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From: lambert@cwi.nl (Lambert Meertens)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat
Subject: Re: What is a byte
Message-ID: <55@piring.cwi.nl>
Date: Wed, 31-Dec-69 18:59:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: piring.55
Posted: Wed Dec 31 18:59:59 1969
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Aug-87 21:41:20 EDT
References: <218@astra.necisa.oz> <142700010@tiger.UUCP> <2792@phri.UUCP> <6252@brl-smoke.ARPA> <479@sugar.UUCP> <51@piring.cwi.nl> <970@haddock.ISC.COM>
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 25
Keywords: Kanji, Romaji, homonymy

In article <970@haddock.ISC.COM> karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer) writes:
) In article <51@piring.cwi.nl> lambert@cwi.nl (Lambert Meertens) writes:
) >There seems to be a good reason for [using Kanji]: after romanization,
) >words written differently in Kanji may become the same.
) 
) The romanized form is phonetic, right?  I presume that Japanese speakers can
) understand each other when conversing by telephone; doesn't this have the same
) level of ambiguity?

In some cases the intonation pattern (accent) may help to disambiguate words
that are otherwise homonyms.  Generally, spoken text has more clues to help
interpretation than written text (sentence melody, pauses, stresses).  And
it tends to be more redundant anyway, and in a telephone conversation the
other party continually signals to you if they are still with you (which
Japanese speakers tend to do much more strongly than English speakers).

Nevertheless, one native Japanese speaker told me that he expected to be
able to figure out the meaning of a technical text written in say hiragana,
on the condition that at least the word boundaries are marked (which is not
done in normal Japanese writing).  It seems to be a matter of preference
rather than of strict necessity.

-- 

Lambert Meertens, CWI, Amsterdam; lambert@cwi.nl