Writing English in Hanzi
Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 1:07 am
之 北 風 和 之 日 是了 非思且 哪 是們了 之 強更, 何時 個 旅者 來了 個長 裹了 內 個 暖 氅。
The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger, when a traveler came along wrapped in a warm cloak.
他們 肯了 那 之 一 誰 甲 下譲了 內 做且 之 旅者 把 他的 氅 離 應了 乃 共星了 強更 比 之 別。
They agreed that the one who first succeeded in making the traveler take his cloak off should be considered stronger than the other.
(Spaces are inserted to correspond to English word boundaries.)
You may have seen the Yingzi page and the Hangraphy project - basically, this is an attempt to strike a balance between the two, by using existing characters (and perhaps learning a little Chinese in the process!) while being tailored specifically to English.
If we were to do this with, say, French, we would need an extensive set of "okurigana" to represent inflections, but English has few enough inflections that I thought it should be possible to represent them purely using Hanzi. Accordingly, the system I'm using here is much more complicated than Chinese, or even Japanese - the relationship between characters and words is very much not one-to-one.
There are two major points of complication:
Compound Words
Many words (mostly function words) are written using combinations of characters that denote the semantics of the word without regard for pronunciation; the pronunciation of each combination must be learned separately. For example, personal pronouns:
Forms of "be":
Demonstratives:
Miscellaneous suffixes:
Onyomi/Kunyomi
There is also the problem that the same character can have multiple readings depending on the etymology of the word. For example, the word "succeed" (used above) derives from Latin, and is written with the characters 下譲, which alone would be read "under" and "yield" (the Native reading). In a similar vein, 下水="underwater", 水本="hydrogen", etc.
Feel free to create your own examples, correct my character usage, or flesh out the vocabulary more!
The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger, when a traveler came along wrapped in a warm cloak.
他們 肯了 那 之 一 誰 甲 下譲了 內 做且 之 旅者 把 他的 氅 離 應了 乃 共星了 強更 比 之 別。
They agreed that the one who first succeeded in making the traveler take his cloak off should be considered stronger than the other.
(Spaces are inserted to correspond to English word boundaries.)
You may have seen the Yingzi page and the Hangraphy project - basically, this is an attempt to strike a balance between the two, by using existing characters (and perhaps learning a little Chinese in the process!) while being tailored specifically to English.
If we were to do this with, say, French, we would need an extensive set of "okurigana" to represent inflections, but English has few enough inflections that I thought it should be possible to represent them purely using Hanzi. Accordingly, the system I'm using here is much more complicated than Chinese, or even Japanese - the relationship between characters and words is very much not one-to-one.
There are two major points of complication:
Compound Words
Many words (mostly function words) are written using combinations of characters that denote the semantics of the word without regard for pronunciation; the pronunciation of each combination must be learned separately. For example, personal pronouns:
Code: Select all
I 我 we 我們 me 我也 us 我也們
you 你 you 你們
he/she/it 他/她/它 they 他們 him/her 他也/她也 them 他也們
Code: Select all
am 是私 was 是們了 be 乃
are 是 were 是了
is 是們
Code: Select all
this 這 that 那 what/which 何/哪
here 這裡 there 那裡 where 何裡
thus 這麼 so 那麼 how 何麼
now 這時 then 那時 when 何時
who/whom 誰/誰也
Code: Select all
了 -ed (used with irregular verbs also, so 來了="came")
且 -ing
們 -s (plural nouns, 3sg verbs)
的 -'s (possessive)
There is also the problem that the same character can have multiple readings depending on the etymology of the word. For example, the word "succeed" (used above) derives from Latin, and is written with the characters 下譲, which alone would be read "under" and "yield" (the Native reading). In a similar vein, 下水="underwater", 水本="hydrogen", etc.
Feel free to create your own examples, correct my character usage, or flesh out the vocabulary more!