLY and SUPERFICIALLY from the already reformist ROC.

[smithsgj]

Thank you for this interesting historical contribution. Clearly there are political forces at play!

Gwoyeu Romatzyh is less ambiguous than zhuyin fuhao, do you mean, or than Wade-Giles or whatever romanization system was in place at the time?

Doesn't the cataloguing requirement reinforce the argument that whatever system is used, it should be alphabetic (as in ABC)? Otherwise, you need two systems, and the non-alphabetic system is redundant.

I wonder why Gwoyeu Romatzyh failed? Anyone any ideas?

[sunyata]

I thought I'd play devil's advocate and point out some flaws in both zhuyin and pinyin' date=' in fact, both are inconsistent in some ways and each has its own strong points and faults.

Hanyu Pinyin's Faults:

*It's based on the Russian system, so a lot of the strange letters are from cyrillic, such as X for the "sh" sound, this equates to the cyrllic letter that looks like an X with a line through (sorry, not technical, I don't know russian).

Mike[/quote']

Dood, that's complete BS! and this is coming from a Russian native-speaker. "X" in russian is pronounces as english "H" or "KH", and NOT "SH"!

and nothing in pinyin reminds me of russian...the alpahbet - latin, not cyrillic, letter combinations - nothing similar to russian, so you better check your sources...

oh and COMETRUE, your guesses about hiragana were pretty good, look here ---> http://www.omniglot.com/writing/japanese_hiragana.htm