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Article #3161Re: Chinese dialects / ~{����~} / dialektoj
From: Hung J Lu
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 00:00
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 00:00
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In article <48pi3s$h9i@aladdin.iii.org.tw>, Zhong Qiyao <zhong@accton.com.tw> wrote: > >pronunciation, a new character was created. A lot of "dialect >sounds" have characters, but not all can be found. Perhaps for >some sounds, characters were never created. But then, we can >always ask linguists to find or create. > For the most used words/expressions, phonemic (or nearly phonemic) representation is good enough. Chinese characters or alphabetized writing are equally foreign for these words/expressions. For technical/professional/elegant/scientifc expressions, direct borrowing from English (or other foreign languages) is good enough. This saves the work of having to translate and/or create new characters (like Chemical element names, like the Chinese characters for "entropy", etc.) Why direct borrowing instead of creating new characters? 1) quicker and simpler 2) makes bridge between Chinese languages and Western language. 3) reduce homophone problems of the Chinese languages, making them more colloquial. Precedents: Look at how English was developed as a language (heavy borrowing from French), or how Japanese was developed (heavy borrowing from Chinese & English). No room for cultural isolationism or chauvinism today. -- Ekki
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From: hlu@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu (Hung J Lu)
Subject: Re: Chinese dialects / ~{����~} / dialektoj
Date: 1995/11/20
Message-ID: <48qas0$ar8@news.ccit.arizona.edu>
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