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if you have different points of view:
- Human Languages
- Definition of a language: A spoken language + a written language.
- There are loosely speaking two different types of written languages:
(a) alphabetical written language and (b) character/symbolic written language.
- Two examples of alphabetical systems: Latin alphabets, Greek alphabets.
- A set of alphabets consists of consonants and vowels such that suitable
combinations of these consonants and vowels may be used to record the sound
of a spoken language.
- Two examples of characters: Han Zi (or Chinese Characters), Mathematical
Notations.
- A set of characters consists of
superficial pictures/ideographs/symbols/signs such that
each of these characters or a combination of characters may be used to
represent things/concepts/materials etc.
- Definition of a phonetic language: a spoken language + an alphabetical
written language.
- Definition of an ideographic language: a spoken language + a
character/symbolic written language.
- Properties of a phonetic language
- An alphabetical system and its pronounciation is usually very easy to
grasp.
- It records all human talks/sound/utterance.
- One can get the pronounciation correct very quickly and be able to
reproduce the sound.
- No reflection of the underlying meaning if one does not know the
meaning of the sound.
- It possesses the capability of recording contemporary sound on paper.
- If one does not learn the spoken language, the complete recording becomes
meaningless.
- Pronounciation may be preserved over thousands of years.
- It is a sound recorder on paper.
- The grammar evolves as according to the development of the spoken
language.
- Two examples of using Latin alphabetical systems: (a) English and (b)
French.
- It is a modelling of spoken language on paper.
- Properties of an ideographic language
- A character system consists of characters/symbols which usually do not
resemble the sound.
- It records all concepts/things/materials/happenings.
- One does not get unique pronounciation for a character, but it varies
place to place.
- The linking of pictogram and its meaning is extremely
easy, particularly during infancy. However, mastering the ideograms needs
longer time than mastering a set of alphabets.
- It possesses the capability of recording happenings/facts/things/concepts
etc on paper.
- You may use your own spoken language in order to read the written
version.
- One has to learn a large set of characters and their corresponding
meanings (semantics) with a well defined set of syntax during school language
lessons. However, the use of such is not restricted by the spoken language.
- Meanings and concepts can be preserved for thousands of years while
the pronounciation may be evolved as it wishes.
- It is a film without sound.
- The evolution of grammar is very little over thousands of years.
Thus it serves as a mean to tie the evolution of the spoken language to the
written language. It also serves as a mean to restrict the un-necessary
diversion of spoken language.
- Some examples of using character systems: Chinese, a sub-set of
modern Japanese, Japanese before Meiji era, Korean before 20th Century.
- An example of partial (instructional only) character system: EU
motorway instruction signs.
- An example of partial (instructional and conceptual only) character
system: a piece of mathematics.