Re: compiler for Chinese development language

"Hans-Peter Diettrich" <DrDiettrich@compuserve.de> wrote


> BTW, I doubt that characters really are the best means for written
> communication or documentation. In many languages (English!) the
> pronunciation often is very different from the spelling, so that one
> effectively must learn two different "languages", one for
> reading/writing, and one for hearing/speaking. If there were not the
> need for comfortable entering of text (keyboards...), glyphs for words
> might be much more convenient and "natural".


        We're starting to drift off topic, but I have to disagree
here. It's not too bad to memorize an alphabet. With English, that's
only 52 characters (you have to learn both the uppercase and lowercase
version of every character, as they differ significantly). Even the
Japanese Katakana alphabet has around 100 characters. But once you
start using glyphs for words, that means memorizing tens of thousands
of glyphs.


        Incidentally, the Japanese Katakana alphabet has a completely
unambiguous pronounciation: Each chararacter represents one syllable
(as oppose to English where anywhere from 1 to 9 characters represents
one syllable), and the pronounciation of each character in Katakana
does not depend on the surrounding characters. Once you've learned to
recognize and pronounce those 100 characters, you'll be able to read
any text written in Katakana.


        But even then, you'll need to learn a "second" language, which is
to translate those syllabic sounds into semantic meaning. It's one
thing to know how to pronounce a word. It's an entirely different
thing to know what that word means.


        - Oliver

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