reasons for kanji?

[Uriel]

Originally Posted by v16

There aren't - English wins just by being worldwide. And being so similar to C++.

lol? English similar to c++ please, fancy an elaboration? Apart from obvious english keywords.

EDIT: I gave it some thought. You say that in england when im in grocery store and point to apple in my basket and say: "for(i=0;i<5;++i) *finger++;" shopkeeper will put additional 5 apples in my basket? Or maybe i shoul phrase it like this: "while(5>(INT)vecApples.size()) vecApples.push_back(new CApple());" ?

Originally Posted by v16

Nah, Esperanto is an abomination of "political correctness", an attempt at a language being neutral and throwing in something from everyone.

Its easy to learn and designed for maximum information - minimum complexity. Its PC only beacuse its neutral (yet it bases on latin languages so PC goes to bin).

[v16]

ou say that in england when im in grocery store and point to apple in my basket and say: "for(i=0;i<5;++i) *finger++;" shopkeeper will put additional 5 apples in my basket?

Nah, even I wouldn't put anything into your basket, but would rather teach you the magic "apples+=5". "Apples, plus five" - sounds better than "somethinginjapanesedesu", agreed?

Tavi lehem goyim!

Its easy to learn and designed for maximum information - minimum complexity.

With suffixes? You're kidding me. See you transferring these suffixes in a high-noise situation. A proper efficient and reliable language should have the minimal sufficient set of elementary words.

[Uriel]

Originally Posted by v16

Nah, even I wouldn't put anything into your basket, but would rather teach you the magic "apples+=5". "Apples, plus five" - sounds better than "somethinginjapanesedesu", agreed?

So "apples+=5" will work in english enabled grocery stores? I agree english is ok, in fact i encourage using english in programming in my classes. But there is no need to get rid of local culture and language (especially if its so beutyful as japaneese) just so bufoons from england could read local newspaper.
[/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by v16

With suffixes? You're kidding me. See you transferring these suffixes in a high-noise situation.

English has suffixes too. Less but still.

Originally Posted by v16

A proper efficient and reliable language should have the minimal sufficient set of elementary words.

Thats esperanto!

[Ketsuron]

Originally Posted by Hogusan

Im trying to learn japanese, but kanji just is a pain in the ass. Does anybody know the reason for them not useing only Hiragana and/or Katakana?

I believe someone else already pointed out that kana (hiragana, katakana,..) are derived from kanji. Hiragana earlier (at court) and katakana later developed by Buddhist monks. However why they don't just use kana or just romaji (latin script) has several reasons.


> There aren't - English wins just by being worldwide. And being so similar to C++.

Now that made me smirk, but i wonder which language would be compared to Brainfuck...

> esperanto
designed only as 'help' language i doubt any country would adopt as first language and before someone learns that one i think most would rather learn Spanish instead. Lojban or even Baronh would be better ;)

Well, about Artificial languages they might be good for some purposes but can't really take the place of full grown languages. The latter have far more expressions and culture behind. And this is the reason why either the Chinese or Japanese would like to abandon kanji. Exchanging the script with something else would mean to neglect history/culture and make people illiterate to the 'old' scripts. Let's take for example Chinese (which shares some structure similarities [decay grade of words, most words are short] with English, but has another script) - Chinese scholars might still be able to read what stands on a hundreds year old manuscript (although they might not know how it was pronounced back then, but can still grasp the ideas/content.

Actually in the Meiji era there has been once an attempt to establish romaji (wp) but that idea didn't find many followers because of several reasons as already mentioned above and not to forget the use of homonyms (also because of imported Chinese words). While those are pronounced the same and would be written the same in latin/kana they are distinct in kanji.

[v16]

Now that made me smirk, but i wonder which language would be compared to Brainfuck...

Morse!

So "apples+=5" will work in english enabled grocery stores?

Tried today. Defining two variables, "Paulaner, one" and "Guinness, one", and adding "Guinness, plus five" successfully gave me a bottle and six cans.

There was no expression of surprise or misunderstanding. I wonder what would be if I asked in Japanese. Though... nah, if whatever I heard in anime is true, it would sound "bijru, fajvu!"
They seem to so many words than it makes me wonder if in 50 years Japanese won't be mostly a corrupted English written in glyphs.

But there is no need to get rid of local culture and language just so bufoons from england could read local newspaper.

Well, that's about the way Japan was traveling since 1945, in exchange for getting a development boost instead of reparations fine...

Location: Poland

Hey, hey, no England, sir! There's Russian for you! Dayozh concurrencia, tovarisch!

Thats esperanto!

Not really. Esperanto always operates with complex words - root, prefix, suffix. While it has its own advantages, it loses the simplicity of a language built with basic operators and their order. Due to that, English is quite error-resistant, unlike confusing a suffix elsewhere.

Although Hebrew is good too - I especially like how brief and to the point it is.

While those are pronounced the same and would be written the same in latin/kana they are distinct in kanji.

The real fix IMHO is disambiguating the homonyms.

[Uriel]

Originally Posted by v16

Hey, hey, no England, sir! There's Russian for you! Dayozh concurrencia, tovarisch!

Another good example of how you cant force your language on others - russian never sticked here. No need for it since we have our own easy to comprehend language:

Język polski jest łatwy i przyjemny. Ciekawy kolor: żółć.

Neat, isnt it?


And for Brainfuck - afaik some locals in australia have language without nouns. That would be nice RL brainfuck.

[v16]

Another good example of how you cant force your language on others - russian never sticked here.

Ha. You just need to try.

Język polski jest łatwy i przyjemny. Ciekawy kolor: żółć.

Let me guess basing on generic multi-language word roots.
"Polish language is easy and appealing." The next is less clear - "Favorite color: yellow"?

[Puts on Trollskin Cape]

Looks like Russian written in roman letters, but stuffed with diacritics producing needless clutter. You too need to modernize the script, just despeckle it and you're ready to go. Or move to Cyrillic, then you'll have Russian.

Seems like they didn't even have to force it.

[Uriel]

Ciekawy <=> interesting

Apart from that you did pretty well with your dictionary. Its pretty far from russian (russian for us is as difficult as english - czech is far less bothersome for me then russian).

And trust me, ruskies tried to get rid of polish language during over 50 years of occupation and forced russification. When i say russian language just didnt stick - I mean it.

Switching to cyrilic is one of more idiotic ideas i heard lately. removing diacritics is often disscused issue here - we computer geeks dont use diacritics and almost everyone who is not hardcore conservatist agree that diacritics should be removed. Yet its hardcore conservatists who decide :-)

[v16]

Its pretty far from russian (russian for us is as difficult as english - czech is far less bothersome for me then russian).

Really?

Auto-translation to Russian gives:
"Polskiy jazyk legok i pryjaten. Interesniy zvet: zholty."
"Język polski jest łatwy i przyjemny. Ciekawy kolor: żółć."

Diacritics are almost the only way to tell the difference from a glance...

Switching to cyrilic is one of more idiotic ideas i heard lately.

Hey, I'm not really suggesting it. After all, Cyrillic users often have to use romanized translit - you already do, if skipping the diacritics.

[Uriel]

Originally Posted by v16

Really?

Auto-translation to Russian gives:
"Polskiy jazyk legok i pryjaten. Interesniy zvet: zholty."
"Język polski jest łatwy i przyjemny. Ciekawy kolor: żółć."

Diacritics are almost the only way to tell the difference from a glance...

Both are slavonic languages, no wonder they are similar at glance. Problem is for us russian is full of "false friends" and since it may appear similar its very tricky in long run. I had 3 years of russian language in high school and im proud to announce i cant speak it :-)

it may be due to fact that after 50 years of forced rusification we, as a nation, subconsciously hold grudge against russian language and block it :D