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From: breuel@h-sc1.UUCP (thomas breuel)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Beginning Japanese Text ('Do you know...')
Message-ID: <848@h-sc1.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 22-Dec-85 01:30:32 EST
Article-I.D.: h-sc1.848
Posted: Sun Dec 22 01:30:32 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Dec-85 00:28:24 EST
References: <1791@uwmacc.UUCP> <839@h-sc1.UUCP> <637@utflis.UUCP>
Organization: Harvard Univ. Science Center
Lines: 34

> In article <839@h-sc1.UUCP> breuel@h-sc1.UUCP (thomas breuel) writes:
> >Chinese characters (Kanji) are
> >composed from a relatively small number of constituents (radicals) with
> >semantic and phonetic content. From the radicals present in a Chinese
> >character, one can often not only derive its meaning, but also its
> >pronounciation.  
> 
> Well, Thomas, seeing your extensive bibliography at the end of the
> article, I'm surprised that you made such a general statement which is
> often untrue.  Even in the Chinese language itself, trying to guess a
> character's meaning and pronunciation from its radicals is often unsafe
> and incorrect.  The problem doubles with Japanese kanji because
> sometimes the original Chinese pronunciation is preserved, but often
> the kanji is used (or borrowed) for its meaning only and its
> pronunciation bears no relation to the kanji.  For example, 'ido bata
> kaigii' means "gossip"; the kanji used consists of four characters,
> meaning '(water)well top conference' in Chinese.  The Chinese
> pronunciation for conference is approx. 'wui-ee', so is more or less
> preserved in 'kaigii'.  But 'ido bata' is Japanese in origin, and to
> guess its pronunciation form the kanji would be completely fruitless.

I did not intend to imply that you can read or understand a Japanese
text if you only know radicals but have never learned the Kanji.
Similarly, a knowledge of all English roots, suffixes, and prefixes
would not allow you to read or understand an English text.

I just wanted to point out that the Japanese writing system does not
consist of a few thousand unrelated characters, but that it also contains
a lot of semantic and phonetic information, just like the English
writing system. This doesn't help you very much if you encounter an
unknown Kanji, but I find it of great mnemonic value that certain radicals
have certain meanings or suggest certain pronounciations.

						Thomas.