From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@9fans.net Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 09:33:56 +0000 From: Paul Donnelly Message-ID: <87hbv8wyyn.fsf@plap.localdomain> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable References: <4d9108733c892b0a33fd35bb8df27e14@quanstro.net> Subject: Re: [9fans] Simplified Chinese plan 9 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 6e87b38c-ead5-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 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.