Re:Japanese writing system basics
by bootload on Friday August 19, 2016 @09:38PM
(#12324644)
@bemmu is that a square symbol or something else?
[ Parent
| on HN ]
It's the kanji for mouth. Depending on context, it can be pronounced "kuchi", "guchi", or "kou".
That's the big problem with logographic writing systems: there's no connection between the symbol and the sound. Japanese lets you fall-back to phonetic alphabet, but other languages (Chinese) don't have that feature.
Still, that was a fun post to read.
Curiously, a stereotypical infant directed speech instance that seems distinctly "oral" [0] is the union of those three options: "coo-chee, goo-chee, [k|g]oo".
[0] Perhaps only idiosyncratically.
Re:Japanese writing system basics
by chaostheory on Friday August 19, 2016 @10:32PM
(#12324851)
It's also hanzi character for mouth, the Chinese ideograph system that Kanji is derived from
Not to mention that the katakana for "ro" looks really similar depending on font: ロ