24 May
2012
24 May
'12
12:10 p.m.
From: Rod Smallwood
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 9:09 PM
Japanese code for example was totally different as
their language is
based on ideographs.
Please stop spreading erroneous information.
One of the writing systems used for the Japanese language, kanji, is
_logographic_ (each written sign denotes a word). In reading Japanese,
each such sign can be read in as many as 10 different ways, depending on
whether it is read as a native Japanese word (or morpheme, that is, a
unit of word formation possibly "smaller" than a full word--English
"-ly" is an example), called kun-yomi "Japanese reading" or as a
Chinese
word in one of 4 different sets of pronunciations (kan-on "Han sound",
the most common; go-on "Wu sound", used chiefly in reading Buddhist
texts; to-on "Tang sound", used in reading some later literature; and
kany?-on "idiomatic sound", which are often "correct" Chinese
pronunciations which violate the rules for the other 3 systems). The
occurrence of synonyms complicates things further.
In addition, there are 2 additional scripts, both ultimately derived
from simplified ways of writing kanji, called hiragana
and katakana.
Both are syllabaries, that is, each sign represents a single syllable
of
the word, and multiple signs are used to write the word.
The Japanese *language* is based on vocalizations produced by the human
throat and mouth, representing neural events in the brain, like all
other human languages.
Rich Alderson
writing as someone with undergraduate and graduate degrees in
linguistics rather than in my usual role, so not the usual .sig