6 Jan
2015
6 Jan
'15
12:09 p.m.
On Jan 5, 2015, at 7:22 PM, Rich Alderson <RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org>
wrote:
No, they are not. Kanji are *LOGOgrams*, expressing
*words*, not *ideas*.
(In fact, in Japanese they can express more than one word, given whether
they are read as Japanese or one of several different Chinese pronunciations,
of which kanon[1] and goon[2] are most common.)
That is a pretty interesting statement. There are many words in Japanese which are written
as a combination of two or more kanji (possibly plus word endings, written out in
hiragana). That to me fits a lot better with the description ?ideogram? than ?logogram?
(based on the etymology of both descriptions). ?Ideogram? is also the description I have
heard most often (by far).
How does the ?logogram? description deal with combinations of kanji?
- Mark