Re: "My name is spelled with..."

Hand-of-Omega wrote:
On Aug 30, 10:37 pm, "Nobody" <nob...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello,

From living not-too-far from New York City, where there are *three*
Chinatowns (lower Manhattan, Flushing Queens [mixed in with "Little Seoul"]
& Brooklyn), it has come to my attention that Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese
Chinese and Japanese use the same kanji. It's just that the meanings are
diffrent. I remember seeing the 30 minute video that came pre-packed with
one of the Lunar games from Working Designs. The Lead Programmer from the
company, Peter *something-or-other*, holding up a book with literally
tens-of-thousands of Kanjis in it and flipping through the pages so the
camera could get a good shot of it. In the passed, I had slewed through all
the pages of Kanjis that are built into the Golden Finger I own for my PS1.
However, until Peter held up this book and showed it, I really had no idea
how extensive the Kanji system really is. For people who may not be aware,
there is also a system that can be used to write Standard Chinese (See
Wikipedia) using Roman characters. Its called Pinyin. For this, I suggest a
visit towww.pinyin.info

Thanks for the info! I've heard that few Japanese people have actually
mastered ALL of their own alphabet, which sounds very odd, to a person
whose alphabet only has 26 letters, of course!

Dex

The Japanese don't use an alphabet to write Japanese but what amounts
to 3 syllabaries. A syllabary is a collection of marks like a letter but standing
for a sound. and one with two different pronunciations at least is
Kanji or the Chinese characters adopted and adapted for use in the period
before 1000 CE. In addiction two other collections of marks for syllables of
40 each one for normal Japanese , the Hirigana and one for foreign words
imported into Japanese, the Katakana. The same sound can be indicated
by totally different marks in each.
And there are different ways of writing each character depend on
where it is to be used. The way of writing is a special study since each
kanji or syllabic character must be drawn in a precise order. In the old
days this sort of Calligraphy( from the Greek for Beautiful Writing) was practiced
by the Emperor and the Court Nobles and the military rulers who were
trying to be cultured. At one point or another in the Shogunate the
Emperor was so poor he lived by selling his Calligraphy. In Medieval Times
the writing got very loose in form and is nearly unintelligible to all but
scholars. And they only got punctuation after the Americans & Europeans
forced the nation open in the 19th Century., No capitalisation in Japanese.

When the Japanese scholars learned about alphabets they suggested the
abandonment of Japanese and the wide adoption of English or another European
language in order to keep up with the rest of the world. Instead they adopted
a curriculum in which they learn 2000 Kanji, the syllabaries and English to
boot. Well that keep the average student busy thru High School if they
can afford to go. One of the things about the recent election is that the
winning party is going to offer free high school so that more students can
reach higher levels of education.

They do use the Roman alphabet as well for various purposes beside
being cool, but when writing it it they have a set of syllables represented
by two or three letter combinations and the pronunciation is a bit different
than English speakers and readers would expect, and it is called Romanji.
In the Classical Era before 1000 CE the women of the court perfected
the 40 syllable systems. Some looked down on the women who were smart
enough to have mastered Chinese writing and read the Chinese classics. I think
a Buddhist priest had started the idea of the syllabaries in order that he could
teach religious ideas and prayers.
About the same time civic leaders would pay for the copying of the
Buddhist scriptures in Chinese and build temples to get the good karma
attendant on such good works.

Sorry for the digression

later
bliss
.

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