tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Apr 14 11:24:14 2006

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: Japan Hol (Re: mangpu' or negh?)

MorphemeAddict ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol taghwI']

In a message dated 4/14/2006 12:55:37 PM Central Standard Time, 
[email protected] writes:

> If you notice... They don't have kanji installed on computers, but they 
> have hiragana and katakana... I wonder if there is a reson behind that. 
> Reguardless, Katakana is for pop culture, while hiragana (i hope i'm not mixing these 
> 2 up) has the 26 letter alphabet, with the other alphabet rewritten (or 
> maybe not rewritten) with different letters to add to it. This is for the purpose 
> of non japanese things, but this is way off topic.
> 


My computer has kanji (in MS Word, along with other Unicode symbols).  
Katakana is for foreign words, similar to italics, and for some words for 
certain animals and plants, e.g., grasshopper.  Hiragana is used for everything 
else, i.e., when neither kanji nor katakana is appropriate, such as verb 
endings or demonstratives.  The two forms of kana represent exactly the same sounds. 
 Which one to use is context dependent, and all Japanese could be written in 
either kana alone.  
Neither type of kana includes the 26 English letters, although English 
letters are commonly found in all kinds of modern Japanese texts.
I once invented a form of writing for Klingon which was similar in concept to 
Korean Hangul, namely distinct symbols for the phonemes, but the phonemes are 
arranged in syllables (to look more like Chinese).  For Klingon, the initial 
consonant was on top, with the vowel in the middle, and the final consonant 
(if any) was on the bottom.  Finals {rgh}, {w'}, and {y'} had tails below the 
rest of the line.  Depending on the symbols chosen for the phonemes, very 
artistic forms could be obtained.

lay'tel SIvten

Back to archive top level