On 05/23/2011 10:33 AM, Milos Rancic wrote: >> In Chinese writing a character shows a word, irrespective of how the >> word is pronounced. So if we would use a Chinese style writing system, >> you could write [your] [dog] [is] [dead], and a Frenchman would write >> exactly the same, even though he would pronounce [your] [dog] [is] >> [dead] as "Votre chien est mort". Thus, different languages might >> write the same sentence the same in Chinese script. This does not mean >> that there are no differences - someone who spoke Latin would probably >> spell this line as [dog] [your] [dead] [is], and perhaps in yet >> another language this would be immensely crude, and the right thing to >> say would be "[prepare for bad news] [honorific person] [your] [dog] >> [is] [not] [alive]", but the mere difference of being in a different >> language with totally different sounds is not enough to conclude that >> in Chinese writing the actual written text will be different. > > Andre, that's not accurate explanation. Chinese script is not purely > logographic, but logo-syllabic (or logo-phonetic). There are *phonetic* > parts inside of the writing system.
But different Chinese languages will still use the same character for different but related phonetic component. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
