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A comment on The most frequent 777 characters give 90% coverage of Kanji in the wild. Parent comment

Re:The most frequent 777 characters give 90% coverage of Kan... by mytailorisrich on Saturday August 17, 2019 @10:51AM (#20724307)
It does not seem arbitrary in this case because the meaning does match.

I do take your point that using that word in the discussion above, which is about Japanese was not the best example. On the other hand, it is a good example in chinese.

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Re:The most frequent 777 characters give 90% coverage of Kan... by fenomas on Saturday August 17, 2019 @11:41PM (#20728102)
(A) In Japanese the meanings don't match that closely. The word didn't originally mean cute, but rather pathetic or pitiable, and evolved over time. More info: http://gogen-allguide.com/ka/kawaii.html

(B) By arbitrary here I mean that there is no linguistic connection. "Arbitrarily chosen because they are similar" => "chosen for no reason other than their similarity".

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