Re: The pitfall of Chinese/Mandarin

Cheng Zhong Su wrote:

> Chiese/ mandarin is that current four to five thousands characters was
carried
> by only 1200 phonetic types. It means that about four characters share one
phonetic type. If we collected
> all the fifty thousands characters from all Chinese history, it could be
forty characters sharing one
> phonetic type, and it always cause mistakes. An extreme example is that
all the three words 'he, she,
> it'in mandarin sound like 'ta' with the same tone, that no one can
distinguish them from speech.

Interesting. I didn't know that, so I learned something today. Thanks!

>I believe the best solution is borrow the English word 'he' and 'she'
directly.

Solution to what? You never stated the problem.... or was the problem that
Mandarin is ambiguous (I love ambiguous languages, they are the essence of
word jokes). If that's your problem, I think you should focus on convincing
all Mandarin speakers that they should change their language.

If your purpose is to create the "perfect" language in any but an artistic
sense, you are at the wrong adress here. This list has no interest in
perfect languages per se... as I said, I even strive to create amibiguities
in my languages, to make them seem more natura and as a source for word
jokes.

> these two words are single oral actions. They have never been adopt by
chinese
> phonology. To introduce these two words means to introduce eight phonetic
types to the language. the
> rest six can be used for other meanings. Mandarin has 21 consonants, 35
vowels and 4 tones, multiply them
> together, it could be about 2800 phonetic types. Yet only 1200 in use,
it's ridiculous.

Why is that ridiculous? There are many animals around here, but I eat only
cows and pigs, and not dogs and cats (mmm, ok, this is not a good point
considering we are comparing with Chinese)....

There are reasons why not all "phonetic types" as you call them, are used.
One that was already mentioned is the singal-to-noise ratio. If you want to
create a perfectly short language, you should use all places and manners of
articulation for consonants, add some clicks and othe esoteric sounds,
distinguish 5 different levels of frontness for your vowels, rounded and
unrounded. So this gives us about 80 consonants and 30 vowels, allowing for
2400 combinations. Add six tones to this, and you have almost 15,000
possible CV syllables, which is about as short as it gets. You could express
all basic stuff with one short syllable, and by adding a final consonant
(CVC), you could make another 1.2 million more esoteric words, all just one
syllable. You should be able to think really fast in such a language.... if
you ever manage to learn it!

> I believe that an international language shall never be invented by a
single person, it need hard work for linguists
> arround the world.
Well, we are not interested in that here.

> Or we may say every language has to contribute the so called international
language some
> thing, step by step. The target may be 1, learning less knowing more. 2,
having the fast thinking speed.
> 3. the best copy for all cultures.
I don't want an international language. I like it that there are so  many
different ones. I want my languages to be ambiguous and not too easy to
learn. I want them to have a certain feeling, i.e. my elven languages use
mainly fronted and sharp sounds, and long syllables that end in vowels or
semi-vowels, wile dwarven tongues prefer harsher, more uvular and darker
sounds and shorter syllables that often end in stops.

Maarten