3 ms·

I am not at all a linguist and not at all an expert on either writing system, but as a layman looking at both the Chinese and Ancient Egyptian writing systems,

by wdrw 10y ago

I am not at all a linguist and not at all an expert on either writing system, but as a layman looking at both the Chinese and Ancient Egyptian writing systems, one similarity seemed really striking - the notion that a typical word is composed of a 2 parts - a semantic, pictographic "root", combined with another part that indicates pronunciation.

nicholas73 10y ago
It's not uncommon but not typical either in Chinese. My impression is that those kinds of characters were easier to form through improvisation, and became standardized without actually fitting usual norms of character creation. Slang, regional synonyms, loanwords, and the like would be likely candidates for this process.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  It is typical -- now. (Wikipedia provides an estimate of "over 90% of all characters".) Chinese linguistics traditionally distinguishes six different classes of character[1], of which one is the semantophore-phonophore pair. That class is the most numerous now, because most new characters have always gone into it, because it's easy to devise new characters in that system. (It's even easier to "devise" characters in the fourth class, but those characters are by definition not new; see below.) But when the writing system was new, other classes were a lot more common than they are now. [1] The categories, and examples of each, as listed in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classificati... : - Direct pictorial representation of a physical object, as 水 is just a picture of water, or 马 is just a picture of a horse. (Both are ridiculous now, but recognizable in their original forms.) - "Pictorial" representation of an abstract idea, as 上 depicts "up", 下 depicts "down", and 三 depicts "three". (These still work!) - Semantic compounds, formed from several more basic characters all of which are used for the meaning. Apparently the subject of much debate, but examples in the spirit of the category are 森 "forest" = 木 tree + tree + tree; 好 "good" = 女 woman + 子 child; 尖 "sharp" depicting something which is 小 (small) at one end and 大 (big) at the other; 歪 "crooked" = 不 not + 正 straight; etc. - "Loans", characters which are used solely for their phonetic content. For example, the character 英 which means "Eng"land is identical with the character 英, pronounced ying but meaning "hero". A lot of characters which were originally loans like this have subsequently developed distinctions, as 来 and 麦 have. - Phono-semantic compounds. The topic of discussion here. As 切 qie "cut" sounds similar to 七 qi "seven", but means similarly to 刀 dao "knife", or 到 dao "to" sounds similar to 刀 dao "knife", but means similarly to 至 zhi "to", or 打 da "strike" sounds similar to 丁 ding "fourth in a sequence", but means similarly to 手 shou "hand". - A mystery category, involving pairs of related characters, that we no longer understand. Example: 考 / 老. This pretty well covers all the logical possibilities: direct representations, compounds involving only meaning, characters used only for sound (a compound would be superfluous there), and compounds involving meaning and sound together.
  - brisance 10y ago
    木does not mean tree. It means wood. Tree is 树.
    - thaumasiotes 10y ago
      So what? 木 means wood now. (Well, no it doesn't. 木头 means wood now. 木 is not a word in modern Chinese.) It meant tree, which is relevant to the construction of 森, 本, 休, 树, etc. It took me all of a few seconds to look up the proverb 独木不成林 "one tree alone is not a forest". What do you think the 木 means there?
      - Gigablah 10y ago
        > 木 is not a word in modern Chinese Eh, 木 is used commonly by itself. 这张椅子是用木做的。 (This chair is made of wood)
        thaumasiotes 10y ago
        Fair enough.
      - nicholas73 10y ago
        Maybe it's tongue-in-cheek, as the word for forest is made of two woods...
  - nicholas73 10y ago
    Thanks for the figures reference. I was making a guess based on my limited vocabulary. But, having a core vocabulary + knowledge of history is still effective. If you go back far enough, my assessment could still be correct. That is, the original standardization (oracle bones -> Qin dynasty) of Chinese characters probably had less words constructed with a sound indicator. At the Qin dynasty, China became an empire and incorporated many new ethnic groups. It then had multiple words used in different regions (like he and jiang for river). Pictorial and semantic characters take more thought to construct, with pictorial probably more difficult and historical. Later on, it became possible to build upon these to quickly form characters, perhaps even as a shorthand. So it's not surprising that phono-semantic took over. This process even continued as traditional characters became simplified in modern times. Your discussion on what characters should sound like may be more complicated. Old Chinese pronunciation is much different from Mandarin, and today's simplified characters may or may not have followed the pattern (I don't know, I didn't learn simplified).
Scriptor 10y ago
The Mayan script used a similar approach where logograms could be complemented by phonetic elements.

by wdrw 10y ago

nicholas73 10y ago

It's not uncommon but not typical either in Chinese. My impression is that those kinds of characters were easier to form through improvisation, and became standardized without actually fitting usual norms of character creation. Slang, regional synonyms, loanwords, and the like would be likely candidates for this process.

thaumasiotes 10y ago
It is typical -- now. (Wikipedia provides an estimate of "over 90% of all characters".) Chinese linguistics traditionally distinguishes six different classes of character[1], of which one is the semantophore-phonophore pair. That class is the most numerous now, because most new characters have always gone into it, because it's easy to devise new characters in that system. (It's even easier to "devise" characters in the fourth class, but those characters are by definition not new; see below.) But when the writing system was new, other classes were a lot more common than they are now. [1] The categories, and examples of each, as listed in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classificati... : - Direct pictorial representation of a physical object, as 水 is just a picture of water, or 马 is just a picture of a horse. (Both are ridiculous now, but recognizable in their original forms.) - "Pictorial" representation of an abstract idea, as 上 depicts "up", 下 depicts "down", and 三 depicts "three". (These still work!) - Semantic compounds, formed from several more basic characters all of which are used for the meaning. Apparently the subject of much debate, but examples in the spirit of the category are 森 "forest" = 木 tree + tree + tree; 好 "good" = 女 woman + 子 child; 尖 "sharp" depicting something which is 小 (small) at one end and 大 (big) at the other; 歪 "crooked" = 不 not + 正 straight; etc. - "Loans", characters which are used solely for their phonetic content. For example, the character 英 which means "Eng"land is identical with the character 英, pronounced ying but meaning "hero". A lot of characters which were originally loans like this have subsequently developed distinctions, as 来 and 麦 have. - Phono-semantic compounds. The topic of discussion here. As 切 qie "cut" sounds similar to 七 qi "seven", but means similarly to 刀 dao "knife", or 到 dao "to" sounds similar to 刀 dao "knife", but means similarly to 至 zhi "to", or 打 da "strike" sounds similar to 丁 ding "fourth in a sequence", but means similarly to 手 shou "hand". - A mystery category, involving pairs of related characters, that we no longer understand. Example: 考 / 老. This pretty well covers all the logical possibilities: direct representations, compounds involving only meaning, characters used only for sound (a compound would be superfluous there), and compounds involving meaning and sound together.
- brisance 10y ago
  木does not mean tree. It means wood. Tree is 树.
  - thaumasiotes 10y ago
    So what? 木 means wood now. (Well, no it doesn't. 木头 means wood now. 木 is not a word in modern Chinese.) It meant tree, which is relevant to the construction of 森, 本, 休, 树, etc. It took me all of a few seconds to look up the proverb 独木不成林 "one tree alone is not a forest". What do you think the 木 means there?
    - Gigablah 10y ago
      > 木 is not a word in modern Chinese Eh, 木 is used commonly by itself. 这张椅子是用木做的。 (This chair is made of wood)
      - thaumasiotes 10y ago
        Fair enough.
    - nicholas73 10y ago
      Maybe it's tongue-in-cheek, as the word for forest is made of two woods...
- nicholas73 10y ago
  Thanks for the figures reference. I was making a guess based on my limited vocabulary. But, having a core vocabulary + knowledge of history is still effective. If you go back far enough, my assessment could still be correct. That is, the original standardization (oracle bones -> Qin dynasty) of Chinese characters probably had less words constructed with a sound indicator. At the Qin dynasty, China became an empire and incorporated many new ethnic groups. It then had multiple words used in different regions (like he and jiang for river). Pictorial and semantic characters take more thought to construct, with pictorial probably more difficult and historical. Later on, it became possible to build upon these to quickly form characters, perhaps even as a shorthand. So it's not surprising that phono-semantic took over. This process even continued as traditional characters became simplified in modern times. Your discussion on what characters should sound like may be more complicated. Old Chinese pronunciation is much different from Mandarin, and today's simplified characters may or may not have followed the pattern (I don't know, I didn't learn simplified).

Scriptor 10y ago

The Mayan script used a similar approach where logograms could be complemented by phonetic elements.