4 ms·
As a speaker of Mandarin and knowing phrases from inside mainland China and the phrases outside (ex: Taiwan), there’s already phrases and words of the same spok
by bfung 4y ago
As a speaker of Mandarin and knowing phrases from inside mainland China and the phrases outside (ex: Taiwan), there’s already phrases and words of the same spoken language that’s mutually unintelligible: [credit card, ice cream] - completely different phrases used for the same ideas/objects.
And the only way to express these ideas is with phrases (combination of characters), as Chinese characters (spoken) on their own already are overloaded.
- jhanschoo 4y agoThe comment you are replying to isn't claiming that letters/characters (字 zi4) correspond 1-1 to words/terms (词 ci2, what you call phrases)
- bfung 4y agoRight, but the spoken phrases and words are also divergent and overloaded already, making it not a good choice for a more uniform, simple to learn universal language.