Writing Systems of Asia

Today’s Topic: East Asia

Asian 401

Chinese half-Yuan bill

Writing and Language

We must clearly distinguish writing from spoken language

All human societies have spoken language; all human children learn it naturally (exception: deaf community)

Only some societies have writing; it must be formally learned

Writing and Language

No form of writing exists independently of spoken language

Writing is relatively new: invented about 5000 years ago

We will look at writing from a linguistic perspective: what is its relationship to spoken language?

Writing and Language

There is no inherent connection between a script and a language. One script can be used to write different languages (e.g. Roman script for English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish).

One language can be written in different scripts (e.g. Uighur, Serbo-Croatian)

Definition of Writing

What is writing? How might we define it …?

“The representation of spoken language through the use of visible, (potentially) permanent signs.”

Are these signs writing?

Definition of Writing

No writing system represents all aspects of spoken language.

For example, most writing systems don’t represent intonation very well. Some don’t represent vowel sounds.

Native speakers can use context to supply information that is missing.

Origins of Writing

Writing has (we think) been invented only four times in human history:Sumerians (ca. 3200 BCE) - cuneiformEgyptians (ca. 3200 BCE) - hieroglyphsChinese (ca. 1250 BCE) - charactersMayans (ca. 600 BCE) - hieroglyphs

Your textbook describes the development process

Origins of Writing

Many other writing systems have been invented

But all were invented by people who already knew about the concept of writing

Example: The Phoenician alphabet, which gave rise to the Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Arabic alphabets

Definitions: script

script: a set of signs, or graphs, which form a system that can be used for writing

Examples of scriptsRoman alphabetCyrillic alphabetArabic alphabetChinese characters

A a å are all allographs of one grapheme <a>

Definitions: orthography

orthography: a writing system, i.e.a scriptthe language-specific rules for how to use t

he graphs in the script to write wordsEnglish and French orthographies both u

se the Roman script (w/modifications)Arabic and Urdu orthographies both use

the Arabic script (w/modifications)

Script types

Scripts can be broadly classified according to the unit of spoken language represented by each graph.

Languages have sound-based units that lack inherent meaning (phonemes, syllables).

Languages have meaningful units that include sound (morphemes, words).

Script types

logographic: each graph writes a morpheme or a word; each graph thus represents both sound and meaning

phonographic: each graph writes a sound with no inherent meaningsyllabic: each graph represents a syllablealphabetic: each graph represents a

phoneme

Script types

other types: some phonographic scripts are neither strictly alphabetic nor syllabic, such as the “abugidas”, “alphasyllabaries”, or “akṣara-based” scripts of South India

The four ex nihilo writing systems were apparently all logographic in origin

Script types

The script types just described are idealized. Over time, the precise relationship between graph and speech unit can shift. (Cf. English spelling, which has become irregular over time.) Native speakers can tolerate a high degree of ambiguity and inconsistency in a writing system.

Example 1: TangutTangut Empire (11th-13th centuries) in

what is now Northwest ChinaInvented a logographic script

Example 2: Yi

A minority people of Southwest China speaking a Tibeto-Burman language

Syllabic script, each of about 800 graphs represents a syllable including tone

Example 3: Tibetan

Tibetan alphabet invented around 7th century, derived from Indic script

East Asian Writing: Chinese

Chinese writing is logographicEach graph (“character”) represents one

morpheme人 rén [ɹən35] ‘person’男 nán [nan35] ‘male’的 de [tə] ‘possessive particle’

Some morphemes are free, some bound

East Asian Writing: Chinese

Chinese characters do not write words!Many words have two morphemes; they are wr

itten with two characters:男人 nánrén ‘man’ (‘male’ + ‘person’)Homophonous morphemes are written with dif

ferent characters:南 nán ‘south’ 難 nán ‘difficult’仁 rén ‘benevolence’

Chinese morphology

Chinese is monosyllabic>99% of Chinese morphemes are one syllable

Chinese is isolatingMorphemes never change form

Characters write morphemes; so each character writes one syllable that has an invariant pronunciation and a meaning

“Chinese characters write meaningful syllables.”

Skip Chinese Character Composition

Chinese character composition

Over 90% of Chinese characters are composed of graphic elements that are found in other characters

Functionally, these graphic elements may bephonetic: related to the sound of the

morphemesemantic: related to the meaning of the

morphemeNeither phonetic nor semantic elements

give precise information

Phonetic Components

方‘square

’

房‘house’

紡‘spin’

放‘release’

fäng fáng fâng fàng

Phonetic Components

青‘green’

情‘feeling

’

精‘essence

’

倩‘pretty’

qïng qíng jïng qiàn

Semantic Components

心‘heart’

情‘feeling

’

恨‘hate’

愛‘love’

x ïn qíng hèn ài

Chinese text example

话说贾元春自那日幸大观园回宫去后，便命将那日所有的题咏，命探春依次抄录妥协，自己编次，叙其优劣，又命在大观园勒石，为千古风流雅事。因此，贾政命人各处选拔精工名匠，在大观园磨石镌字，贾珍率领蓉，萍等监工。因贾蔷又管理着文官等十二个女戏并行头等事，不大得便，因此贾珍又将贾菖，贾菱唤来监工。一日，汤蜡钉朱 , 动起手来。

(from Dream of the Red Chamber)

East Asian Writing: Japanese

Japanese had no writing when they first encountered Chinese civilization.

Educated Japanese read and wrote Chinese. The Japanese language could not be written.

Gradually, the Japanese learned to employ Chinese logographs as phonographs to represent the sound value of Japanese syllables.

East Asian Writing: Japanese

Around the 9th century, the Japanese invented two syllabaries by simplifying the forms of phonographically-used Chinese characters.

The resulting standardized syllabaries are called kana

Japanese kana

One type, hiragana, is derived from cursive forms of Chinese characters. They are rounded.

The other type, katakana, is derived by taking part of a Chinese character. They are angular.

Both syllabaries have graphs that represent the 45 CV syllables of Japanese, plus one additional graph for syllable-final -N.

Japanese kanaCharacter 加 天 不 保 呂

Meaning ‘add’ ‘sky’ ‘not’ ‘guard’‘spine

’

Japanese Pronunciation KA TEN FU HO RO

Hiragana か て ふ ほ ろ

Katakana カ テ フ ホ ロ

Value ka te fu ho ro

Japanese writing

Both hiragana and katakana are full syllabaries; either one alone could be used to write all the sounds of Japanese

Japanese writing today uses three scripts:Chinese characters (kanji)HiraganaKatakana

Example: 新しいジュースです .“It’s a new juice”

Japanese writing

Kanji is used to write root morphemesHiragana is used to write inflectional morphem

es and grammatical wordsExample: hanas-emasita ‘spoke’

話 せ ま し たSuffixes indicating politeness and past tense

are written in hiragana. The root ‘speak’ is represented by kanji.

Writing は な せ ま し た is also acceptable.

Japanese writing

Katakana is usually reserved for non-Chinese foreign loan words, onomatopeia, and visual emphasis (like italics)

“It’s a new juice”新しいジュースです .Atarasii djuusu desunew-PRES juice be

Japanese kanji

One kanji can represent more than one morpheme. There are two root morphemes for ‘new’ in Japanese: the native root atara- and the borrowed Chinese morpheme shin. The Chinese character 新 can be used to write both.

A Japanese reader relies on context and morphological rules to determine how to read each kanji.

Japanese writing

Japanese “mixed-script” writing is one of the most complex writing systems on earth.

It employs three scripts at the same time.One kanji can have anywhere from one to five

or more possible pronunciations. Most have two or three.

Why not do away with kanji and only use a kana syllabary?

Answer is too complex for this class!

East Asian Writing: Korean

As in Japan, for an ancient Korean to be literate meant reading and writing Chinese. Korean could not be easily written.

In 1443 King Sejong invented the alphabet now called hang lŭ

Korea has a holiday celebrating the alphabetThe only alphabet based on scientific principle

s of articulatory phonetics

Korean alphabet

The shapes of the letters mimic the shape of the articulators in the vocal tract

Modifications to letters indicates changes of features such as aspiration and nasalization

Examples: ㄴ ㄷ ㅌ/n/ /t/ /th/ㅅ ㅈ ㅊ

/s/ /tʃ/ /tʃh/

Korean alphabet

The Korean alphabet is unusual in that the letters are not placed in a row

Letters are grouped into syllable blocks, the same size and shape as a Chinese character

Example: To write the word hang lŭ , the letters are ㅎㅏㄴㄱㅡㄹ /h a n k ɯ l/. It is two syllables, so two blocks: 한글

Korean alphabet

Korean writing is an alphabet, but also represents some features of phonemes (like aspiration and place of articulation), and syllable boundaries.

It also represents morphemes!{kuk} means ‘country’. It has an allomor

ph /kuŋ/ that occurs before nasals.

Korean alphabet

{han} ‘Korean’ + {kuk} ‘country’= /hankuk/ ‘Korea’

{kuk} ‘country’ + {min} ‘people’= /kuŋmin/ ‘citizen’

In Korean writing, the morpheme {kuk} is always written 국 :

한국 /hankuk/ 국민 /kuŋmin/

Chinese characters in Korean

Like Japanese, Korean has thousands of borrowed Chinese morphemes

Historically, these words were written with Chinese characters; hang lŭ was used for inflectional endings and native Korean words

Over the last fifty years, the use of Chinese characters has declined considerably

No longer used in North KoreaIncreasingly rare in South Korea

Korean text example

靑 , 日에 야치차관 조치 요구“核정보 발언 무례”…정상회담 무산 가능

성도외교부 , 日대사 불러 조치 촉구이태식 외교통상부 차관으로부터 소환요청을 받은 다카노 도시유키 주한일본대사가 26 일 굳은 표정으로 외교부청사에 들어서고 있다 .

- Hankook Ilbo newspaper, May 26, 2005

Summary: Chinese

The Chinese invented Chinese characters around 1250 BCE

One of only four civilizations to invent writing from scratch

In Chinese, Chinese characters write monosyllabic morphemes (logographic)

[Most Chinese characters contain phonetic and semantic elements]

Summary: Korean & Japanese

Educated Japanese and Koreans originally used Chinese as their written medium of communication

Because of their familiarity with Chinese, many Chinese words and morphemes were borrowed into spoken Korean and Japanese

Summary: Japanese

In the 9th century, the Japanese derived syllabaries (kana) from Chinese characters. There are two syllabaries: rounded hiragana and angular katakana

Hiragana, katakana, and kanji are all used together in written Japanese

Summary: Korean

In the 15th century, King Sejong invented the Korean alphabet hang lŭ

Letter shapes are based on principles of articulatory phonetics

Chinese characters are still used occasionally in South Korea to write borrowed Chinese morphemes

End