My very simple rule of thumb for telling Japanese from Chinese is to look for kana. If
I see even one kana, I am looking at Japanese, right? (Warning: A few kanji resemble
katakana.) So if I see so much as a hiragana "to", it's Japanese, right?
But sometimes there are stretches of many kanji.
Doesn't this kanji
<bad-ascii-art>
|
-------
/
_/
_/
/ |____
</bad ascii art>
NOT to be confused with hiragana "e" (oy vey), usually only appear in Chinese?
Pardon my incoherence. I haven't had enough sake.
らんま ★じゅういっちゃん★
×あかね
ーーーーー PTKA IZGT F SFNNGYGB ZRMSFTB WM
あまんけ NFEGT FM MGYWPRMKA FM F SFNNGYGB IWOG
ねけあず IWKK QGT FT IPQGT ZFXG GHRFK YWJZNM.
らんま
ーーーーー
いいなずけ
--- Original Message ---
差出人: Kenneth Whistler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
宛先: [EMAIL PROTECTED];
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED];[EMAIL PROTECTED];
日時: 01/06/08 2:50
件名: RE: RECOMMENDATIONs( Term Asian is not used properly on Computers
and NET)
>Mike Ayers said:
>
>> > Um, Han doesn't mean Chinese. It means the Han dynasty and its
>> > cultural and ethnic successors. These are *Han* characters in all
>> > three languages.
>> >
>> > > Jungshik Shin
>> >
>> > "Chinese" would be
>> >
>> > zhongguohua zhongguoren zhongwen
>> > jungkgukmal jungkuksalam
>> > chukokugo chukokujin
>> >
>> > or perhaps baihua, putonghua, or some other variation of
>> > Beijing/"Mandarin" Chinese. Or, of course, the names for the
>> > Cantonese, Hokkien, etc. dialects/languages as spoken or written in
>> > each or any.
>> >
>> > The term "Chinese character", literally "zhongguozi" "jungkukja"
>> > "chukokuji" is not used.
>>
>> You are making distinctions that the Chinese do not make. As far as
>> I've been able to tell (this includes directly asking), "Han" means
>> "Chinese" unless one is talking specifically about ethnic groups, so
>> translating "Hanzi" as "Chinese characters" is not only generally correct,
>> it is *specifically* correct. Note that "zhongwen" is the usual way to
>> refer to Chinese literature, and "zhongguoren" is the usual way to refer to
>> Chinese people (by country, not ethnicity). "Zhongguohua" is, I believe,
>> gramatically incorrect, if such is possible in Chinese
>
>Zhong1guo2hua4 is correct, and means approximately what we mean
>in English by "Chinese." For a standard Mandarin (pu3tong1hua4) speaker,
>it more directly connotes Mandarin to them, i.e., the "Chinese"
>that they speak, as opposed to guang3dong1hua4 ("Cantonese"),
>min2nan2hua4 ("Fukienese"), etc. The Mandarin speaker I consulted
>also considered it likely that the Cantonese version of
>Zhong1guo2hua4 (for which I don't know the exact pronunciation)
>might connote "Cantonese" to a Cantonese speaker, i.e., the "Chinese"
>that they speak.
>
>There is also a more Taiwan-specific term, Guo2yu3, literally
>"national language", that means approximately the same thing
>as pu3tong1hua4 -- the standard Mandarin taught in schools.
>Both terms are politically freighted, as they refer to standard
>uses on the opposite sides of the straits. PRC dictionaries
>often call Guo2yu3 the old term for pu3tong1hua4. The Japanese
>reading of Guo2yu3 is kokugo, and means, literally "the
>national language (of Japan)", i.e. "Japanese"!
>
>Han4 means "Chinese", as Mike said. Han4zu2 (or Han4min2) is
>the "Han nationality" or "Han ethnic
>group", i.e. all the "Chinese" ethnic and cultural descendants
>from the Han dynasty, as Jungshik suggested, although as for any
>ethnic label, the boundaries are pretty fuzzy. Like the
>United States today, China has long been a cosmopolitan
>mixture of many peoples, and many of the conquering minorities
>over time became sinified and came to identify themselves, too,
>as Han4. Basically, the non-Han4zu3 minority groups in China
>today constitute any group that ethnically and culturally
>distinguishes itself from the Han4. (Mongolians, Yi, Tai,
>Tibetans, Uighurs, etc., etc.)
>
>Han4ren2, literally "Han person", is either a somewhat
>old-fashioned, somewhat purple word for a Chinese person,
>i.e. a person of the Han4zu2, or in a second sense, it
>means literally a personage from the Han dynasty in
>particular.
>
>Han4yu3 is another word for the Chinese language. It is the
>more technical term -- what we might use to translate the
>literal phrase "the Chinese language", as opposed to just
>"Chinese" for the ordinary speech of ordinary Chinese people.
>Interestingly, the Japanese reading for Han4yu3, kango,
>also means "Chinese", but is not the ordinary word for
>"Chinese" in the language -- that is chuugokugo. Kango,
>instead, means "a Chinese word" or "a Chinese expression",
>i.e. a lexical item, written in kanji, that is recognized
>as being derived from China, as opposed to being a
>Japanese innovation.
>
>Then there is zhong1wen2, which means roughly any written
>Chinese form or Chinese literature. han4wen2 is more reserved
>for Classical Chinese. The Japanese reading, kanbun,
>denotes old classical Chinese text, often
>poetry, that is marked up with an elaborate system of
>indicating the order of characters and phrases in reading,
>so that the SVO order of Chinese can be read off in
>Japanese SOV order, with the additional Japanese word
>endings and particles added to make it read *as if* it
>were Japanese. (cf. U+3190..U+319F) *wheels within wheels*
>
>--Ken
>
>
>
>
