I'm interested in how this compactness changes the expressiveness and evolution of the language. In English, as in other languages written in the latin alphabet, you can make changes to the spelling of a word and create new meanings rather fluidly and it's usually easy for the reader to comprehend. I have no knowledge of Japanese, but are there similar possibilities? How do new words/slang get created?
Japanese writing system basics
251–260 of 347 posts
Re: Japanese writing system basics
#252>> "Since we already have symbols for all the sounds we can pronounce [in English]"
English has 26 letters, but there are 40+ sounds; which is to say that there are NOT symbols for all the sounds.
Re: Japanese writing system basics
#253"Since we already have symbols for all the sounds we can pronounce"... Not with 26 letters we don't. Other languages have other sounds that English can only try to emulate, and even English has sounds that require multiple letters.
Re: Japanese writing system basics
#254口 and 食 are also Chinese characters for mouth and eat, although I had to check google for 食. Initially, I thought that he was teaching Chinese until I read 食 was eat (which needed Google) and that it was "Japanese".
Re: Japanese writing system basics
#255This is off topic, but I can't find any pricing on the candyjapan.com website when visiting on mobile (iPhone). Anyone can tell me how much it costs per month?
Re: Japanese writing system basics
#256"Since we already have symbols for all the sounds we can pronounce"... Not with 26 letters we don't. Other languages have other sounds that English can only try to emulate, and even English has sounds that require multiple letters.
Here are the 44 sounds that English generally uses: http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm
It does not include sounds which are borrowed from other languages, like the Hebrew 'ch' which happens at the top of your throat, or the Spanish trilled r, or the glottal stop which actually occurs in spoken English all the time in some dialects.
Re: Japanese writing system basics
#257Another interesting aspect of traditional Chinese characters is that complex words are expressed by combining simpler symbols. For example, the Chinese word for computer is 電腦. The first character represents "electricity", and the second character represents "brain". Which is really what a computer is, an electric brain. Similarly, a computer programmer is 程序員, where the three symbols are "rule", "order", and "person…
Isn't that the same in most languages though? For instance in English "electronic mail" became "e-mail", which became "email". "Web log" became "weblog", which became "blog". "Cellular phone" became "cell phone".
And indeed in older books and articles it is not unusual to see people writing "electronic brain" to refer to a computer.
A lot of non-English words for computer terms in various languages are translations of outdated English terms for the same that stuck around after the English terms changed.
Re: Japanese writing system basics
#258Another interesting aspect of traditional Chinese characters is that complex words are expressed by combining simpler symbols. For example, the Chinese word for computer is 電腦. The first character represents "electricity", and the second character represents "brain". Which is really what a computer is, an electric brain. Similarly, a computer programmer is 程序員, where the three symbols are "rule", "order", and "person…
Isn't that the same in most languages though? For instance in English "electronic mail" became "e-mail", which became "email". "Web log" became "weblog", which became "blog". "Cellular phone" became "cell phone".
English tends to sneakily disguise its words with Latin or Greek. So you may not think about the literal meaning of a word like "predict", while in German "vorhersagen" (to say before) is the exact same thing, just more obvious.
Re: Japanese writing system basics
#259I'm interested in how this compactness changes the expressiveness and evolution of the language. In English, as in other languages written in the latin alphabet, you can make changes to the spelling of a word and create new meanings rather fluidly and it's usually easy for the reader to comprehend. I have no knowledge of Japanese, but are there similar possibilities? How do new words/slang get created?
Yes Chinese characters (used in Japanese as kanji, which means Chinese character) often are composed of smaller elements or other characters. it common for a character to be composed of two common parts,one indicating meaning in some way,the other indicating pronunciation.
Re: Japanese writing system basics
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same in Thai. They ask กินข้าวหรือยัง ("Have you eaten yet?", or literally "Have you eaten rice yet?") as a greeting.
That reminds me that sometimes in my family we'll jokingly say jeet? It comew from the comedian Jeff Foxworthy who said it's redneck for "Did you eat? " I'm in Canada and not redneck I wonder if jeet is actually used in the US.
My father's native New-Jerseyan uses "jeet jet" for "did you eat yet".
The one bit of that I consistently use is "agnishna", for "air conditioner".