How to write cuneiform
blog.britishmuseum.org
blog.britishmuseum.org
Found best line was to remember cuneiform is strokes into something soft, not ink as we do now
This led to many of Finkel’s videos and the book mentioned in this post. (So far I’m not too impressed with the book, TBH.)
https://www.penn.museum/blog/museum/how-to-make-cuneiform-ta...
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/science/cuneiform-tablet-...
(The article says "instead it uses between 600 and 1,000 characters impressed on clay to spell words", which is kind of ambigious on whether there's 600-1000 characters in the syllabary or 600-1000 per tablet, but 1000 characters would be consistant with the number of unicode codepoints)
Chinese uses a system where every morpheme has it's own grapheme with some minor exceptions. Almost every grapheme maps to a single morpheme and thus a single pronunciation though there are obviously different morphemes with an identical pronunciation that might even be completely different parts of speech.
It is more similar to how Japanese is written, which has graphemes that correspond to phonemic moræ in the language, as well as digraphs of graphemes to express more complicated moræ, as well as finally using Chinese characters to express concepts and ideas, not morphemes as it is in Chinese. Consequently, in Japanese the same Chinese character can be pronounced very differently depending on the context, similar to how, for instance the English words “kingly” and “royal” reflect the same general concept, but are pronounce very differently.
What makes the situation even more complicated is that due to historical shifts in semantics, many word are now spelt with characters that no longer reflect the semantic concepts they express in modern times.
On top of that, most of these grapheme combinations also have an official way to spell them within the phonemic script, and this is not as phonemic as one might want, with pronunciation exceptions being rampant. — the official way to spell them phonemically does not always map to the official way to pronounce them.
I think modern Japanese might actually be a candidate for the language with the most complicated, least straightforward writing system that ever existed, given that it grows in complexity over time, rather than being simplified.
The big difference, however, is that Chinese is a language that is exceptionally suited to be written in a script that has one logo for each morpheme, because Chinese is bereft of allomorphs: each morpheme in Chinese has only one pronunciation, unlike in, say English, where words such as “feet” exist, or the plural marker is pronounced as /s/ or /z/ depending on the stem it is attached to.
Japanese is very much a language with allomorphs, much like English, which are not reflected in the Chinese characters, and the morphology of the Japanese verbal system is particularly ill-suited to be written how it is.
> Chinese is bereft of allomorphs: each morpheme in Chinese has only one pronunciation
This is untrue (edit: actually, it still appears true). For instance, https://www.fluentinmandarin.com/content/chinese-characters-...
"会 huì or kuài – Again, completely different meanings."
Allomorphs do not change meaning, and typically occur in complementary distribution. A good example would be the English words “a” and “an” being allomorphs, “a” can only occur where “an” can not, and vice versā, and both have the exact same meaning and function.
...takes self back to the dunces corner.
- Morpheme: the fundamental unit of meaning in a language, any part of speech whose meaning cannot be further subdivided “sleepwalkers” is thus composed of four morphemes: ”sleep”, “walk”, “er”, and “s”.
- Allomorph: a different pronunciation of a same morpheme, typically dictated by grammatical or phonological reasons. The English words “a” and “an” are allomorphs.
- Mora: a unit of timing that is relevant to the phonology of some languages. English is intuitively divided into syllables by it's speakers, which is a structural unit built around a syllabic nucleus, in English' case a vowel; Japanese is intuitively divided into moræ by it's speakers, which is a unit of time. English speakers typically find it hard to count moræ; Japanese speakers find it hard to count syllables. In Chinese, moræ and syllables are one and the same, with each syllable being pronounced in the same length; in English syllables have variable length with stressed syllables being longer, and mor constantly spaced apart compared to unstressed syllables and the vowel of the syllable also influences the length with some vowels being longer than others.
- Phoneme: the fundamental unit of sound in a language. The English word “English” is composed of the phonemes: /I ng g l I S/ with each phoneme separated by spaces. Different languages differ in what they consider different phonemes. Most famously, Japanese considers what English considers as two different phonemes in /r/ and /l/ as one and the same phoneme, thus Japanese speakers find it difficult to hear the difference between the English words “root” /r u t/ and “loot” /l u t/.
I think that covers it all.
Always amazed at my own ignorance!
"Almost" being the key word here. I found 1043 Traditional Chinese characters which have more than one pronunciation in CC-CEDICT (ignoring fifth-tone variants). Since that's such a short list, I'll include it in full here:
誒跂繆和著膀堡參夾爌宿拽啊差的那朴咋比大喇叉磑峇耙般榜炮陂屏蕃單奓椆石炸堤哦惡嘸伽軋價間咯假枸句莞龜行貉吽嬛閒見將強彊解觧圈樂忞無恁禺疋湯折識篹於繇伯柏薄胳核落稜抹麼哪雀塞誰血咽殷約扎紮仔得哈糊虎豁剌拉勒哩螞匹拾搲與好華累親數帖作繃稱令蒙擰漂轉揣阿呵腌嗄㝵艾豻凹拗扒丷犮鈀杷扳闆湴磅刨暴曝瀑爆培夯甮埄拂秘泌裨辟猵扁便膔麃杓泊桲埔歺藏廁側曾喳查楂剎摻禪嶃嶄嘽顫裳倘長厂䠀剿勦朝嘲車轍沈鐺澄乘盛晟樘离樆坻匙踅涌重幬仇杻臭褚畜欻嘬伝傳幢椎綴呲茲茈伺樅熜皻卒酢攢窾衰崒撮嗒沓剳槑酖撣彈澹盪叨燾提絛鬄翟弟蝃佃鈿鳥調銚咥佚町丁鋌丼洞侗峒硐闍竺耑堆追囤媠馱蚵閼工兒醱番彷坆豊馮否莩乀俛脯咖呷界芥乾乹亁扛戇睪鎬暠紇仡蛤閤鬲合嘅給哏頸紅厷銾嗊佝家鵠賈嘏扢谷栝絓刈雚丱卝傀巂檜炅柜嶡匱炔丨咼渦蝦咳歛吭嚇猲焢巆芴礐楛砉圜雙揘會潰噦葷嚄緝丌奇碁稽亟亽騎薺檵繫祭茄宊挾舺犍淺鳽囝檻鐱降夅蕉僥校楷頡絜卪櫛厪廑唫倞靚趄咀渠苣足冣弮劵飬璚噱麇焌浚俊卡豈嵌砢殼齦口噲悝隗姥楽纚劦瀧弄衖率卛乿漯薶尨亹袮澠靦娩免絻玟厶鉨粘尿女瘧喏喔區掱爿棲蹊俟亝祇衹圱鉛鈆䕭蕁茜繰橾帹郄覃芎厹戌芍惹氜瞤廈埏柵剡鱣埫鞝蛸㲈苕召畬蛇莘㕥省忕謚螫氏峙殖忬屬俞術朮忪吅謏鐔襢擿荑裼趯瑱鉄呫僮獞甬屯乇宛圩尾尉蔚撾褶煆殽頁滎吁窨蓔乙粥吧百捭唄浜蚌剝臂賁卜嚓孱傖噌瘥囪底地都讀額噁払怫砩芾佛彿蓋割還桁居嚼腳角覺覐桔惏潦絡酪了蓼六碌陸僂漊露呣摩嬤美脈氓庅末糜沒謎黽模牟娜妳呶呢迫拚佉若爇挲色莎食似拓斢崴削洇湮菸芫鑰芸冘紥菑奘鑿擇綜柞吱賺琢觜挨唉噯熬把爸嗶簸鈽餔不布綽尺刺答打疸嘚嘀鏑氐肚度嗯二法夫服嘎擱葛膈個各骨轂蛄估呱喝荷互擊幾脊嵴藉紀濟偈鋦鋸据雋咔頦坷軻嗑磕可剋辣揦蠡麗黎綠捋麻嗎埋眯靡蓂摸磨牡南妮泥伲溺熰漚嘔劈僕潽鋪妻企砌慊曲如撒潵什熟斯塌踏忒體題屜吐褪瓦廡洗銑滊兄頊魆枒雅啞壓耶椰掖衣迆迤予隅語雨熨咱爪濯徵訾自拜背奔癟別檳采操草碴杈衩處待逮擔癉倒蹈斗懟蹲敪朵垛梵菲蜚肺分桿杆干膏艮溝勾鉤汗號嘩化劃虺賄毀混節結禁盡勁糺蹶菌看灠嘮擂倆咧淋溜餾遛鎦摟樓掄論羅囉蔓謾貓茆旄悶暋謀難排胖泡跑噴撇蘋掊切闕任三散臊掃煞舍捨屍蒔說台苔歪委萎唯媁為喂爲搵寫芯奄厭燕傿嚴要飲隱懮暈縕載劄渣吒蜇只脂甭萹摽嚵吵沉爯叢當擋檔蹬酊釘坊縫崗杠耕更拱供冠觀橫哄蕻監漸教矯徼筊悁卷倥空郎閬楞斂撩療燎瞭釕呤隆朧籠矇眄瞄囊饢寧蓬片嘌悄蹺翹譙頃嚷茸桑喪扇稍少身甚刷趟堂挑聽彤通同衕王亡鮮鱻想肖興旋洋鞅烊瑩應媛遠繒占縐軸拙棕鑽倡場敞塲秤裎衝沖桄晃漿量涼踉釀搶鏹嗆戧蹌蹡上摔相漲正掙怔腫中種創
Interestingly, the equivalent list for Simplified Chinese is shorter (only 1013 characters) because, although many characters with different pronunciation have been unified, many of those already had more than one pronunciation in Traditional Chinese, so the total number of characters with multiple pronunciations decreased.
Some of those are cases where one grapheme represents multiple morphemes, e.g. 的 (number 15 in the list), which originally represented a target (as in 目的 mù dì aim, objective) but is more commonly used as a grammatical particle (as in 我的書 wǒ de shū my book) and purely as a phonetic sign in 的士 (dī shì/dí shì taxi).
Others are remnants of derivational processes similar to English "foot" vs. "feet", e.g. 中 (third last in the list) pronounced zhōng as a noun (center, middle) but zhòng as a verb (as in 中的 zhòng dì hit the target).
In a reply to a reply, you give the example of English "a" turning into "an" if the following word starts with a vowel. That's analogous to 一 (yī one) changing tone depending on the following syllable, e.g. 一個 (yí gè one), 一起 (yì qǐ together).
Then there's register differences like 血 (xiě/xuè/xuě informal/formal/confused for blood) as in 出血 (chū xiě bleed) vs 血壓 (xuè yā blood pressure)
And that's just the standard language. In everyday speech, people have another set of colloquial vocabulary to draw on, which they may or may not be able to associate with corresponding characters.
It's not as complex as Japanese, but the relationship between writing and pronunciation isn't quite one-to-one for Chinese either.
Chinese is often cited as the language that currently has the most native speakers (followed by spanish and the english); however written production doesn't necessarily have to follow that metric.
For example I'm by no means a native English speaker yet my written production in english outweighs my native language production by several orders of magnitude (I mostly write grocery lists in my native language, that's it)
I produce little more texts in my native language than some social communication.
English has such a capacity for consonant clusters and such a large vowel inventory, as most Germanic languages do, that there are many, many possible syllables in English that are theoretically possible, that are easily pronouncible to English speakers, yet occur in no actual word.
For instance, /s k r ai d th/ is a legal English syllable, of which I am fairly certain that there is no word in the English language that contains it.
Zeproxyn, Versalin, Aspiridon, Cotrazin, — I drew those from the æther.
Not even the CCP could replace the usage of logographic characters for the Chinese languages, but the Chinese writing system inspired several other writing systems: Hiragana, Katakana and Zhuyin/Bopomofo are all derived from it. There are also several other logographic writing systems inspired by Chinese characters, for example the Tangut script.