3 ms·
Spoken Japanese uses pitch accent to distinguish homophones
by T-R 23d ago
Spoken Japanese uses pitch accent to distinguish homophones
- deleted 23d ago[deleted]
- rf15 23d agoSo shouldn't the better solution be a few more pronounciation markers beyond two strokes, a circle and tiny letters instead of thousands of chinese characters?
- T-R 23d agoBut who is this solution for? Unless you change the pronunciation of the language, it would be adding markers around whole syllables to disambiguate - syllables that represent the kanji they came from (many of which already have phoentic components) - but those syllables would still be less dense and visually identifiable than kanji is for someone who already speaks the language. It's similar to initialisms or emoji in English; it's of course frustrating for people who don't know them, and there are reasonable complaints about some of the extremes, but speakers/writers use them because they find them useful when communicating with an audience that's also assumed to know them.
- fenomas 23d agoIn some cases, but note that (a) this is only true for a tiny handful of homophones, and (b) the distinguishing accent varies by region. E.g. "hashi" famously can mean bridge/edge/chopsticks depending on accent, but which accent has which meaning is different in Tokyo vs Osaka.