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I'm still not sure why APL and Kanji are not examples of the same thing. They are not spoken languages, but neither is sign language.
by golemotron 12y ago
I'm still not sure why APL and Kanji are not examples of the same thing. They are not spoken languages, but neither is sign language.
- jeorgun 12y agoIn fairness, both of them do have composed symbols; ⍟ is ○ + *, 走 is 土 + 正, and so forth. But since the compositions aren't really meaningful, I take your point.
- snogglethorpe 12y agoThe compositions in Chinese characters very often are quite meaningful...
- jeorgun 12y agoBut those mnemonics (esp. the phonetic ones) generally don't carry over to Japanese, and we were discussing Kanji in specific.
- snogglethorpe 12y agoThey most certainly do carry over to Japanese...
- tokenadult 12y agoSee https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8353518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8353518 my reply to another participant in this thread. Chinese characters (called "Kanji" in Japanese) are very much writing out of spoken words, and not at all what was described in the article kindly submitted to open this thread. Another participant provided the definitive answer about what is going on in the report submitted here. In all human communication systems, there is recombination of basic symbols, because there has to be.
- Natsu 12y agoThey love to play games where multiple words have the same sound, though, in writing, to intentionally give things multiple interpretations. At least in Japanese.