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I did send a reply to this message, but from a web account, and it
bounced, I copy it here:<br><br>
Just a brief reply as I am travelling far from luxury of my computer,
Vietnamese Chu Nom was not like hiragana and katakana, it used full
Chinese characters, in doubled-up form, combining them to confound ruling
elite, were used mainly for folk literature, later for attempts at a
nationalist literature, and often deprecated by indigenous elite, who
preferred Chinese, and colonists, who preferred French, cheers,<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
At 06:45 AM 1/11/2004, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Joe: <br><br>
It was interesting to read your comments about the development of the
Vietnamese writing system. You spoke about something called Chu Nom that
was a written form of Vietnamese using Chinese characters. Did this
orthography (writing system) employ full Chinese characters or only their
radical parts? The modern Japanese syllabaries, hiragana and
katakana, were derived from parts of Chinese characters. Apparently
Japanese found it easier to create a phonological writing system than to
reinvent the Chinese writing system to accommodate spoken Japanese.
<br><br>
In Hong Kong it is not just a matter of being able to read, but not speak
English, it is also a matter of writing and reading Mandarin, but only
speaking Cantonese. Hong Kong youth are taught how to read and write
Mandarin, but they pronounce what they read and write in Cantonese.
Moreover, what they speak is grammatically different from what they
write, but the same sounds are used for both reading and writing. This
same tradition is carried over to their use of the English language. They
often use Cantonese sounds to pronounce English words -- what Anthea has
euphemistically referred to as a Hong Kong English accent. <br><br>
The Hong Kong government is now considering the extent to which they
should introduce standard Mandarin as a spoken language in Hong Kong
schools. More expense for an already strapped school educational budget
that is already over investing in the <br>
English language. <br><br>
Hamo <br><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Helvetica">R. A. Stegemann <br>
EARTH's Manager and HKLNA-Project Director <br>
EARTH - East Asian Research and Translation in Hong Kong <br>
<a href="http://homepage.mac.com/moogoonghwa/earth/">http://homepage.mac.com/moogoonghwa/earth/</a>
<br>
Tel/Fax: 852 2630 0349</font> </blockquote></x-html> </blockquote>
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<br>
Joseph Lo Bianco<br><br>
Professor of Language and Literacy Education<br>
LLAE, Faculty of Education<br>
The University of Melbourne<br>
3010 VIC Australia<br><br>
Tel: <x-tab> </x-tab>03 8344 8346<br>
Fax:<x-tab> </x-tab>03 8344 8612<br>
Mob: 0407 798 978<br>
Email: j.lobianco@unimelb.edu.au</body>
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