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Comment by alexlur

2 years ago

> how inefficient Chinese characters are in general (but especially evident in computing)

We are not in the 90s anymore. UTF-8 has been around for 32 years now. If you’re working for a system that has no UTF-8 support, you have a much bigger problem to worry about.

> characters have no direct relation to phonetics

Most characters are phono-semantic where one part of the character is a phonetic hint and the other is a semantic hint.

> modernize it similar to Hiragana

Hiragana isn’t and wasn’t intended to replace kanji (unless you are from the fringe Kanamozikai). It serves a different grammatical purpose and is complementary to the other two. Kana is useful for an agglutinating language like Japanese, but not Chinese languages.

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alexlur

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numpad0  2 years ago

I think one of statements with respect to CJK languages that has to be made more often is that each of the languages has own numerous dialects with dubious mutual intelligibilities, e.g. Tsugaru and Kagoshima dialects against standard Japanese.

The phrase "a language is a dialect with an army" often appears in topic of Asian languages, and causing frictions between CJK non-speakers wondering about compatibilities between the three and speakers showing near vile dissents to those questions. While I understand both sides of these sentiments, the situation is not ideal for both sides.

IMO, it might be weird to refer to these languages as "Beijing Tokyo Seoul" languages, but doing so occasionally(just occasionally) could create more tangible feel as to why these three seem to exist side by side so utterly disconnected against each others.