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Re: Optimum number of symbols

From:John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Date:Sunday, May 26, 2002, 2:02
Raymond Brown scripsit:

> I suppose it is 'trivially easy' to sit down for a quarter of an hour or so > and come up with an alphabeticization for Mandarin Chinese (I've done so > many times :) > But it is not, I submit, a trivial task to come up with a satisfactory form > of Romanization. There have been so far four centuries of attempts.
But I don't think the difficulties of Romanization particularly reflect the difficulties of alphabeticization. The former arise because Latin script has been around for millennia and has built up a substantial tradition of its own.
> 1918 saw the publication of the Zhu4yin1 Zi4mu3 (Pronunciation Alphabet) in > which the symbols were adapted from forms of simple characters;this was > introduced into schools in 1920.
And this scheme was put together in a few years and has endured up to this day, being used in elementary writing in Taiwan still, and being acceptable (as no other orthography is, whether hanzi or Latin) to all the different Chinese-speaking nations. Alphabetizing Chinese was in fact very straightforward, being based on an analysis of Chinese syllables into initials and rhymes that dates back to the Tang Dynasty. -- John Cowan <jcowan@...> http://www.reutershealth.com I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen, http://www.ccil.org/~cowan han mathon ne chae, a han noston ne 'wilith. --Galadriel, _LOTR:FOTR_

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Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>