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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Korean: Odd man out?
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References: <4kd461$hr1@juliana.sprynet.com> <SDLEE.96Apr9210621@wisdom.cs.hku.hk> <4kmi5k$8qj@altrade.nijmegen.inter.nl.net> <SDLEE.96Apr14112142@champion.cs.hku.hk>
Date: Sun, 14 Apr 1996 15:28:41 GMT
Lines: 29

In article <SDLEE.96Apr14112142@champion.cs.hku.hk>,
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} <sdlee@cs.hku.hk> wrote:
>>>>>> "T" == T T Gerritsen <T.Gerritsen@inter.nl.net> writes:
>
>    T> Bit of nationalism? :-) I love Chinese characters too, but
>    T> however unique, it's much harder to learn than the "real"
>    T> alphabetic scripts.
>
>The   Chinese characters,  like  Korean  Hanguls,  are  systematically
>composed of smaller components (called radicals).  Yes, it's harder to
>learn since there are over 200  such radicals.  However, once you have
>learnt it, you   can communicate with  all  literate  speakers  of any
>Chinese language.  How many people are there who can read Chinese?

It's not the radicals which kill me, it's the "phonetics".  (Most 
Chinese characters consist of a semantic component, the radical, and a
"phonetic" component, which is an independent character representing a
word that sounds like the new compound.)  How many of those are there?
Several times the number of distinctive syllables in Chinese, I'll
wager.  In comparison, the fact that most radicals are only tangentially
related in meaning to the compounds they appear it (what does "roof"
[mian2] have to do with "write" [xie3]?  Or "inch" [cun4] with "temple"
[si4]?) is a minor problem.


-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
