Comments on: Vote for Overcome-forest-pause http://noncompositional.com/2007/06/vote-for-overcome-forest-pause/ Thu, 13 Jan 2011 01:44:08 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Russell http://noncompositional.com/2007/06/vote-for-overcome-forest-pause/comment-page-1/#comment-26821 Russell Sun, 13 Jan 2008 19:22:24 +0000 http://noncompositional.com/2007/06/vote-for-overcome-forest-pause/#comment-26821 <p>Okay, well that makes sense then.</p> Okay, well that makes sense then.

]]> By: Dominic http://noncompositional.com/2007/06/vote-for-overcome-forest-pause/comment-page-1/#comment-26514 Dominic Sat, 29 Dec 2007 10:51:43 +0000 http://noncompositional.com/2007/06/vote-for-overcome-forest-pause/#comment-26514 <p>奧 is [ou³³] in Cantonese.</p> 奧 is [ou³³] in Cantonese.

]]> By: Ben Zimmer http://noncompositional.com/2007/06/vote-for-overcome-forest-pause/comment-page-1/#comment-19472 Ben Zimmer Wed, 11 Jul 2007 10:57:52 +0000 http://noncompositional.com/2007/06/vote-for-overcome-forest-pause/#comment-19472 <p>The Globe ran an <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/07/11/chinese_americans_deserve_full_voting_rights/" rel="nofollow">op-ed piece</a> by Suzanne Lee and Ann Har-Yee Wong that does a much better job of explaining how the phoneticization of foreign names works and why it's necessary for the bilingual ballots.</p> The Globe ran an op-ed piece by Suzanne Lee and Ann Har-Yee Wong that does a much better job of explaining how the phoneticization of foreign names works and why it’s necessary for the bilingual ballots.

]]> By: Russell http://noncompositional.com/2007/06/vote-for-overcome-forest-pause/comment-page-1/#comment-18613 Russell Mon, 02 Jul 2007 06:02:16 +0000 http://noncompositional.com/2007/06/vote-for-overcome-forest-pause/#comment-18613 <p>The "ancient principle" is simply that the only (common) way to write sounds in Chinese involves characters that have meanings as well, and so you can always look at a rendering of a foreign word and "translate" it according to the meanings of the characters involved (of course, as the article mentioned, many characters have more than one, often related, meaning).</p> <p>On the mainland (and perhaps in the immigrant communities across most of the US) there is no standard way that I know of to simply write down sounds as you can with katakana. There is pinyin, which uses roman letters, and there is bopomofo (aka zhuin), conceived of on the mainland but now in use primarily only in Taiwan.</p> The “ancient principle” is simply that the only (common) way to write sounds in Chinese involves characters that have meanings as well, and so you can always look at a rendering of a foreign word and “translate” it according to the meanings of the characters involved (of course, as the article mentioned, many characters have more than one, often related, meaning).

On the mainland (and perhaps in the immigrant communities across most of the US) there is no standard way that I know of to simply write down sounds as you can with katakana. There is pinyin, which uses roman letters, and there is bopomofo (aka zhuin), conceived of on the mainland but now in use primarily only in Taiwan.

]]> By: speechless parrot http://noncompositional.com/2007/06/vote-for-overcome-forest-pause/comment-page-1/#comment-18550 speechless parrot Sat, 30 Jun 2007 04:29:26 +0000 http://noncompositional.com/2007/06/vote-for-overcome-forest-pause/#comment-18550 <p>It sounds like the phonetic approach to foreign words in Chinese is following some ancient principle. I know that the characters themselves have been greatly simplified compared with the more ancient script. So there have been periods in Chinese history when practicality joined tradition. In Japanese, there is the katakana syllabary to help with foreign imports. It has only around 50 letters. Is there a corresponding light weight system in Chinese, or a proposition to make one? The renditions of politician's names were hilarious to read, though I doubt that was the intent of the original transcribers.</p> It sounds like the phonetic approach to foreign words in Chinese is following some ancient principle. I know that the characters themselves have been greatly simplified compared with the more ancient script. So there have been periods in Chinese history when practicality joined tradition. In Japanese, there is the katakana syllabary to help with foreign imports. It has only around 50 letters. Is there a corresponding light weight system in Chinese, or a proposition to make one? The renditions of politician’s names were hilarious to read, though I doubt that was the intent of the original transcribers.

]]> By: University Update - Barack Obama - Vote for Overcome-forest-pause http://noncompositional.com/2007/06/vote-for-overcome-forest-pause/comment-page-1/#comment-18493 University Update - Barack Obama - Vote for Overcome-forest-pause Thu, 28 Jun 2007 21:00:00 +0000 http://noncompositional.com/2007/06/vote-for-overcome-forest-pause/#comment-18493 <p>[...] Clark Link to Article barack obama Vote for Overcome-forest-pause » Posted at Noncompositional on [...]</p> [...] Clark Link to Article barack obama Vote for Overcome-forest-pause » Posted at Noncompositional on [...]

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