Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 June 13

= June 13 =

writing systems
What is the most complicated writing system? Carllica4 (talk) 11:39, 13 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Of those in use today, Japanese would almost certainly take the prize. To be literate in Japanese, you have to master two separate syllabaries of almost 50 characters each, plus a minimum of about 2,000 kanji.  Furthermore, the Kanji have two different types of pronunciations (on and kun), and an individual character can have even more than two different pronunciations, due to historical factors.  See the account in Chapter 9 of Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction by Geoffrey Sampson ISBN 0-8047-1756-7... AnonMoos (talk) 15:21, 13 June 2014 (UTC)


 * P.S. If you confine it to quasi-alphabetic writing systems, then the Tibetan language is written with an orthography based on the pronunciation of many centuries ago, which is extremely divergent from the pronunciation of the modern Tibetan language. The Irish language of the early 20th century had similar problems before certain reforms... AnonMoos (talk) 15:32, 13 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Don't forget that Japanese also uses the latin alphabet, mostly for company names or for emphasis, so the Japanese have to use four different writing systems...  KägeTorä - ( 影 虎 )  ( Chin Wag )  17:06, 13 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I would suggest Chinese is more complicated by some measures than Japanese. For one you can do a lot in Japanese without learning any kanji. Not only is much of Japanese written in hiragana and katakana, but where it isn't furigana can be used, just for less common characters or for all when e.g. you're learning. More importantly more Chinese characters are used in China than Japan, in e.g. government or education. See Chinese characters. The difference is hundreds if not thousands, far more than the hiragana and katakana Japanese has but Chinese doesn't.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 21:27, 13 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I would definitely disagree -- the number of characters required to achieve basic newspaper literacy is not overwhelmingly greater in Chinese than it is in Japanese, but characters are used in much more complex ways in Japanese writing. In Chinese writing, most characters have a single pronunciation, while in Japanese writing the majority of characters can have more than one (kun vs. on, or sometimes three different types of on); and in Japanese writing the characters are used in somewhat complex ways in relation to syllable symbols used to write inflectional endings.  Also, the so-called "phonetic" elements of characters are actually sometimes useful in Chinese to indicate approximate pronunciation, while in Japanese they're almost always useless. Hiragana-only writing would work OK for writing some types of colloquial speech, but could create problems when any kind of technical vocabulary is used. Katakana-only writing is fine for writing onomatopoeia and startling cartoon speech bubbles with lots of exclamation points, but has a somewhat outlandish appearance when used to write extended passages.  One reason why Japan was behind the U.S. and most European countries in office computerization in some respects is that early 1980's dot-matrix printers in Japan had only Katakana and the Latin alphabet, which was totally unacceptable for most kinds of business communications. The furigana would be great if they were somewhat consistently used, but in post-WW2 Japan they've generally been used quite sparingly outside of very specialized contexts... AnonMoos (talk) 06:30, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I completely disagree with that. Japanese still uses katakana for official documents, bank statements, electricity bills, and so on. My first phone in Japan which had text messaging used only katakana. Later versions used hiragana and kanji, which is what they do now. Computers in Japan use all systems - not exactly "unacceptable for business communications". If they can read all systems, then what is the problem? They learn it at school!! Plus, having only katakana and the Latin alphabet for DM printers is unacceptable? I can't see how. We use the Latin alphabet all the time.  KägeTorä - ( 影 虎 )  ( Chin Wag )  17:03, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Utility bills are a highly restrictive format with little scope for serious ambiguities, and where the sender has the balance of power over the receiver/reader. I remember reading a news story to the effect that inter-office memos and such in many Japanese companies were commonly handwritten into the 1990s, because the alternative was all katakana... AnonMoos (talk) 21:48, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I wrote 'by some measures' because I know that's not the only way to look at it but I stand by what I wrote, and your reply does not refute it. The question asked for the most complicated writing system, not the easiest to read. Having multiple readings for a character means you need fewer characters so reduces the number needed. Using hiragana and katakana for many common words means less characters are needed. I didn't mean you can get by just using them, but you can get much further without using kanji.
 * One further complication is which sort of Chinese. Traditional Chinese characters, still used in Hong Kong and Taiwan, has a few more characters many of which are much more complex than the simplified Chinese characters used in China, and than kanji which have undergone their own simplification. Hong Kong uses additional characters to represent Cantonese, in addition to those used for written Chinese, so arguably has a more complex writing system than most varieties of Chinese.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 18:29, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Having fewer but highly-ambiguous symbols is really not an indication of a "simple" system by most valid criteria of simplicity. The Pahlavi alphabet reduced the 22 letters of the Aramaic alphabet to 16, so that some letters were highly ambiguous (for example, one letter wrote "g", "d", and "y"), but this did not make the Pahlavi writing system simpler than Aramaic (in fact, Pahlavi was significantly more complicated than Aramaic)... AnonMoos (talk) 21:48, 15 June 2014 (UTC)


 * If you want a really complicated writing system, try Mayan.  KägeTorä - ( 影 虎 )  ( Chin Wag )  17:24, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Or even Maya script. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:41, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Usage of "cloister" for monastic buildings that may not have a cloister?
I know the word "cloister" can be used for "monastery", because the iconic European monastery is one with a cloister architecture. Now, since the term is a metronym for a monastery, can it be used for Buddhist monasteries? I recently learned that my mother went to a Buddhist sangha (before I was born) just to take a look, because there were so many of them in China. My mother used the term seng jia, where Buddhist monks and nuns bow down to the Buddha and have incense sticks. Anyway, can this metronym be applied to non-Christian monastic buildings? Or is it more appropriate to call a Buddhist sangha sangha instead of a Buddhist cloister? 140.254.226.243 (talk) 19:22, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, is the sangha actually used as a metronym for the Buddhist monastery/temple? 140.254.226.243 (talk) 19:38, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
 * It could possibly be confusing, so it would be better to use a term that is either specific to Buddhism or is neutral. "Pagoda" may not be accurate, but would be understood in the West as a Buddhist place of worship. "Temple" is neutral. "Monastery" you use yourself, and references to "Buddhist monks" and "Buddhist nuns" are frequent in English. "Sangha" isn't so widely known but would probably be understood in context. If I was reading a travel book about Thailand I would expect to encounter terms like "wat". By the way, it's a metonym not a metronym. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:23, 13 June 2014 (UTC)


 * "Sangha" (Pali: सङ्घ saṅgha) refers to the group of ordained monks/novices, not a building or a place. "Sangha" would be the equivalent of the "priesthood". In Theravada Buddhism "wat" refers to the whole of the temple grounds in general, including the monks' residence. The building where the Buddha image is housed and worship is conducted/performed is called the Vihara ("sanctuary").--William Thweatt TalkContribs 21:54, 13 June 2014 (UTC)


 * The English language term for a Japanese emperor who abdicated and retired to a Buddhist monastery is Cloistered Emperor. Alansplodge (talk) 19:43, 14 June 2014 (UTC)