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Re: Writing as a Conservitizing Agent in Language

From:Adam Walker <carrajena@...>
Date:Tuesday, March 6, 2007, 23:57
> 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

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Eugene Oh <un.doing@...>