Re: Chinese writing systems

Florian wrote:
>
> >>It would get china closer to some part of the world, but again, more
> >>distant with some other asian nations which have had strong relations
> >>with china for hundreds (thousands?) of years.
> >
> >In what ways, and what Nations?
> >
> >Japan has it's own system that uses 1,946 Kanji and Hiragana and
>Katakana.
>This is a common mistake. Japan does not only use 1946 kanji. School
>program include this number, but japanese people usualy know more.
>University students, and teacher usualy know as much a 4 to 6 thousands,
>which is almost as much as chinese people.
>
> >North Korea doesnt use Hanzi at all.
>In the official script. Yet the north korean students in my class(chinese
>language class) do have a certain knoledge of hanzi, as most educated
>people in north korea do.
> >South Korea uses a mixed system, but
> >still uses quite a bit of Hangul.
>Yes, they mainly use hangul. but also use quite a lot of hanzi, (called
>hanja, if i ma corect).
>
> >Vietnam gave up Hanzi ages ago and uses.
> >a modified Roman system.
>sure
> > Tibet has it's own writing system.
>tibet is not a country. China claims, and it is internationaly admited that
>it is part of china. I don't want to enter the debate of knowing if tibetan
>people are happy this way, but there is no other governement in tibet than
>the chinese one. And though tibetan language has (now) are freedom of
>existance, mandarin is still the official language there.
>
And this is relevant how? The rulers in Beijing has evidently not seen fit
to force the Tibetans to write Tibetan in hanzi, which is all thats relevant
for the original claim that hanzi provides close links to other languages in
the area. This'd be true even if Chinese power collapsed in Tibet without
some other native or foreign government taking over, leaving the place in
utter chaos.

BTW, last I heard, Beijing was arguing that Tibet was rightfully a part of
China (by virtue of voluntary reunification after the 1911 collapse), but
not that it's not a separate country (in the sense geographical region bound
together by history and ethnicity). Have they changed their minds on this?


                                                 Andreas

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