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That argument can extend to any complicated system developed over hundreds and thousands of years. Off the top of my head, English Common Law is an example as w

That argument can extend to any complicated system developed over hundreds and thousands of years. Off the top of my head, English Common Law is an example as well as English spelling and grammar. English is a horrible language with massive numbers of grammatical exceptions. I thank the many gods that I was born in an English speaking country. Speaking of not knowing how to pronounce a Chinese character, that is not entirely true. Many of the characters you see in Chinese have a radical in the construct that indicates a sound. Unfortunately tone is not indicated. Chinese won't be the new English, I agree. But emoji, which function exactly the same way Chinese characters do (image representing a meaning) are already an English augment. Sort of an additional aside, there is a way to type a Chinese character by radical assemblage. So even if you don't know how to pronounce it by pinyin, you can still retype it into an e-dictionary. Similar method is used to look it up in a traditional dictionary. I never bothered to learn as it requires a touch typist skill to be fast enough to abandon the pinyin entry.

raverbashing 8y ago
> That argument can extend to any complicated system developed over hundreds and thousands of years. Off the top of my head, English Common Law is an example as well as English spelling and grammar. True, and my point apply to those as well. However, even English pronunciation is not that bad and grammar is much easier than German or Latin or most Romance languages. > Many of the characters you see in Chinese have a radical in the construct that indicates a sound. Unfortunately tone is not indicated. Many, but not all (I think Japanese uses some of those hints as well). But if you have "character from some ancient text" that doesn't have that radical you're SOL. > there is a way to type a Chinese character by radical assemblage. So even if you don't know how to pronounce it by pinyin, you can still retype it into an e-dictionary Good to know
- rabboRubble 8y ago
  > Many, but not all (I think Japanese uses some of those hints as well). But if you have "character from some ancient text" that doesn't have that radical you're SOL. The Japanese pronunciation hints are way less reliable than the Chinese. First, Japan inherited Chinese sounds and characters in drips and drabs. Because Chinese has so many dialects, and a dialect may pronounce a certain character a vastly different way, the onyomi today may be a presentation of old Fujian pronunciation or old Cantonese, not the Mandarin. Second, because the characters were introduced to different parts of Japan at different times, those characters were used for different purposes in the different regions in Japan. Today this means a single character can be used in different words with different meanings, with more than one onyomi. Nevermind what happens in kanji compounds. If a Chinese character was suddenly introduced with a new radical, that would be akin to suddenly finding a new letter in the alphabet. Highly unlikely. When is the last time a letter was added or removed from the standard English alphabet? A quick google says the last letter added to the English language was J, added 1524. Currently there are 214 radicals in Chinese. A new character would almost certainly be a combination of those existing radicals. Furthermore, the character could still be systematically written in computer language with brush stroke entry. That character would simply have to be added at a unicode level for image rending, same as having to define Alien Emoji as U+1F47D so that it does not render as a ?
  - com2kid 8y ago
    > When is the last time a letter was added or removed from the standard English alphabet? To be a bit pedantic, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s you can still find newspaper articles in Google's archive that use back in the mid 1800s.
    - rabboRubble 8y ago
      True, I only looked up "added". Thanks for that detail. I know there are a couple of other letters that used to be common-ish but are no longer.
- heinrich5991 8y ago
  >even English pronunciation is not that bad As a nonnative speaker, it sometimes feels like you just have to know the words individually in order to pronounce them correctly: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ruize-rijmen/De_Chaos https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ruize-rijmen/De_Chaos.
  - rabboRubble 8y ago
    Amen to that stupid poem. I'm a USA born white girl, and that poem broke me. I tried to read it aloud and got part way through before my tongue / brain made me give up. It's evil. Can you say squirrel? My trick with this word is to use different words. Start with the word "whirl". Repeat this word a couple of times to get your mouth around it. Then say the "sch" from the word "school". "Sch"... + ..."Whirl", "Sch".. + .."Whirl", "Sch". + ."Whirl", "Sch" + "Whirl", "Sch" "Whirl", "Sch-Whirl", ""SchWhirl". Looks horrible typed but it works on the tongue. Just need to get that sound glide exiting "sch" into "whirl". If you end the "sch" with your lips pursed in anticipation for the "oo" sounds in school, it sets you up for the "wh".
    - great_kraken 8y ago
      I would say it "skwir-rul," but that might be a northeastern regional pronunciation?
      - rabboRubble 8y ago
        So almost a combination of school's "sch" plus "rural".
    - heinrich5991 8y ago
      From Wiktionary[1]: >(Received Pronunciation, General Australian, UK) IPA(key): /ˈskwɪɹl̩/, /ˈskwɪɹəl/ >(Canada, US) IPA(key): /ˈskwɝl/, /ˈskwɝl̩/, /ˈskwɝəl/ I haven't really thought about this word before, I think I use the UK pronunciation /ˈskwɪɹəl/, and this word didn't come across as hard to pronounce. [1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=squirrel&oldid=49332546#Pronunciation https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=squirrel&oldid=4...
gbacon 8y ago
English is a horrible language with massive numbers of grammatical exceptions. A former colleague remarked that spelling bees are interesting only because English is such a horrible language. A German spelling bee, in comparison, might go on for weeks!
- chillacy 8y ago
  Fun fact, english spelling kind of made sense before a bunch of scholars wanted to put the Latin back into the language, and now spelling is divorced from writing. As an example, why don't these words rhyme? * Enough * Through * Though Perhaps we should've gone through with one of these reforms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_reform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_refo...
  - finlayson 8y ago
    And there's also: * Bough * Thorough Five separate words - with five different ways to pronounce "ough"! Spelling in English is a complete disaster. I pity those people who have to learn it as a second language.

raverbashing 8y ago

> That argument can extend to any complicated system developed over hundreds and thousands of years. Off the top of my head, English Common Law is an example as well as English spelling and grammar. True, and my point apply to those as well. However, even English pronunciation is not that bad and grammar is much easier than German or Latin or most Romance languages. > Many of the characters you see in Chinese have a radical in the construct that indicates a sound. Unfortunately tone is not indicated. Many, but not all (I think Japanese uses some of those hints as well). But if you have "character from some ancient text" that doesn't have that radical you're SOL. > there is a way to type a Chinese character by radical assemblage. So even if you don't know how to pronounce it by pinyin, you can still retype it into an e-dictionary Good to know

rabboRubble 8y ago
> Many, but not all (I think Japanese uses some of those hints as well). But if you have "character from some ancient text" that doesn't have that radical you're SOL. The Japanese pronunciation hints are way less reliable than the Chinese. First, Japan inherited Chinese sounds and characters in drips and drabs. Because Chinese has so many dialects, and a dialect may pronounce a certain character a vastly different way, the onyomi today may be a presentation of old Fujian pronunciation or old Cantonese, not the Mandarin. Second, because the characters were introduced to different parts of Japan at different times, those characters were used for different purposes in the different regions in Japan. Today this means a single character can be used in different words with different meanings, with more than one onyomi. Nevermind what happens in kanji compounds. If a Chinese character was suddenly introduced with a new radical, that would be akin to suddenly finding a new letter in the alphabet. Highly unlikely. When is the last time a letter was added or removed from the standard English alphabet? A quick google says the last letter added to the English language was J, added 1524. Currently there are 214 radicals in Chinese. A new character would almost certainly be a combination of those existing radicals. Furthermore, the character could still be systematically written in computer language with brush stroke entry. That character would simply have to be added at a unicode level for image rending, same as having to define Alien Emoji as U+1F47D so that it does not render as a ?
- com2kid 8y ago
  > When is the last time a letter was added or removed from the standard English alphabet? To be a bit pedantic, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s you can still find newspaper articles in Google's archive that use back in the mid 1800s.
  - rabboRubble 8y ago
    True, I only looked up "added". Thanks for that detail. I know there are a couple of other letters that used to be common-ish but are no longer.
heinrich5991 8y ago
>even English pronunciation is not that bad As a nonnative speaker, it sometimes feels like you just have to know the words individually in order to pronounce them correctly: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ruize-rijmen/De_Chaos https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ruize-rijmen/De_Chaos.
- rabboRubble 8y ago
  Amen to that stupid poem. I'm a USA born white girl, and that poem broke me. I tried to read it aloud and got part way through before my tongue / brain made me give up. It's evil. Can you say squirrel? My trick with this word is to use different words. Start with the word "whirl". Repeat this word a couple of times to get your mouth around it. Then say the "sch" from the word "school". "Sch"... + ..."Whirl", "Sch".. + .."Whirl", "Sch". + ."Whirl", "Sch" + "Whirl", "Sch" "Whirl", "Sch-Whirl", ""SchWhirl". Looks horrible typed but it works on the tongue. Just need to get that sound glide exiting "sch" into "whirl". If you end the "sch" with your lips pursed in anticipation for the "oo" sounds in school, it sets you up for the "wh".
  - great_kraken 8y ago
    I would say it "skwir-rul," but that might be a northeastern regional pronunciation?
    - rabboRubble 8y ago
      So almost a combination of school's "sch" plus "rural".
  - heinrich5991 8y ago
    From Wiktionary[1]: >(Received Pronunciation, General Australian, UK) IPA(key): /ˈskwɪɹl̩/, /ˈskwɪɹəl/ >(Canada, US) IPA(key): /ˈskwɝl/, /ˈskwɝl̩/, /ˈskwɝəl/ I haven't really thought about this word before, I think I use the UK pronunciation /ˈskwɪɹəl/, and this word didn't come across as hard to pronounce. [1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=squirrel&oldid=49332546#Pronunciation https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=squirrel&oldid=4...

gbacon 8y ago

English is a horrible language with massive numbers of grammatical exceptions. A former colleague remarked that spelling bees are interesting only because English is such a horrible language. A German spelling bee, in comparison, might go on for weeks!

chillacy 8y ago
Fun fact, english spelling kind of made sense before a bunch of scholars wanted to put the Latin back into the language, and now spelling is divorced from writing. As an example, why don't these words rhyme? * Enough * Through * Though Perhaps we should've gone through with one of these reforms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_reform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_refo...
- finlayson 8y ago
  And there's also: * Bough * Thorough Five separate words - with five different ways to pronounce "ough"! Spelling in English is a complete disaster. I pity those people who have to learn it as a second language.