Beijing says 400 million Chinese cannot speak Mandarin

[Drewbert]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-23975037

[Wot]

Waiting for the next revelation that shows that 35 per cent of Brits cannot speak English!

[welkin]

The interesting (and good) thing about the language divisions is that although the different dialects are incompatible vocally, they use the same written characters.

[monkmonkey]

Originally Posted by welkin

The interesting (and good) thing about the language divisions is that although the different dialects are incompatible vocally, they use the same written characters.

Give that man a cigar!

[welkin]

Thanks, but I'm trying to quit tobacco. E-cigs work pretty well; I can recommend them for anyone else in the same boat.

[123]

Originally Posted by welkin View Post
The interesting (and good) thing about the language divisions is that although the different dialects are incompatible vocally, they use the same written characters.

Give that man a cigar!

I think that is one of the reasons why a pinyin domain based internet wouldn't work so well in China.

Characters are often put forward as a bridge between dialects -- in fact, they are often credited with single-handedly maintaining the unity of the Chinese language.
The ability of characters to act as a 'bridge' between dialects rests on the fact that the modern dialects are genetically related, all being descended from Old Chinese (Classical Chinese). Although the modernday Chinese dialects started drifting apart more than a thousand years ago, their vocabularies preserve large chunks of the older language, disguised by differences in pronunciation. Take the following examples from several different dialects:

Character Mandarin Shanghainese Hokkienese Cantonese
白 'white' bái bak23 beh24 baak6
八 'eight' bā bak5 bueh1 baat8
日 'sun, day' rì niek23 lit24 yat6
五 'five' wǔ n13 ggoo22 ng5
十 'ten' shí sak23 zap24 sap6

The Chinese are very aware of cognates between dialects. By noting connections between corresponding sounds, speakers can very quickly pick up important common chunks of other dialects. To see what is meant, check out the following sites showing sound changes that have taken place between Classical Chinese and the modern dialects (with reference also to Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese) and how regular correspondences can be drawn: Chinese Dialects and Chinese Numerals - A Comparison of Readings from China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.

The characters formalise the etymological connections among dialects by representing cognate terms with the same character. For instance, rì (Mandarin), niek23 (Shanghainese), lit24 (Hokkienese), and yat6 (Cantonese) are all descended from the original Old Chinese word for 'day' and are all written with the character 日. In a sense, the characters act as a kind of shorthand, helping make clear which word (or form) is referred to and encapsulating its identity across the many dialects of China.

http://cjvlang.com/Writing/writchin/dial.html

[Rubber Duck]

Yes, and look how complicated the unambiguous pinyin forms are in each language.

Nobody is ever going to type the full meaningful version.

The meaning is derived from the short-form by context, but you don't get context in a domain name.

[Clotho]

Is Pinyin like Romaji where there is no official spelling for anything and as a result there is several ways to spell any word?

It is because of this that Romaji doesn't pass the radio test for domains and makes them a poor choice.

[blastfromthepast]

Pinyin is a specific standard way of romanizing Chinese pronunciation. However, it makes use of diacritic marks to show tones, which are therefore true pinyin requires IDN.

Because many words in Chinese are distinguished by tones only, writing pinyin without tones makes it much more difficult to read, and no texts are written this way. So called pinyin domains, however, are. Reading such domains requires guessing the tones. If they are made up of one character, it is difficult to guess, if they are made up of two, it is easier to read and guess the tones.

[Rubber Duck]

Originally Posted by blastfromthepast

Pinyin is a specific standard way of romanizing Chinese pronunciation. However, it makes use of diacritic marks to show tones, which are therefore true pinyin requires IDN.

Because many words in Chinese are distinguished by tones only, writing pinyin without tones makes it much more difficult to read, and no texts are written this way. So called pinyin domains, however, are. Reading such domains requires guessing the tones. If they are made up of one character, it is difficult to guess, if they are made up of two, it is easier to read and guess the tones.

Well at least one person has got it!

[123]

Pinyin is a specific standard way of romanizing Chinese pronunciation. However, it makes use of diacritic marks to show tones, which are therefore true pinyin requires IDN.

Yes another good reason. Pinyin domains are not real pinyin domains. They are more like a poor incomplete alternative.

Is Pinyin like Romaji where there is no official spelling for anything and as a result there is several ways to spell any word?

It is because of this that Romaji doesn't pass the radio test for domains and makes them a poor choice.

I don't think that pinyin would pass the radio test in many cases. IDN should work much better i believe.

[Wot]

Originally Posted by 123

Yes another good reason. Pinyin domains are not real pinyin domains. They are more like a poor incomplete alternative.

I don't think that pinyin would pass the radio test in many cases. IDN should work much better i believe.

All you have to do now is convince the Chinese but that will be an uphill struggle.

[nicenic]

Originally Posted by 123

I think that is one of the reasons why a pinyin domain based internet wouldn't work so well in China.[/url]

Hello 123, though I agree with you in most cases but not this one.

Pinyin and numbers domain names are loved best by Chinese, you can go to the biggest Chinese domain forum of http://club.domain.cn/ and look at what people are talking about.

[nicenic]

Originally Posted by welkin

The interesting (and good) thing about the language divisions is that although the different dialects are incompatible vocally, they use the same written characters.

People in mainland China mostly write in simplified Chinese, people in Hong Kong/Macau/Taiwan mainly write in traditional Chinese, while some minority people would write in their own local language.

[nicenic]

Originally Posted by blastfromthepast

Pinyin is a specific standard way of romanizing Chinese pronunciation. However, it makes use of diacritic marks to show tones, which are therefore true pinyin requires IDN.

Because many words in Chinese are distinguished by tones only, writing pinyin without tones makes it much more difficult to read, and no texts are written this way. So called pinyin domains, however, are. Reading such domains requires guessing the tones. If they are made up of one character, it is difficult to guess, if they are made up of two, it is easier to read and guess the tones.

[chrisofmel]

Originally Posted by Wot

Waiting for the next revelation that shows that 35 per cent of Brits cannot speak English!

and Americans also, check out biggest choke of all time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocJjd86IZvQ