Re: Sidestepping Spelling Reform - Monosyllabic Characters

Nik Taylor scripsit:

> This argument is pointless unless we get definitions down first.
> English has many words which are historically compounds, some still
> transparent, like "earthworm" or "snowstorm", some less so, like
> "icicle" (but, if we'd used a logographic script, it might still be
> *orthographically* transparent).
Indeed, we might (as Mark Rosenfelder suggests at
http://www.zompist.com/yingzi/yingzi.htm) use the same character for
the -cuit in both circuit and biscuit (perhaps a derivative of "kit"),
though there's of course no real connection between them.

(Steve, I recommend reading this page, if you haven't already.)

But what a weird word, "icicle"!  "Ice" + OE _gicel_ 'icicle'.
"Ice icicle."

> English terms to be "phrases" or "words"?  If you consider them phrases,
> then I'd concede your claim that Chinese has only monosyllabic words.
Chinese has picked up quite a number of unanalyzable multisyllabic words,
though, from _hudie_ 'butterfly' and _bu'ershuwike_ 'Bolshevik', which
are loans, to _mamahuhu_ 'so-so' and _dongxi_ 'thing', which are
written "horse-horse-tiger-tiger" and "east-west" respectively, but
these are puns, not true etymologies.

--
Do NOT stray from the path!             John Cowan <jcowan@...>
        --Gandalf                       http://www.ccil.org/~cowan

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