6 ms·

From my experience with Chinese, the classification in the article follows the established convention but seems to use non-standard terminology for each categor

by 4cao 6y ago

From my experience with Chinese, the classification in the article follows the established convention but seems to use non-standard terminology for each category. Arguably, it's much more straightforward to categorize the characters as: 1. Pictograms: 人 'person', 木 'tree', 日 'sun, day', 月 'moon, month' 2. (Simple) Ideograms: 上 'up', 三 'three' 3. Compound Ideograms, or Meaning-Meaning Compounds: 休 'rest' (人 'person' next to a 木 'tree'), 明 'bright' (日 'sun' and 月 'moon') - note that the pronunciation of the compound character is unrelated to either component 4. Phonetic-Meaning Compounds: 晴 /qíng/ 'clear (weather)' (日 'sun' as a meaning cue, and 青 /qīng/ as a pronunciation cue) - the vast majority of Chinese characters belong in this last category More categories can be (and historically were) distinguished, such as when an additional component was added to a character to clarify its meaning, even though the original character already had that meaning, but that primary meaning became overshadowed by a secondary meaning it acquired later; however such distinctions are mostly useful for understanding the evolution of Chinese characters rather than the way they currently are. Of course the above classification, even with only the basic four categories, is still largely subjective, for example 娶 /qǔ/ 'to marry (a woman)' can be thought of either as a meaning-meaning compound (取 'to take' a 女 'woman'), or as a phonetic-meaning compound with the phonetic component 取 'to take' pronounced /qǔ/ as well. It also has to be said the pronunciation cue is often not very helpful anymore, as the sounds in Mandarin Chinese have shifted, and guessing the pronunciation from similar characters can end up being hilariously wrong. Besides, sometimes it is not even clear which component of a character is supposed to be the phonetic cue. Now I don't know about Japanese but I imagine these pronunciation cues must be even less helpful than in Chinese.

howlgarnish 6y ago
Chinese also has the additional problem that character simplification in the PRC broke quite a few pronunciation cues. With 廣, you can correctly guess it'll sound similar to 黄. Simplified to 广, you have no idea.
- dwohnitmok 6y ago
  It's a wash. It broke some and restored others, often by following variant characters already in use, e.g. 闆, which has no pronunciation similarity to 品, became 板 (following cues of e.g. 版). Chinese hasn't had consistent phonetic components for a long long long time.
  - edwinyzh 6y ago
    闆 doeshas no pronunciation similarity to 品，in ancient Chinese, you can find that with Cantonese which is close to the official languages in some ancient times.
- PikachuEXE 6y ago
  That's Simplified Chinese And I recommend people willing to learn Chinese characters to learn Traditional Chinese to be less confused and easier to remember on the long run.
  - mrslave 6y ago
    The Chinese I have asked who learnt Simplified Chinese characters in school attest to being able to read Traditional Chinese characters with very little additional effort; or even just on the spot (say, when shopping or dining). Those who learnt Traditional Chinese characters seem to have a harder time going in the other direction. (No studies to cite; I have asked a good 30+ people at work, social circles, etc. over the years.)
    - 4cao 6y ago
      Even if you completely obstruct some characters from view, people will still be able to figure out the meaning from context but that doesn't necessarily mean they learned the other variant. And on top of that, they might be reluctant to admit it. If you really wanted to know, you'd have to show them the characters in isolation. Try for example 發. I bet it's not going to be so straightforward. In any case, most people don't really get to have the choice but if you're planning to learn both, going with traditional characters first is easier because the simplification is a many-to-one mapping: if you've only known simplified, you won't be aware there are supposed to be different characters in place of the same one you're familiar with. In other words, you don't only have to learn something new but also unlearn what you know and got used to, and the latter part is always more difficult. For instance (and to stay within the same example), both 發 and 髮, unrelated to each other, were simplified to the same 发. A person who only knows simplified is likely to incorrectly write *頭發 for 'hair' (instead of the correct 頭髮), and there are 2.5M Google hits for this keyword (to be fair, many probably due to the automated conversion, and some might be an intentional pun).
      - dwohnitmok 6y ago
        > the simplification is a many-to-one mapping Simplification is a many-to-many mapping. There are many characters that were either merged in the process of standardizing traditional Chinese characters or have multiple meanings which are split by standard simplified Chinese. Here's a very small sample of a bunch of Traditional -> Simplified examples. 乾 -> 乾 (qian2)、干 (gan1) (干 is itself a merger of multiple traditional characters) 夥 -> 夥 (huo3)、伙 (huo3) 兒 -> 儿 (er2)、兒 (ni2) 祇 -> 祇 (qi2)、只 (zhi3) (只 is also itself a merger of multiple traditional characters) > Try for example 發. I bet it's not going to be so straightforward. I'd be pretty shocked if any literate Chinese speaker in the PRC did not recognize that character. I think in general you're overestimating the difficulty of learning traditional characters when educated in a system using solely simplified characters. PRC undergraduate courses will sometimes just flat-out assume knowledge of traditional characters. Indeed I have a textbook from a history of Chinese medicine class that's entirely in traditional characters. The professor (not unreasonably) just assumed we all already knew traditional characters or would pick it up in a week or two. All subsequent course material (e.g. test materials) was also in traditional characters, although we were allowed to write in simplified characters (and I think everyone in the class did so). I'm sure there's some corner cases you could use to stump people, but PRC kids consume quite a lot of traditional Chinese material even if they're not formally taught it in school. It's more mentally taxing than just reading simplified characters, but it's still fairly straightforward. In general it's pretty easy to pick up either character set if you're a fluent reader in the other, at least for reading. Learning how to handwrite both sets is trickier and probably requires dedicated training, but even then only on the order of weeks or at most months. > (to be fair, many probably due to the automated conversion, and some might be an intentional pun) I'm fairly certain the overwhelming majority are due to automated conversions.
greggman3 6y ago
Isn't 晴 an example of "3, compound ideograms"? Sun and blue suggested a blue day or in other words a blue sky, no clouds. So it doesn't seem phonetic. In Japanese there are words like 米国 "beikoku" which means USA but it comes from 米利堅 'merikan'
- dwohnitmok 6y ago
  Man if you really want to trace the etymology of Chinese characters it gets to be a really long and crazy affair. You inadvertently stumbled across a thorny example. The history of 晴 indicates pretty clearly that 青 is meant to be a phonetic compound rather than a semantic one, but it's not obvious how that came about. 晴 originated as the character 夝 and originally meant a clear night with visible stars after the rain has stopped (夝 is a 形声字 where 夕 means dusk or night and 生 is the phonetic compound) rather than a clear day. By focusing on the stars, we got alternate "spellings" of 暒 (which is a cross between using 星 phonetically and semantically) and 精 (borrowing its connotation of brightness). Gradually this focus on stars became a focus on brightness while maintaining the original "clearness." The latter character 精 then kept its phonetic component 青 and got a new semantic component 日 to distinguish itself from 精 and that's how we got 晴.
  - greggman3 6y ago
    That's fascinating! Doesn't that mean it's 青 that's the phonetic part? It means blue. blue day certainly is a fitting compound meaning regardless of its origin. On the other hand, no idea why moon and that radical (life?) = blue so that part is phontic?
    - dwohnitmok 6y ago
      > Doesn't that mean it's 青 that's the phonetic part? I'm confused. That's indeed what I said and what the article states and what the original parent comment stated. > On the other hand, no idea why moon and that radical (life?) = blue so that part is phontic? That's not quite the direct evidence that 青 is phonetic rather than semantic. It's because already in 精青 is not a semantic component but rather a phonetic one. In particular 精 was being used to describe clear, sunny days before the existence of 晴. Its semantic compound was then replaced with 日 to disambiguate this new meaning of 精 [0]. So the jump from 精 to 晴 is treating 青 as a phonetic component as well. [0] "Replaced with" indicates an intentionality that may or may not have actually occurred. We don't have any records of someone literally coming out and saying "yeah I think 精 has too many meanings, I'm going to replace one of them with 晴." It's plausible that what may have occurred is the independent growth of a variant character 晴 that occurred after the rise of 精 that eventually supplanted 精. Regardless the existence of 精 is a pretty clear signal that it was the phonetic quality of 青 that was being used.
eska 6y ago
Now I don't know about Japanese but I imagine these pronunciation cues must be even less helpful than in Chinese. You'd be right about that. Kanji were also imported over time, not at once. So Japanese bases its onyomi, the "Chinese" reading of Kanji as opposed to kunyomi/Japanaese reading, on the Chinese language in different centuries. Oftentimes Chinese people will complain that the Japanese should just use the same reading as the Chinese, when actually the Chinese aren't using it anymore themselves.
olsgaarddk 6y ago
This is a really good summary. For anyone who want to geek this out further, I highly recommend the the introduction in "Decoding Kanji: A Practical Approach to Learning Look-alike Characters" By Yaeko Sato Habein [1]. Despite being a workbook for intermediate students, the introduction really goes all-in on this stuff and treats the topic both very academically, but it also a treasure trove of kanji related "Fun facts", and the appendix has interesting compilations such as "Pairs of homonymous kanji compounds with one kanji in common". [1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Decoding-Kanji-Practical-Look-alike-Characters/dp/4770024983 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Decoding-Kanji-Practical-Look-alike...

by 4cao 6y ago

howlgarnish 6y ago

Chinese also has the additional problem that character simplification in the PRC broke quite a few pronunciation cues. With 廣, you can correctly guess it'll sound similar to 黄. Simplified to 广, you have no idea.

dwohnitmok 6y ago
It's a wash. It broke some and restored others, often by following variant characters already in use, e.g. 闆, which has no pronunciation similarity to 品, became 板 (following cues of e.g. 版). Chinese hasn't had consistent phonetic components for a long long long time.
- edwinyzh 6y ago
  闆 doeshas no pronunciation similarity to 品，in ancient Chinese, you can find that with Cantonese which is close to the official languages in some ancient times.
PikachuEXE 6y ago
That's Simplified Chinese And I recommend people willing to learn Chinese characters to learn Traditional Chinese to be less confused and easier to remember on the long run.
- mrslave 6y ago
  The Chinese I have asked who learnt Simplified Chinese characters in school attest to being able to read Traditional Chinese characters with very little additional effort; or even just on the spot (say, when shopping or dining). Those who learnt Traditional Chinese characters seem to have a harder time going in the other direction. (No studies to cite; I have asked a good 30+ people at work, social circles, etc. over the years.)
  - 4cao 6y ago
    Even if you completely obstruct some characters from view, people will still be able to figure out the meaning from context but that doesn't necessarily mean they learned the other variant. And on top of that, they might be reluctant to admit it. If you really wanted to know, you'd have to show them the characters in isolation. Try for example 發. I bet it's not going to be so straightforward. In any case, most people don't really get to have the choice but if you're planning to learn both, going with traditional characters first is easier because the simplification is a many-to-one mapping: if you've only known simplified, you won't be aware there are supposed to be different characters in place of the same one you're familiar with. In other words, you don't only have to learn something new but also unlearn what you know and got used to, and the latter part is always more difficult. For instance (and to stay within the same example), both 發 and 髮, unrelated to each other, were simplified to the same 发. A person who only knows simplified is likely to incorrectly write *頭發 for 'hair' (instead of the correct 頭髮), and there are 2.5M Google hits for this keyword (to be fair, many probably due to the automated conversion, and some might be an intentional pun).
    - dwohnitmok 6y ago
      > the simplification is a many-to-one mapping Simplification is a many-to-many mapping. There are many characters that were either merged in the process of standardizing traditional Chinese characters or have multiple meanings which are split by standard simplified Chinese. Here's a very small sample of a bunch of Traditional -> Simplified examples. 乾 -> 乾 (qian2)、干 (gan1) (干 is itself a merger of multiple traditional characters) 夥 -> 夥 (huo3)、伙 (huo3) 兒 -> 儿 (er2)、兒 (ni2) 祇 -> 祇 (qi2)、只 (zhi3) (只 is also itself a merger of multiple traditional characters) > Try for example 發. I bet it's not going to be so straightforward. I'd be pretty shocked if any literate Chinese speaker in the PRC did not recognize that character. I think in general you're overestimating the difficulty of learning traditional characters when educated in a system using solely simplified characters. PRC undergraduate courses will sometimes just flat-out assume knowledge of traditional characters. Indeed I have a textbook from a history of Chinese medicine class that's entirely in traditional characters. The professor (not unreasonably) just assumed we all already knew traditional characters or would pick it up in a week or two. All subsequent course material (e.g. test materials) was also in traditional characters, although we were allowed to write in simplified characters (and I think everyone in the class did so). I'm sure there's some corner cases you could use to stump people, but PRC kids consume quite a lot of traditional Chinese material even if they're not formally taught it in school. It's more mentally taxing than just reading simplified characters, but it's still fairly straightforward. In general it's pretty easy to pick up either character set if you're a fluent reader in the other, at least for reading. Learning how to handwrite both sets is trickier and probably requires dedicated training, but even then only on the order of weeks or at most months. > (to be fair, many probably due to the automated conversion, and some might be an intentional pun) I'm fairly certain the overwhelming majority are due to automated conversions.

greggman3 6y ago

Isn't 晴 an example of "3, compound ideograms"? Sun and blue suggested a blue day or in other words a blue sky, no clouds. So it doesn't seem phonetic. In Japanese there are words like 米国 "beikoku" which means USA but it comes from 米利堅 'merikan'

dwohnitmok 6y ago
Man if you really want to trace the etymology of Chinese characters it gets to be a really long and crazy affair. You inadvertently stumbled across a thorny example. The history of 晴 indicates pretty clearly that 青 is meant to be a phonetic compound rather than a semantic one, but it's not obvious how that came about. 晴 originated as the character 夝 and originally meant a clear night with visible stars after the rain has stopped (夝 is a 形声字 where 夕 means dusk or night and 生 is the phonetic compound) rather than a clear day. By focusing on the stars, we got alternate "spellings" of 暒 (which is a cross between using 星 phonetically and semantically) and 精 (borrowing its connotation of brightness). Gradually this focus on stars became a focus on brightness while maintaining the original "clearness." The latter character 精 then kept its phonetic component 青 and got a new semantic component 日 to distinguish itself from 精 and that's how we got 晴.
- greggman3 6y ago
  That's fascinating! Doesn't that mean it's 青 that's the phonetic part? It means blue. blue day certainly is a fitting compound meaning regardless of its origin. On the other hand, no idea why moon and that radical (life?) = blue so that part is phontic?
  - dwohnitmok 6y ago
    > Doesn't that mean it's 青 that's the phonetic part? I'm confused. That's indeed what I said and what the article states and what the original parent comment stated. > On the other hand, no idea why moon and that radical (life?) = blue so that part is phontic? That's not quite the direct evidence that 青 is phonetic rather than semantic. It's because already in 精青 is not a semantic component but rather a phonetic one. In particular 精 was being used to describe clear, sunny days before the existence of 晴. Its semantic compound was then replaced with 日 to disambiguate this new meaning of 精 [0]. So the jump from 精 to 晴 is treating 青 as a phonetic component as well. [0] "Replaced with" indicates an intentionality that may or may not have actually occurred. We don't have any records of someone literally coming out and saying "yeah I think 精 has too many meanings, I'm going to replace one of them with 晴." It's plausible that what may have occurred is the independent growth of a variant character 晴 that occurred after the rise of 精 that eventually supplanted 精. Regardless the existence of 精 is a pretty clear signal that it was the phonetic quality of 青 that was being used.

eska 6y ago

Now I don't know about Japanese but I imagine these pronunciation cues must be even less helpful than in Chinese. You'd be right about that. Kanji were also imported over time, not at once. So Japanese bases its onyomi, the "Chinese" reading of Kanji as opposed to kunyomi/Japanaese reading, on the Chinese language in different centuries. Oftentimes Chinese people will complain that the Japanese should just use the same reading as the Chinese, when actually the Chinese aren't using it anymore themselves.

olsgaarddk 6y ago

This is a really good summary. For anyone who want to geek this out further, I highly recommend the the introduction in "Decoding Kanji: A Practical Approach to Learning Look-alike Characters" By Yaeko Sato Habein [1]. Despite being a workbook for intermediate students, the introduction really goes all-in on this stuff and treats the topic both very academically, but it also a treasure trove of kanji related "Fun facts", and the appendix has interesting compilations such as "Pairs of homonymous kanji compounds with one kanji in common". [1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Decoding-Kanji-Practical-Look-alike-Characters/dp/4770024983 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Decoding-Kanji-Practical-Look-alike...