Chinese "kanji"

[Joel S. Berson]

True, according to
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2047.html:  "Katakana is mainly used
for writing loan words and the names of persons and geographical
places that can't be written in kanji."  In passing, my source
(Nakanishi) says that the two syllabaries have different orderings,
while this site displays them identically.

Joel

At 10/6/2005 01:35 AM, you wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject:      Re: Chinese "kanji"
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Isn't katakana used only for writing foreign words, somewhat as
>though, in English, we used italics only to write words like "angst,"
>and "a la carte"?
>
>-Wilson Gray
>
>On 10/5/05, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: Chinese "kanji"
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > At 10/5/2005 09:23 PM, you wrote:
> > >I would think "Chinese characters" would have been better here, since from
> > >the context the writer believes that these are actually characters from
> > >Chinese (rather than from Japanese, say). "Kanji" means "Chinese[-type]
> > >characters" in Japanese as I understand it; cf. "Romaji" = "Roman[-type]
> > >characters" or "letters of Latin alphabets". Chinese-type characters used
> > >in Japan include a few not used in Chinese but they're still
> called "kanji"
> > >(I think); similarly English uses letters not used in Latin but they're
> > >still called "letters of a Latin alphabet" (I think).
> >
> > A couple of additional complications, but they don't really affect
> > the original writer's use of the word "Kanji".
> >
> > There are three forms of Chinese characters in general
> > use.  Original-form uses more strokes (standard in Republic of
> > China). Japanese characters for daily use ("Toyo Kanji") are
> > simpler.  Then the most simplified is [no name given in my source]
> > (standard in People's Republic of China).
> >
> > Japanese script (called Kana) combines two syllabic/phonemic
> > alphabets for Japanese (Katakana and Hiragana) with the Chinese
> > characters (the Kanji, which I suspect means "characters Chinese" in
> > Japanese).  And of course Arabic numerals are often used (together
> > with Chinese; Japanese itself has no numerals).
> >
> > Source:  Writing Systems of the World, by Akira Nakanishi, 1980.
> >
> > Joel
> >
>
>
>--
>-Wilson Gray