Re: [9fans] Simplified Chinese plan 9

[Paul Donnelly <paul-donnelly@sbcglobal.net>]

eris.discordia@gmail.com (Eris Discordia) writes:

>> http://thinkzone.wlonk.com/Language/Korean.htm
>
> Interesting. I used to think Korean, too, uses a syllabary. Turns out
> it's expressed alphabetically. Expressing Japanese that way would
> create some space for confusion as there are certain sounds that never
> combine with certain other sounds, e.g. there are 'sa,' 'se,' 'so,'
> and 'su' syllables in which 's' is heard just like 's' in 'say' but
> there's no 'si'--there's only 'shi.'

Actually, I belive that in Korean, "si" (시, if that displays for you at
all) is pronounced "shi". :P

> If there existed an 's' character and also characters for vowels the
> invalid combination 'si' could be created in writing. I wonder if
> Korean alphabet can be used to make invalid combinations or all
> possible combinations correspond to existing phonetic constructs.

Some combinations don't occur. Especially there are dipthongs that don't
occur. But that's not really strange or a problem. Consider the word:
qimk. It doesn't work in English, but the Latin alphabet still
functions.