46 replies to this topic

[nishishei]

It's an example written to Sun Yat-sen to show the impossibility of replacing Chinese script with Roman Characrers.

No. It was an example written by Chao Yuan Ren (the leading Chinese linguist) to show that we need to write the way we speak, and that continuing with Wenyan (Classical Chinese) would lead to difficulties in romanization as well, because Classical Chinese is too far removed from the vernacular language and too concise for adequate communication and precision.

Chao Yuan Ren is a supporter of the eventual complete romanization of Chinese (including its major dialects), as were most of China's writers and academics then, including Lu Xun. Lu Xun also saw literature in vernacular Chinese as the first step toward full romanization.

Whether they were right or wrong is a different issue, but please don't distort their intentions.

[hira]

what about inter-language written comprehension? Maybe most slang is not radically different, but most vernacular writing in cantonese and mandarin (and what I've seen of shanghainese) are quite comprehensible without actually speaking the language. I can make sense of cantonese writing and can't speak a word. I'm actually quite resentful of Hangul because otherwise I could read (more or less) korean texts.

[Alexander39]

what about inter-language written comprehension? Maybe most slang is not radically different, but most vernacular writing in cantonese and mandarin (and what I've seen of shanghainese) are quite comprehensible without actually speaking the language. I can make sense of cantonese writing and can't speak a word. I'm actually quite resentful of Hangul because otherwise I could read (more or less) korean texts.

My own country is rather tiny, occupying 44000km2 and whit 5.3 million inhabitants. but we still have lokal dialects inside our country that is dammed hard to understand if you come from outside the lokal area.
The americans tried to replace the Kanji in Japan whit romanized letters, but gave it up as impractical, since they had to develop a whole new set of letters and sounds to make it work. and patience has NEVER been one off the americans strong sides.
Each of the major language groups in Europe has some distinktive letters that helps when trying to spell the specific sounds of the language. only the 26 first letters in the alphabet is universal, german, french, danish, polish and numerous others has their own unique letters and sounds that is placed at the end of the alphabets or above it as in the case of the use of apostrof in german and zelic in polish. to name a few. Their is no reason why asian language as a whole cannot use the same technics when designing a alphahbet whit their own unique 'sounds' to follow.

Edited by Alexander39, 17 June 2005 - 01:35 AM.

[hira]

why does everybody always blame america about everything? sheesh, how many myths are around there? Japanese supporters of romanization appearead as early as the 1880s, and they were quite outspoken.

[lobster]

Their is no reason why asian language as a whole cannot use the same technics when designing a alphahbet whit their own unique 'sounds' to follow.

That's what being used in the Japanese, Korean and Thai etc. alphabets.

But then again, I fail to see why the Chinese script must be replaced with a Romanized script or another purely phonetic alphabet in order to be more "advanced" or "evolved". I hate this kind of one dimensional views.

[Mei Houwang]

So much will be lost if symbolized languages become alphabetical. There are riddles, stories<like Cao Cao and the candybox>, etc... that is based on words, symbolized words. If it becomes alphabetical, these cultural values won't make any sense.

[nishishei]

So much will be lost if symbolized languages become alphabetical. There are riddles, stories<like Cao Cao and the candybox>, etc... that is based on words, symbolized words. If it becomes alphabetical, these cultural values won't make any sense.

Of course.

I am pro digraphia. The idea is that two systems of writing can exist at once for different functions. Stories like Caocao and the Candybox do not need to be romanized, but they can be romanized into modern speech, just like Beowulf to modern English. Note taking, casual writing can be romanized if one wishes; in other words, the romanizations should not be seen only as phonetic transcriptions of characters, but can instead be full-fledged scripts.

Another benefit of romanization is of course the preservation of Chinese dialects (which for most do not even have official writing standards) in the modern era. Alphabetic systems tend to have a more conservative force on the phonological changes of a language.

[hira]

Alphabetic systems tend to have a more conservative force on the phonological changes of a language.

I don't agree with that... just look at french or english. Enforced ortography has little effect in the populace. Many spanish dialects have suffered massive phonetic changes, and those aren't corrected by the conservative spelling; people just memorize the correspondence (just like french oi=/wa/).

But anyway, I don't see why conservative phonology is desirable at all.

Instead of inventing a whole romanized system for each dialect (which won't be easy) why not stablish hanzi systems for modern dialects? cantonese has a fairly working system, and shanghainese has its too.

And you haven't answered the benefits of interdialectal written comprehension.

[nishishei]

I don't agree with that... just look at french or english. Enforced ortography has little effect in the populace. Many spanish dialects have suffered massive phonetic changes, and those aren't corrected by the conservative spelling; people just memorize the correspondence (just like french oi=/wa/).

The catchphrase was "more conservative".

French pronunciation has stayed relatively the same since the 1300's, the same cannot be said of any Chinese dialect. The ch in French is still pronounced [S], the j is still [Z]. The ch in English is still pronounced [tS], the j is still pronounced [dZ], identical to the 1200's. Whereas the palatals in Chinese dialects are changing every 30 years (see Shanghainese and Mandarin before Hanyu Pinyin). The palatals in Shanghainese are so unstable that when I was born 就 and 情 were pronounced zhiu and zhin, now they are pronounced jiu and jin (English j), and during my parents childhood, they were pronounced dziu and dzin (Japanese z).

French oi = [wa], hui = [wi] have been around for a long time, not a later change of pronunciation. In fact they were deliberately spelled this way to avoid certain ambiguity. For example, ui was pronounced [vi], an h was added to indicate [w].

[nishishei]

But anyway, I don't see why conservative phonology is desirable at all.

It's desirable in that one generation of speakers will be able to understand the previous two generations, when written orthography reflects a set pronunciation. For example, most Shanghainese youths today can barely understand their grandparents. Mandarin doesn't have as acute of a problem thanks to Hanyu Pinyin, and the requirements of typing Chinese using Hanyu Pinyin.

Instead of inventing a whole romanized system for each dialect (which won't be easy) why not stablish hanzi systems for modern dialects? cantonese has a fairly working system, and shanghainese has its too.

And you haven't answered the benefits of interdialectal written comprehension.

Because it was banned for many dialects (except the far southern dialects like Cantonese and Minnan, due to HK and Taiwan), as the government found this practice disrupts Putonghua/Standard Chinese proficiency, as word order and vocabulary were often confused.

Regardless of whether people use characters or romanization, a romanization system must still exist, because the vast majority of people type phonetically into the computer. It is simply impossible to expect people to write orthodox character-based Shanghainese while typing characters using Hanyu Pinyin. This is also why, on chatrooms and forums, Shanghainese people type like this: 弄以赛来了组萨？ for 侬现在勒勒做啥？ (non yizei leile tzu sa?) 你现在在干什么？

Romanization cannot be avoided, doesn't matter if you are for Hanzi-primary or Romanization-primary orthography.

[wushijiao]

To go back to the original question, I think the eventual success of Putonghua as a major global 2nd language will have a lot to do with the Mainland's political situation. A cultural theorists (I forgot his name) once pointed out that after a authoritarian country has a political opening up, about 10 years later there is a cultural renaissance in film and literature. Good examples of this are Spanish film in the 1980's and Korean film now.

Of course, if the Mainland opened up there would continue to be a ton of cheesy, meaningless kitsch. But I think there would also be many important directors like Jia Zhangke, Zhang Yimou , and more rock stars ala Cui Jian. As it is now, all of those people have run into political hassles from the current regime.

The idea that political openness promotes artistic flourishing is obvious if you look to the Golden era of modern Chinese literature and film that took place in Shanghai in the 1920's and 30's. Although the place was colonized, which was horrible and racist, the foreign gunboats did provide Chinese artists a space where they could express themselves without fear of being murdered by a warlord.

If China's political system opens up, if the arts bloom with a vast bouqet of a hundred flowers, and if China's economy continue its steady growth, I think Chinese could become one of the most studied second languages in the world.

English, of course, is at a level that no other language can match. But millions of people in English speaking countries and countries in which people learn English well (ie. the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark...etc) might pick Chinese to learn.

[hira]

of course a working romanization system is needed; but I just don't see the need to scrap hanzi in its favor. You just said that pinyin is enforcing conservative pronunciation of Mandarin, and its merely a pronunciation aid for hanzi.

Wether the government allows it or not, a working hanzi spelling for shanghainese and a standard romanization system will come soon. Even if it clandestine. Why not favor a mandarin/japanese style system instead of romanization-only?

[Tibet Libre]

Unfortunately, since the times of the Greeks and Romans, European languages never again fully realized the potential of a phonetical language as the allocation of sounds to letters is far from being handled in a consistent way.

If Chinese are looking for a truly consistent way of representing their sounds, they should skipp the Latin alphabet and directly opt for the International Phonetic Alphabet - likewise the Europeans should do the same.

http://en.wikipedia....onetic_Alphabet

[hira]

purely phonetic alphabets have never been used because they are not practical.

Sounds are never consistent between speakers of the same language. Dialects exist, and literature demands a unified ortography. And sound changes over time would make past literature unintelligible.

People have known this for centuries.

[jwrevak]

Unfortunately, since the times of the Greeks and Romans, European languages never again fully realized the potential of a phonetical language as the allocation of sounds to letters is far from being handled in a consistent way.

Actually, such languages as Spanish and Italian are very phonetic and the allocation of sounds to letters is very consistent. They aren't perfectly phonetic or consisten, but what language is?

With languages like Spanish and Italian, if you know the Latin alphabet, a modest number of simple rules, and have spent a little time with a native speaker (in person or on a recording), it's hard to make a mistake pronouncing words in these languages when reading them.

If Chinese are looking for a truly consistent way of representing their sounds, they should skipp the Latin alphabet and directly opt for the International Phonetic Alphabet - likewise the Europeans should do the same.

The International Phonetic Alphabet is clearly imperfect. There are significant sounds which it does not recognize. Which sounds it doesn't recognize dependens, on part, on which version of the alphabet one uses.

In addition, every language has sounds that may be similar to those of other languages but are still significantly different. Meanwhile, the Phonetic Alphabet often records them using the same exact symbols.

Just because a certain letter of the Phonetic Alphabet is pronounced in Italian one way, does not mean that it is pronounced exactly the same way in, say, English or French. Occasionally, the differences may even be fairly big. A perfect example is how Italians, most English-speaking peoples, and the French pronounce the /r/ symbol from one popular version of this alphabet. They all usually pronounce it very differently.

Additionally, I think you would have a fairly difficult time notating Chinese in the Phonetic Alphabet unless it was significantly modified. I might be wrong but I think there are too many important sounds particular to Chinese which are usually not found in this alphabet, for it to work well for Chinese speakers. For example, do any or most versions of this alphabet distinguish between the sound of pinyin sh and x? Do they distinguish between the sound of pinyin j and the typical ways a native Fench-, English-, or Italian-speaking person pronounces the Latin letter r or Phonetic Alphabet symbol /r/? I'm unsure. Do they have a way of notating a tonal language with up to seven or eight tones in some dialects/regionalects? I'm unsure.