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Japanese explained to programmers

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Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#411

Post by smsm42 »

ickoonite wrote: post #309
culi wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to distinguish a language from it's most popular orthography. English is not the Latin Alphabet and Japanese is not Kanji. I've created my own orthography before. It kinda looks like the Arabic script superficially and it's made to be featural and phonemic. People have often seen my writing in it and asked "What languages is that" to which I always annoyingly reply "English". The thing is though, human…

> but the level of information you can encode with a syllabary is much higher [citation needed] It’s not clear how you can encode any more information with hiragana/katakana - the Japanese syllabaries - than you can with an alphabet. Indeed, it’s fairly clear the reverse is true - you can only really encode sounds for which the syllabary has symbols; conversely, as English demonstrates, you can encode a vast array of…

Practically, the difference is not that big. There are many sounds English letters can't encode, and for others it cheats by saying "let's pretend th sounds like this, despite it having little to do with t or h, and then zh sounds like that, and ae like this, and so on". You could do the same with a syllabary - and to some measure Japanese does, aided with special marks and other tricks, but as English inevitably misses some sounds, so does Japanese. It's inevitable - look at IPA symbol set to see how many there are needed, and I'm sure even that doesn't cover all the possibilities.

What you lose with syllabary is to be able to encode some patterns - like Czech "strč prst skrz krk" - pretty much no way to encode it in Japanese I think, unless you resort to a lot of cheating like inserting "u" everywhere and then declaring "u is silent" (which is pretty normal for Japanese in general but in this case kinda looks like cheating). But tbh English encoding wouldn't adequately describe how it's pronounced either.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#412

Post by midoridensha »

antiterra wrote: post #410
midoridensha wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not plural at all; it doesn't even make sense. This is like debating whether the word "happiness" is singular or plural. There's no such thing as "a hiragana".

In regular usage there definitely is, it’s easy to find something like this on a Japanese website: “どの漢字がどのひらがなになったの？” That means “Which kanji became which hiragana?” If there’s no such thing as ‘a hiragana’ that wouldn’t make sense. As for kanji, “この漢字” also shows up all the time when referring to a specific character. References to specific amount of kanji are everywhere too, eg the “100 Kanji” here. https://www.ki…

>That means “Which kanji became which hiragana?”

No, it doesn't. It means "Which kanji characters became which hiragana characters".

Words do not directly translate between languages the way you think.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#413

Post by smsm42 »

ksenzee wrote: post #320
ickoonite wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the level of information you can encode with a syllabary is much higher [citation needed] It’s not clear how you can encode any more information with hiragana/katakana - the Japanese syllabaries - than you can with an alphabet. Indeed, it’s fairly clear the reverse is true - you can only really encode sounds for which the syllabary has symbols; conversely, as English demonstrates, you can encode a vast array of…

I think they meant the encoding is more efficient, so you can encode more information with fewer characters.

But since you need more bits to encode a single character, at least in most common encodings without inventing a custom one, it's not really much more efficient.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#414

Post by antiterra »

midoridensha wrote: post #412
antiterra wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In regular usage there definitely is, it’s easy to find something like this on a Japanese website: “どの漢字がどのひらがなになったの？” That means “Which kanji became which hiragana?” If there’s no such thing as ‘a hiragana’ that wouldn’t make sense. As for kanji, “この漢字” also shows up all the time when referring to a specific character. References to specific amount of kanji are everywhere too, eg the “100 Kanji” here. https://www.ki…

>That means “Which kanji became which hiragana?” No, it doesn't. It means "Which kanji characters became which hiragana characters". Words do not directly translate between languages the way you think.

They do if we want them to. Take it up with Walter Benjamin’s ghost if you don’t like it.

It’s ok in English to say ‘I love the shinkansen in Japan’ or ‘I love that one shinkansen, which was it… oh the Nozomi.’ Because shinkansen is meant to he specifically Japanese and isn’t integrated into English, ‘I love shinkansens’ sounds clunky, and, sure, many would opt for ‘shinkansen trains’ or ‘Japanese bullet trains’ or something. But none of them are wrong.

Loan words in English are often moving between or straddling various levels of integration.‘Toyota’ is integrated to where ‘Toyotas’ is common. ‘Sukoshi’ comes in as a clumsy loanword with American specific use and pronunciation, i.e. ‘skotch.’ Pronouncing ‘karate’ correctly makes you look pretentious similarly to how saying ‘fillet’ the way Americans do sounds pretentious to Brits who don’t leave off the t.

Further, it’s incredibly rude and condescending to assume you know what I think about how translation works.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#415

Post by midoridensha »

antiterra wrote: post #414
midoridensha wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That means “Which kanji became which hiragana?” No, it doesn't. It means "Which kanji characters became which hiragana characters". Words do not directly translate between languages the way you think.

They do if we want them to. Take it up with Walter Benjamin’s ghost if you don’t like it. It’s ok in English to say ‘I love the shinkansen in Japan’ or ‘I love that one shinkansen, which was it… oh the Nozomi.’ Because shinkansen is meant to he specifically Japanese and isn’t integrated into English, ‘I love shinkansens’ sounds clunky, and, sure, many would opt for ‘shinkansen trains’ or ‘Japanese bullet trains’ or s…

I can tell what you think about how translation works by the way you write. If you think that's rude and condescending, I honestly don't care.

Anyway, "hiragana" is not a loanword in English at all. When used, it's treated as a proper noun for something that's only in a foreign language. So nothing you wrote about loanwords applies.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#416

Post by antiterra »

midoridensha wrote: post #415
antiterra wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do if we want them to. Take it up with Walter Benjamin’s ghost if you don’t like it. It’s ok in English to say ‘I love the shinkansen in Japan’ or ‘I love that one shinkansen, which was it… oh the Nozomi.’ Because shinkansen is meant to he specifically Japanese and isn’t integrated into English, ‘I love shinkansens’ sounds clunky, and, sure, many would opt for ‘shinkansen trains’ or ‘Japanese bullet trains’ or s…

I can tell what you think about how translation works by the way you write. If you think that's rude and condescending, I honestly don't care. Anyway, "hiragana" is not a loanword in English at all . When used, it's treated as a proper noun for something that's only in a foreign language. So nothing you wrote about loanwords applies.

Hiragana, katakana and kanji are untranslated terms that are included in major English dictionaries. They are loan words. It is common for less-frequently used foreign words to not be inflected as plural if there is not a specific plural form from the parent language. This may be confusing in some contexts and a translation that includes a plural noun to help provide that context can be useful. However, in a poetic or literary use, sometimes intentionally not inflecting a plural is a choice.

Being rude and condescending is an inappropriate tone for this site which should be centered around discussion and curiosity. Further, you’ve made zero substantial argument for your position, contradicted yourself and failed to make a case.

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