Re: Chinese writing systems

Nik writes:

>Florian Rivoal wrote:
>>  Chinese people tend to confuse thoses prounoun when they speak
>>  englsih, this would indicate they are not homophones, but the same
>>  words. Yet, the writen form has three distinct characters.
>
>True.  But, those extra forms were devised to be more like the European
>languages.  There was originally just one written form.
Yes, in fact, the extra forms proliferated to a rather forced extent.

ta - he (with the person radical)
ta - she (with the woman radical)
ta - it (roof radical with a spoon (?) underneath)
ta - He (ref. to God, with the "holy thing" radical)
ta - it (with the cow radical, ref. to animals)

Still, it's all the same word. Even in current-day writing, you can
still see the person-radical "ta" used generically. Taken to
extremes, the second person pronoun "ni" has also evolved an extra
form with the female radical for "you" as a feminine person (I've
seen this mostly used in love ballads, however).

Kou