Re: The romamization of a complex tone system

Danny Wier scripsit:

> Speaking of the mixed blessings of Romanization: In basic terms, how was
> Vietnamese written before it adopted the Jesuit -- I mean Roman alphabet, with
> all the wicked tone marks and vowel raisers and back unrounded vowel horns.
With a mixture of genuine Chinese characters used for Chinese loans,
genuine Chinese characters used to represent native Vietnamese words
of the same meaning, genuine Chinese characters used to represent
native Vietnamese words of the same sound (for various Chinese dialects
at various periods), local Vietnamese characters devised on Chinese
principles (they could have been used in Chinese but aren't), and
local Vietnamese characters made up out of the blue.  Chu nom was
a pretty painful writing system.

> Is there a real effort to reform its writing, or even to revert to writing with
> Chinese characters? I've come up with some rough attempts to "normalize"
> Vietnamese, but since I don't even speak the language, I shouldn't be taken to
> seriously. THIS is how much free time I got...
I think overall the Vietnamese are pretty satisfied with their system,
even if it does require a lot of pothooks.

--
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all.  There
are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language
that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.
        --_The Hobbit_