Re: Hanzi in conlangs.

Hi!

Steven Williams <feurieaux@...> writes:
> Has anyone here attempted to use hanzi in their
> conlangs? I am tempted to put my own conlang to a
> (modified) hanzi set, and I'm looking for ideas, like
> how on earth I'll handle the particles that don't have
> their own character in Chinese, and how I'll indicate
> the complex ablaut and sandhi that goes on in my
> language...
I started one project of this kind once, mainly for learning Hanzi
myself. :-) But I didn't get far.  So this will not be too much help.
Anyway:

As for the particles: I'd either use a mixed mode script like Korean
or Japanese, or, maybe more interesting, also use Chinese characters.
The latter system could be based on pronunciation -- Chinese has a set
of characters that's frequently used for phonetic transcriptions,
maybe that set is a starting point.

Ah, the sandhi: I'd ignore them in writing, possibly having a
secondary script used for children and for writing phonetically in
general, for having at least the expressiveness to write *about* the
sandhi.

The only conlangs I can remember have themselves been very close to
Chinese grammar, e.g. Bauhinese.  I think it was discussed on
eastasianconlangs a good while ago, maybe a bit on conlang, too.

Anyway, a very interesting project -- probably a lot of work, too! :-)

And I hope others have more ideas for this.

**Henrik