6 ms·

The word 'sinogram' sounds a bit contrived, and is not something I see a lot of scholars on this topic use. I personally would recommend against using it. They

The word 'sinogram' sounds a bit contrived, and is not something I see a lot of scholars on this topic use. I personally would recommend against using it. They are mostly just called 'Chinese characters' in English when referring to these logograms, or simply 'kanji' if specifically talking about the Chinese characters in use in Japanese writing. Kanji (and in Korean 'hanja') literally means Han characters after all. I'm glad the Japanese writing system survived the first waves of digitization (at which point a vocal group of people worldwide was willing to sacrifice cultural artefacts and linguistic finesse for the sake of modernization) and in time put its own mark on things like character encoding and the technical capabilities of fonts on computers.

solarmist 6y ago
The essay feels like something written in the 1970s.
gerikson 6y ago
The author seems to be French-speaking, and "sinogramme" seems to be an accepted term in French: > Les caractères chinois, ou sinogrammes, sont les unités logographiques qui composent l'écriture des langues chinoises. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caract%C3%A8res_chinois https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caract%C3%A8res_chinois
- Freak_NL 6y ago
  Ah, that would explain it.
- DocTomoe 6y ago
  Some additional information: France is actually a leading country when it comes to Japanese Studies, to the point where high-level knowledge of French is a relevant skill in pursuing Japanese studies elsewhere, as many papers were historically only available in French.
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    I studies Japanese a bit in France a long time ago and was told that spoken French includes all the sounds of spoken Japanese so that a French speaker should have no problem pronouncing Japanese, apart from the accent. This is in contrast to the endless trouble French speakers have with the English 'th'...
    - yorwba 6y ago
      The stereotypical French speaker who has trouble with English [h] would definitely have the same problem with the Japanese [h], [ç] and [ɸ]. If they can't manage the tongue placement for English [θ], how are they supposed to handle Japanese [ɕ] and [ʑ]? And that's just the consonants. Usually when someone thinks that language X has all the sounds of language Y, it's a speaker of language X who hasn't yet realized that their ears are too attuned to language X to recognize the sounds of language Y as something different. Don't trust your ears!
      - mytailorisrich 6y ago
        It's only the letter H and R (as transcribed in romaji) that are not immediate for a French speaker but they are not difficult. Certainly much simpler than 'th' in English. (Source: not my ears but Japanese textbooks)
        yorwba 6y ago
        How would a French speaker pronounce し [ɕi] and じ [ʑi]? My guess would be « chi » [ʃi] and « ji » [ʒi]. Close enough to be understood, but different enough to be noticeable.
    - anthk 6y ago
      >This is in contrast to the endless trouble French speakers have with the English 'th'... They have a whole country in the South to practice that sound...
    - kergonath 6y ago
GolDDranks 6y ago
I did a MA of East Asian Studies at Helsinki University, and our professor ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juha_Janhunen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juha_Janhunen ) used the word sinogram as the standard terminology for the characters. I think this served two functions: 1) to disentangle the concept from a "character used in Chinese language", as sinograms are used at least in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. 2) to create a parallel with words like "logograms" and "phonograms", as sinograms are not purely either, but contain features from both.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  > as sinograms are used at least in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnam While technically a true statement, the usage of kanji in Korea and Vietnam is now fairly limited - Korea uses typically a system based on combining sounds together nowadays (while you still see them use Kanji for names or titles here and there) and Vietnam has moved to (an accent-rich) alphabet during the French colonization .
  - rational_indian 6y ago
    I'd say good riddance. Why saddle yourself with this abomination?
    - blacktriangle 6y ago
      Honestly, because it is crazy easy to read sinograms. I only lived in Japan for a few months and casually studied the language, but I wasn't with any other foreigners so I was 100% immersed in the language. At the end of the few months I reached the point where I could read Japanese faster than I can read English. It's as if reading a phonetic language still has to go through a process of symbol -> sound -> picture -> meaning in our brains, where a more ideographic language goes symbol -> meaning directly thus cutting out a lot of the processing time. Given that any given text is going to be read thousands of times more than it is written, the extra complexity in writing seems well worth the trade-off.
      - 6y ago
Kelamir 6y ago
One can refer to Chinese characters as hanzi.
- Freak_NL 6y ago
  Only when referring to the Chinese characters as used in Chinese.
smohare 6y ago
Sinograph is the term I’ve seen used in many introductory texts on Japanese. Apparently it was added just this month to the Oxford English Dictionary. https://public.oed.com/updates/new-words-list-march-2021/ https://public.oed.com/updates/new-words-list-march-2021/
andrewzah 6y ago
"Kanji (and in Korean 'hanja') literally means Han characters after all." They mean that in the specific context of those languages. The set of hanzi is different than the set of kanji, which is different than the set of hanja, which is different than characters that Taiwan uses. They are -not- the same characters. I see no real issue with using sinogram/sinograph over Chinese character since it refers to a Chinese character being used in another language. And it obviates the whole hanzi, kanji, hanja thing when not necessary.
EmilieTypo 6y ago
Yes indeed, I am French-speaking and "sinogrammes" is the most appropriate word in the academic world to talk about kanji. I am not sure if it is the same in the English academic world, some of the comments suggested that it is. I am going to check further about this point. (But writing my PhD in French so I will be safe anyway ^^)

solarmist 6y ago

The essay feels like something written in the 1970s.

gerikson 6y ago

The author seems to be French-speaking, and "sinogramme" seems to be an accepted term in French: > Les caractères chinois, ou sinogrammes, sont les unités logographiques qui composent l'écriture des langues chinoises. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caract%C3%A8res_chinois https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caract%C3%A8res_chinois

Freak_NL 6y ago
Ah, that would explain it.
DocTomoe 6y ago
Some additional information: France is actually a leading country when it comes to Japanese Studies, to the point where high-level knowledge of French is a relevant skill in pursuing Japanese studies elsewhere, as many papers were historically only available in French.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  I studies Japanese a bit in France a long time ago and was told that spoken French includes all the sounds of spoken Japanese so that a French speaker should have no problem pronouncing Japanese, apart from the accent. This is in contrast to the endless trouble French speakers have with the English 'th'...
  - yorwba 6y ago
    The stereotypical French speaker who has trouble with English [h] would definitely have the same problem with the Japanese [h], [ç] and [ɸ]. If they can't manage the tongue placement for English [θ], how are they supposed to handle Japanese [ɕ] and [ʑ]? And that's just the consonants. Usually when someone thinks that language X has all the sounds of language Y, it's a speaker of language X who hasn't yet realized that their ears are too attuned to language X to recognize the sounds of language Y as something different. Don't trust your ears!
    - mytailorisrich 6y ago
      It's only the letter H and R (as transcribed in romaji) that are not immediate for a French speaker but they are not difficult. Certainly much simpler than 'th' in English. (Source: not my ears but Japanese textbooks)
      - yorwba 6y ago
        How would a French speaker pronounce し [ɕi] and じ [ʑi]? My guess would be « chi » [ʃi] and « ji » [ʒi]. Close enough to be understood, but different enough to be noticeable.
  - anthk 6y ago
    >This is in contrast to the endless trouble French speakers have with the English 'th'... They have a whole country in the South to practice that sound...
  - kergonath 6y ago

GolDDranks 6y ago

I did a MA of East Asian Studies at Helsinki University, and our professor ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juha_Janhunen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juha_Janhunen ) used the word sinogram as the standard terminology for the characters. I think this served two functions: 1) to disentangle the concept from a "character used in Chinese language", as sinograms are used at least in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. 2) to create a parallel with words like "logograms" and "phonograms", as sinograms are not purely either, but contain features from both.

ekianjo 6y ago
> as sinograms are used at least in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnam While technically a true statement, the usage of kanji in Korea and Vietnam is now fairly limited - Korea uses typically a system based on combining sounds together nowadays (while you still see them use Kanji for names or titles here and there) and Vietnam has moved to (an accent-rich) alphabet during the French colonization .
- rational_indian 6y ago
  I'd say good riddance. Why saddle yourself with this abomination?
  - blacktriangle 6y ago
    Honestly, because it is crazy easy to read sinograms. I only lived in Japan for a few months and casually studied the language, but I wasn't with any other foreigners so I was 100% immersed in the language. At the end of the few months I reached the point where I could read Japanese faster than I can read English. It's as if reading a phonetic language still has to go through a process of symbol -> sound -> picture -> meaning in our brains, where a more ideographic language goes symbol -> meaning directly thus cutting out a lot of the processing time. Given that any given text is going to be read thousands of times more than it is written, the extra complexity in writing seems well worth the trade-off.
    - 6y ago

Kelamir 6y ago

One can refer to Chinese characters as hanzi.

Freak_NL 6y ago
Only when referring to the Chinese characters as used in Chinese.

smohare 6y ago

Sinograph is the term I’ve seen used in many introductory texts on Japanese. Apparently it was added just this month to the Oxford English Dictionary. https://public.oed.com/updates/new-words-list-march-2021/ https://public.oed.com/updates/new-words-list-march-2021/

andrewzah 6y ago

"Kanji (and in Korean 'hanja') literally means Han characters after all." They mean that in the specific context of those languages. The set of hanzi is different than the set of kanji, which is different than the set of hanja, which is different than characters that Taiwan uses. They are -not- the same characters. I see no real issue with using sinogram/sinograph over Chinese character since it refers to a Chinese character being used in another language. And it obviates the whole hanzi, kanji, hanja thing when not necessary.

EmilieTypo 6y ago

Yes indeed, I am French-speaking and "sinogrammes" is the most appropriate word in the academic world to talk about kanji. I am not sure if it is the same in the English academic world, some of the comments suggested that it is. I am going to check further about this point. (But writing my PhD in French so I will be safe anyway ^^)