Re: Writing as a Conservitizing Agent in Language

One example of visually-related characters pronounced very differently
is the pair 先/洗, meaning "first, prior, earlier etc." and "wash"
respectively. The former is pronounced ɕiɛn55 while the latter is
pronounced ɕi13. Even in Middle Chinese, they would've been pronounced
sɛn and sai respectively. In Cantonese they are read as sin55 and
sai35. The only dialect of which I can think in which they are
pronounced rather similarly is Teochew -- sɔ̃i33 and soi51. Even then
the nasal vowel hints that in an earlier stage the two were not
pronounced this similarly.

Eugene

2007/3/7, Adam Walker <carrajena@...>:
> > The pronunciation clues are pretty specific to
> > Mandarin and Cantonese and
> > other closely related 'dialects'.
>
> Rather they are specific to whichever Middle Chinese
> (or earlier) dialect the speaker who cobbled the
> character spoke.  Which dialects actually get the most
> milage out of the clue depends on which one happens to
> be closest to that ancient dialec after sound changes
> for that syllable.
>
> > None of this changes the fact that the characters
> > are still used as if they
> > conveyed only semantic information and the phonetic
> > component is pretty much
> > ignored as irrelevant.
> >
>
> Not so.  I lived in Taiwan for three years and
> frequently observed students making educated guesses
> as to pronunciation based on those cluse and even
> adults useing such clues to guess at the pronunciation
> of obscure characters (for which I had a penchant).
>
> Adam
>
> > stevo
> >
>
>
> 11 Ed ingredjandu ad il bedi, videruns al credura simu al Maja, il seu marri;
> ad caderuns ed adoruns sivi, ed abriruns uls sustrus tesorus ed eviruns al
> jura, ul crisu djul Livanunu, ed murra.
>
> Machu 2:11
>