Re: NATLANG: Dravidian langs really *are* cool!

On 19/03/2008, Ollock Ackeop <ollock@...> wrote:
> Maybe not, though ISTR that some of the katakana *are* very similar.  I only
>  looked at it for a little bit, but I know that there are a couple characters
>  there that are distinguished only by the direction of the stroke -- and in a
>  way that isn't all that apparent if you're not writing with a brush.
>
You must be talking about the characters "shi" vs. "tsu" and "so" vs.
"n", the first pair with two dots and a stroke, and the second pair
with a dot and a stroke each. the direction and alignment of the dots
are different, and Japanese handwriting norms generally mean the
existence of, say, a hook at the bottom of "shi" to indicate the
upstroke, cf. "tsu".

シ shi ツ tsu
ソ so ン n

Seasoned readers (all native Japanese included) will be able to tell
them apart even in handwriting much as English-readers can b and d, or
p and q. Or all four. Or handwritten "a" vs. "d" which differ only by
the length of the right vertical stroke.

Eugene

>  Overall, though, I think the kana are a good writing system.  I don't
>  particularly like the kanji.  I'm studying Mandarin now, and I see how
>  logograms work beautifully for Chinese -- though even there it has some
>  kinks and a few disadvantages -- but from what I know of their application
>  to Japanese, it just seems like would make reading quite complicated, since
>  AFAIK nearly every character will end up with multiple readings, and the
>  already enormous memorization task of learning it just gets that much more
>  complicated as you add more readings.
>
>  That's MHO, of course.  The Japanese seem to get along fine with their
>  writing systems, so if it works, it works.  Far be it from me to tell them
>  how to write -- I don't even speak their language.
>