Re: Konrad's introduction
Tai-ke CTT! Tui MR.Yan lai kong, kho-leng kan-ta Big-5 chiah-si bun-ji, ki-tha e long m-si. In-ui i kong e bun-te ma chhut-ti Eng-gikap ki-tha, pau-ham Tiong-kok-hi(chiu-si kan-the e Han-ji). Na-si an-ne chiu bo su-iau liau si-kan kong tho-lun lah. Babuza
----- Original Message ----- From: Yan, M ; Yan, M ; ['taigu'](https://web.archive.org/web/20060117083022/mailto: "") Sent: Friday, August 22, 2003 7:20 PM Subject: RE: [TGB] Konrad's introduction
Levin:"Thx" is a corrupted American word for "Thanks" to close. "Ideo-phonetic" is
not "ideographic". The "ideographic" writing in Chinese is also called Han
Characters.Taiwanese "ideo-phonetic" language is a spelling language by a 99-letter
alphabet. Said alphabet consists of 3 kinds of letters, namely phonetic to
indicate pronunciation, tonal to lead tonal variation, and radical to
differentiate meaning among the homonyms. There is no Chinese Character per
se in the alphabet.For example, if I write in Peh-oe-ji "hong". You don't really know what I
mean. You might argue that you could find out in the text. Or rather, you
will "guess" from the text, because in a Peh-oe-ji dictionary "hong" carries
too many meanings (homonyms). If I assign "a middle-tone (the 7th tone, or -
in Church coding) and a radical-wood symbols to it", it indicates "a word
sounds like 'hong' in the 7th tone in the wood category", which seems to
mean "maple" without ambiguity in Taiwanese. This is the basis for the
Taiwanese ideo-phonetic spelling, no Characters for sure.Thx.
-----Original Message-----
From: levin [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2003 3:05 PM
To: 'Yan, M'; 'Konrad Hsu Aschenbach'; 'taigu'
Subject: RE: [TGB] Konrad's introductionDear Konrad and dear Thx,
There are actually a few ways to write Taiwanese. Some people use Han
Characters, some use Peh-oe-ji (alos called Tai-oan-ji, as mentioned in
Mr TeN Si-chong's mail), some use Peh-oe-ji and Han Characters together,
and some use other Romanization systems.
As to TLPA, as the name suggests, it'sa system of Phonetic Alphabet,
not a writing system for Taiwanese (just like nobody will treat IPA as a
writing system of any language).But Peh-oe-ji is intended to be a Writing System and has been used as
suchfor more than 150 years. For many of us in Taigubang, Peh-oe-ji is
our Writing System, and we have no problem with "homonyms" because we
use Latin letters to write "words", not "morphyms or syllables" (what
Thx calls "units"), just like English writing system.Han Character (what Thx calls "ideo-phonetic" sign, I guess) is
inadequate for writing Taiwanese: not all Taiwanese words are Han words,
and we often cannot find suitable Han Characters to write our Taiwanese
words. Some old Taiwanese documents written in Han Characters are
difficult to read for us: it happens quite often that I need to "guess"
what "words" in our language are refered/represented by these or those
Characters.
But, there is no such problem at all when Taiwanese is written in
Peh-oe-ji.I believe many friends in Taigubang can explain for you in English much
better than me.Best,
Liao Lip-bun-----Original Message-----
From: [mailto:] On Behalf
Of Yan, M
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2003 7:19 PM
To: 'Konrad Hsu Aschenbach'; taigu
Subject:RE: [TGB] Konrad's introductionKonrad:
I am curious about your power system from the sun. I know only 2 ways,
silicon and heat concentration. Please elaborate. I was quite fascinated
by
the solar power when I was young.Taiwanese does have written form which is called ideo-phonetic language.
It
is published in "The Taiwanese Literature Review" by Aletheia Univ. in
Taiwan, relatively new publication. You are right that romanization is a
convenient way of conveying the pronunciation of a language.
Nevertheless,
it is not a language buta phonetic coding of the pronunciation of the
language. There are numerous such coding systems for Taiwanese,
including
the church form and TLPA you may already know. One easy way to check
whether
a system is a language or just a coding is to see whether each basic
"unit"
(not word) has numerous homonyms. Most Hoklo romanization systems have
"flood" of homonyms for each and every unit. The "unit" of a language
(called word) has one or few homonyms, such as an English word.
Romanization, however, is still the best way to start the Hoklo
language. If
you want to knowmore about Taiwanese afterward, you should check the
above
publication (written in Chinese characters) or call me (313-592-5774).Thx.
-----Original Message-----
From: Konrad Hsu Aschenbach [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2003 1:31 AM
To: taigu
Subject: [TGB] Konrad's introductionHello All on Tai-gu-bang,
I am a third-year graduate student in Electrical Engineering at the
University of California, Berkeley. My research is toward the
development
of a
power system that will make electricity from sunlight without using
silicon.