Re: CHAT: aged foods (wasRe: phonology of borrowed words)

Andreas Johansson scripsit:

> Speaking of Chinese food, Roger Penrose kills spends a clause in "The
> Emperor's New Mind" on idly wondering whether there's a hanzi for
> "hamburger". Is there? If not, what sign-combination do they use?
Since Chinese writing is morpho-syllabic, the question is what the Chinese
for "hamburger" is.  I have only found one (on-line) source, which writes
it with five hanzi; my guess is that it is a transliteration.  Not being
able to read ideographs, I don't know exactly how the transliteration
works.  Thus there is no hanzi for "hamburger", any more than there is
one for "laser" (the Chinese for which is ji1 guang1, "stimulated light",
written with two hanzi).

Penrose's puzzlement suggests to me that he is not free of the "hanzi =
concept" notion of how Chinese writing works.

--
John Cowan
        jcowan@reutershealth.com
                I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin