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VincentD commented at 2014-10-31 00:00:47 » #1626469
Except for one major problem the two of you seem to be overlooking: due to the limited number of sounds in the Japanese language, there are an INSANE number of homophones that use different kanji, but use the same hiragana and, as a result, are romanized exactly the same.
For a good example, look at the word "hi" (pronounced like "he"): Depending on the kanji used, it can mean a multitude of things, such as "fire", "light", "sun", "day", "one", "princess", "mistake", "scarlet", "blood", "match", "cost", "housemaid", "ice/hail", "spleen"... The list goes on and on. And that's just one example among dozens.
Then there's also the issue of romanization differences, as some systems romanize "fu", "shi", "chi", "tsu", and "n" as "hu", "si", "ti", "tu", and "m", the latter of which being where we get "sempai", as opposed to the proper "senpai"; I've also seen the dakuten version of "tsu", commonly romanized as either "zu" or "dzu", as "du".
Long story short, there's a damn good reason that the Japanese language is written with kanji rather than a Latin alphabet. Just be thankful it ain't Arabic, where the shape of a letter changes based on its position in a word.
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Except for one major problem the two of you seem to be overlooking: due to the limited number of sounds in the Japanese language, there are an INSANE number of homophones that use different kanji, but use the same hiragana and, as a result, are romanized exactly the same.
For a good example, look at the word "hi" (pronounced like "he"): Depending on the kanji used, it can mean a multitude of things, such as "fire", "light", "sun", "day", "one", "princess", "mistake", "scarlet", "blood", "match", "cost", "housemaid", "ice/hail", "spleen"... The list goes on and on. And that's just one example among dozens.
Then there's also the issue of romanization differences, as some systems romanize "fu", "shi", "chi", "tsu", and "n" as "hu", "si", "ti", "tu", and "m", the latter of which being where we get "sempai", as opposed to the proper "senpai"; I've also seen the dakuten version of "tsu", commonly romanized as either "zu" or "dzu", as "du".
Long story short, there's a damn good reason that the Japanese language is written with kanji rather than a Latin alphabet. Just be thankful it ain't Arabic, where the shape of a letter changes based on its position in a word.
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Anonymous commented at 2014-10-31 11:01:49 » #1626671
Re: the sempai/senpai example: I've generally found it more useful to transcribe the sound after it went through a bit of sandhi (i.e. write "sempai") rather than transliterate the script (i.e. write "senpai"). Some of the transliterations might be useful for technical linguistic purposes, but if the object is to get normal people to pronounce things somewhat close to correctly then transcribing sounds is a far easier way to go for everyday use.
However, the point about having lots of homophones distinguished only by choice in kanji is the most compelling one. Also, the Arabic comparison is more apt than you let on there, because there are multiple flavors of transcriptions and transliterations for all sorts of regional dialects.
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Re: the sempai/senpai example: I've generally found it more useful to transcribe the sound after it went through a bit of sandhi (i.e. write "sempai") rather than transliterate the script (i.e. write "senpai"). Some of the transliterations might be useful for technical linguistic purposes, but if the object is to get normal people to pronounce things somewhat close to correctly then transcribing sounds is a far easier way to go for everyday use.
However, the point about having lots of homophones distinguished only by choice in kanji is the most compelling one. Also, the Arabic comparison is more apt than you let on there, because there are multiple flavors of transcriptions and transliterations for all sorts of regional dialects.
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Anonymous commented at 2015-01-27 14:04:11 » #1677635
Simplification and unification of language is going to be a strong point in cultures in the near, though.
Cultures have spent centuries creating overly complicated languages when there wasn't much else to learn and scholars had tons of time on their hands to add flourish to languages to separate scholarly, noble, military and peasant things.
These days humans have way more things to learn, like math, sciences, technical skills. It takes 12 years for English students to master English. Japanese students take a long time mastering Japanese. Arabic languages are the same. In other countries with simpler language structure (eg: spanish with simple sentence structure, verb conjugation) they have a competitive advantage by needing less time to integrate the language into new students which means more time (and brain space) left to learn more things. That's why folks in some European countries learn 4 languages ... they learn simple ones like Italian and Spanish and German, then add in a complex one like English.
However, the simplification and unification of languages will also break down communication barriers and bring folks together to exchange ideas easier. Currently we're seeing English and Japanese and German and Spanish as main languages. But, these can be condensed and simplified into a common language. They need to in order to alleviate brain space for more important things. It will happen naturally over time, and the most optimal language won't win. Like languages today we'll probably see a merger of other languages into a single one. But, it will happen over time. And it's much needed.
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Simplification and unification of language is going to be a strong point in cultures in the near, though.
Cultures have spent centuries creating overly complicated languages when there wasn't much else to learn and scholars had tons of time on their hands to add flourish to languages to separate scholarly, noble, military and peasant things.
These days humans have way more things to learn, like math, sciences, technical skills. It takes 12 years for English students to master English. Japanese students take a long time mastering Japanese. Arabic languages are the same. In other countries with simpler language structure (eg: spanish with simple sentence structure, verb conjugation) they have a competitive advantage by needing less time to integrate the language into new students which means more time (and brain space) left to learn more things. That's why folks in some European countries learn 4 languages ... they learn simple ones like Italian and Spanish and German, then add in a complex one like English.
However, the simplification and unification of languages will also break down communication barriers and bring folks together to exchange ideas easier. Currently we're seeing English and Japanese and German and Spanish as main languages. But, these can be condensed and simplified into a common language. They need to in order to alleviate brain space for more important things. It will happen naturally over time, and the most optimal language won't win. Like languages today we'll probably see a merger of other languages into a single one. But, it will happen over time. And it's much needed.
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