Re: German with Hanzi/Kanji/Hanja?

Henrik:
<<
One question that arose was whether (and if, how) one should mark
umlauts:
 >>

What are the rules?  For example, can you invent stuff, or does
it all have to be pure Hanzi?

Consider that Hiragana already has two marks: the "voicing"
stroke (so "ka" + voicing stroke = "ga"), and the, for lack of a
better word, "p" circle (so "ha" + "p" circle = "pa").  These could
be used above or below the character to indicate umlaut.  I
can't render that right here, so imagine the thing next to it is
below it:

[bux] = "Buch"
[bux][_][(e)r] = "Bücher"

After all, since it's obvious what umlauting means if you have
a vowel, the result should be automatic.  I'm not sure if the
same is true of ablaut (which would be what the other mark
is for).

You could also borrow from Devanagari and put the umlauted
vowel before:

[ü][bux][(e)r] = "Bücher"

Since it's a spelling system, it need not follow any rules except
those it devises for itself.  In Egyptian, for example, there was
almost systematic redundancy.  There was a glyph that meant
"love", or [mr], and stood for that sound, but it was never
written by itself.  So "I love" is:

[mr][m][r][j] = [mrj] = "I love"

But if you wanted "I love you", sometimes they'd leave off the
[m] so it all fit into a nice block:

[mr][r][j][k]  = [mrjk] = "I love you"

The goal seemed to be aesthetics here.  The way it's written,
[mr] is written in column 1 on the top, [r] column 1 bottom;
[j] column 2 top; [k] column 2 bottom.  So it makes a nice
rectangle.

I'll be interested to see what you come up with.

-David
*******************************************************************
"A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

http://dedalvs.free.fr/

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