> From: Hietaniemi Jarkko (NRC/Boston)
> [mailto:jarkko.hietaniemi@nokia.com]
>
> : > Incorrect. Again, they are *not* separate languages, but two
> : > orthographic renditions of the same *written* language.
> : ... yet there are a few differences in the vocabulary which actually
> require
> : entirely different characters - and I don't just mean the
> traditional
> and
> : the simplified version of a particular character. Take e.g. the word
> for
> : "bicycle".
> : But after all, it's AFAIK just a list - not too long - of
> words which
> has to
> : be replaced when doing a conversion, quite regularly.
>
> You mean differences like "lift" vs "elevator", "muesli" vs "granola",
> "pavement"
> vs "sidewalk", etc? I do know that US and UK are two countries
> separated by one
> language :-)
That's close. However, to complete the example, we need some
changes to the alphabet. Let's say, for the sake of discussion (or
argument, if you like a good argument), that the Brits decide that that
German double-s thingy looks pretty cool after all and adopt it, using it
wherever two "s"'s (esses?) occur together. Now you have two differences
between British and American English - one difference is the words they
choose, and the other is the way they write words[1].
To an outside observer (i.e. one who does not speak English), it
would be very difficult to distinguish between the words which are spoken
differently (or, for that matter, the different idioms), and the words which
are spelled differently.
This is essentially the problem that we are facing with Chinese.
Chinese is basically common in writing. There are differences, but none
that truly impede communication[2]. So we have Chinese dialects, in which
different words[3] may be used for a concept, and Chinese writing systems,
in which different glyphs may be used for a character. Since writing
systems tend to remain constant within a dialect, it can be difficult to
distinguish these differences if one does not speak Chinese.
HTH,
/|/|ike
[1] - Yes, I'm aware of that color/colour thing, but thought it to be not
strong enough an example.
[2] - The exception appears to be Cantonese and its dialects. While
linguists slice Chinese dialects every which way, Chinese speakers seem to
distinguish only between Mandarin and Cantonese. Apparently there are
enough differences between the two, and similarities within the two, to
prevent communication even in writing, although limited communication is
possible.
[3] - "Words" here means "character or set of characters which embody a
single concept".
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Thu Oct 18 2001 - 15:50:40 EDT