Languages & Cultures of East Asia

Trad 101, Sections 18-19-20-21   Fall 2000

Previous Lecture | Next Lecture | Lecture Index

Lecture Outline, 9/6/00 - Chinese writing system

Types of writing systems

1. alphabetic
     symbol = phoneme/sound         (roughly)

     English
     "big"
     "boy"

2. syllabic
     symbol = syllable

     Japanese

3. logographic
     symbol = morpheme

     Chinese

Terms
     morphemes
     syllables
     characters

     "happy"
     "happily"
     "unhappiness"
     ? 2 morphemes, 1 syllable

Features of Chinese:

     1. character = syllable=morpheme
     2. isolating language
     3. no space between words

Brief history

     earliest writings: 1400 BC
     oracle bone script

variety of scripts
     Slide: fish

development
     Slide: dog

Internal structure of characters
     a) pictographic

     b) ideographic
        indicates abstract concepts

     c) joined meaning

     d) semantic-phonetic compounds
         most frequent

Advantages

     1. eliminate ambiguity
     2. use across times and dialects

Disadvantages

     1. difficulty of learning
     2. difficulty of use
         a. dictionary
         b. word-processing
     3. contribution to discrepancy between writing and speech