Asia's Orthographic DilemmaWith the advent of computers and the rise of East Asian economies, the complicated character-based writing systems of East Asia have reached a stage of crisis that may be described as truly millennial in scope and implications. In what is perhaps the most wide-ranging critique of the sinographic script ever written, William C. Hannas assesses the usefulness of Chinese character-based writing in East Asia today. |
Contents
Chinese | 3 |
Japanese | 26 |
Korean | 48 |
Vietnamese | 73 |
Critique of Chinese CharacterBased Writing | 99 |
5 Representation | 101 |
6 Learning and Literacy | 125 |
7 Reading | 153 |
Forces for Change | 205 |
9 The Chimera of Reform | 207 |
10 Language Speech and Writing | 231 |
11 Computing with Chinese Characters | 258 |
12 Chinese Characters and East Asian Culture | 277 |
Notes | 301 |
| 317 | |
| 331 | |
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Common terms and phrases
abstract acters all-hangul alphabetic scripts alphabetic writing basic borrowed char character script character texts character writing system character-based writing character's China Chinese characters Chinese language Chinese writing chữ nôm components concepts consonant conventions culture DeFrancis dictionary East Asian languages English example fact forms function grammar graphemes graphic guage hangul homonyms homophonous identify input inventory Japan Japanese John DeFrancis kana kanji Korean kun readings language's learning less letters lexical lexicon linguistic literacy literate Mandarin meaning mixed script monosyllabic morphemes number of characters okurigana orthography percent phemes phonetic phonological phonological recoding pinyin practice problem pronunciation Qin dynasty quốc ngữ radical readers relationship represent representation romanized semantic Shanghainese simplified Sinitic morphemes Sinitic terms Sinitic vocabulary Sinitic words sound speakers speech spelling standard strokes structure style syllabary syllables symbols ters tion Tōyō kanji types units users Vietnam Vietnamese visual Western word division writing reform written language