In a message dated 5/22/2011 4:38:09 AM Pacific Daylight Time, smolensk@eunet.rs writes:
Aren't these languages written with Chinese characters and thus their speakers can read and write the Chinese Wikipedia?
All the Latin languages: Italian, French, Spanish, English, and so on are written with Latin characters: a, b, c, d, e and so on. And yet the French cannot pick up a book in Spanish and read it.
Just because a language is written with Chinese characters does not mean that the words and meanings are spoken or comprehensible by any other language user using those same characters for other words and meanings.
On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 12:42 PM, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
Aren't these languages written with Chinese characters and thus their speakers can read and write the Chinese Wikipedia?
All the Latin languages: Italian, French, Spanish, English, and so on are written with Latin characters: a, b, c, d, e and so on. And yet the French cannot pick up a book in Spanish and read it.
Just because a language is written with Chinese characters does not mean that the words and meanings are spoken or comprehensible by any other language user using those same characters for other words and meanings.
Indeed, it doesn't mean that necessarily. However, your analogy doesn't apply in this situation and Nikola was right. Many of the Chinese languages share a common writing system and only differ in the way the language is spoken.
Hoi, Please read about the Chinese language and writing system. It helps you to understand. Thanks, GerardM
On 22 May 2011 18:42, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
In a message dated 5/22/2011 4:38:09 AM Pacific Daylight Time, smolensk@eunet.rs writes:
Aren't these languages written with Chinese characters and thus their speakers can read and write the Chinese Wikipedia?
All the Latin languages: Italian, French, Spanish, English, and so on are written with Latin characters: a, b, c, d, e and so on. And yet the French cannot pick up a book in Spanish and read it.
Just because a language is written with Chinese characters does not mean that the words and meanings are spoken or comprehensible by any other language user using those same characters for other words and meanings. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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