From: js92@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Jungshik  Shin)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.korean
Subject: Re: Super-set system
Keywords: Korea, writing system
Date: 8 Apr 92 19:13:20 GMT
Reply-To: js92@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Jungshik  Shin)
Organization: Columbia University

In article <1992Apr7.183614.12003@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> phantom@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (James Choi) writes:
>
>From my limited knowldege, I cannot think of new sound that was created in
>Korean language in my lifetime due to its flexible writing system.  Can
>someone provide an example of sound creation as a direct result of the
>flexible writing system?  Writing foreign language sound does not count
>because it is not a function of a writing system.  Any writing system can
>approximate the foreign terms to a certain degree.  Besides, I remember
>some purists pondering over the translation of term "computer".


    You would see a lot of sounds created by children and babies
    if you lived in Korea.  Without Hangul's flexiblity,though it's
    not unique  , writeen Korean would be much more dull than now. Much
    smaller number of words to represent sounds and shapes of many
    natural things(animal sound,color,taste, etc.) If  primary
    students were encouraged to write a poem (I don't mean a  
    stereotypical poem  which is nearly forced to write at primary
    school in Korea,but I mean really ACTIVE and Lively poem), they
    would make the most of Hangul's flexiblity to express their own
    feeling and emotion about everything around their life. They are
    not yet defected by common sense. For them, no need to use
    'Mungmung' for dog's sound, 'Kkokotak' for hen's . Not only
    this, Hangul's flexibility allows  many writers  to use rich set of
    words in dialects in their works. Assume that Hangul is able to
    represent only fixed number of syllables. What would happen? A
    writer  would not find a appropriate syllable to express his own
    way of listening some sounds in nature and he would not be able to
    give his reader what he feel about that sound. This is not
    hypothetical situation but will happen in  near future because of Standard
    Hangul Code made by KSRI(Korea Standard Res. Institute) whihc accomodates
    only fixed number of  syllables in it (about 2350 out of more than
    10K syllables) and more popular use of word-processing and desk
    top publishing. This coding system seriously limits the
    flexibility of Hangul and the imagination of writers and generally
    all of Koreans.    Recently, they made a supplementary code to
    solve this probelm. But, it has also a serious defect because,
    except standardized 2350 syllables, all other syllables can have
    different codes  on different computers and even on different
    files made by the same person. To read an article written by
    others including non-standardized syllables, one has to translate
    it to one's code.    Why do they insist on this incovenient and
    absurd way? they argue that only this code can fit International
    Communication Regulation. But I heard that there's a way to get
    around it with all Hangul represented by a single
    code.(Combination Coding System.)The current KS is Completion
    Coding system in which one 2byte code corresponds to one syllable. 

>p.s.  someone mentioned "copu" as an example of Japanese writing system's
>limitation.  This particular example is wrong one because "copu" came from
>Portuguese word "copo" which sounds just like "copu".  Contrary to the
>popular belief, not all foreign words are from English.  And who cares how
>close the original word it sounds likes, as long as the users understand
>each other.  If you want to communicate with the outsiders, then learn
>their language.  You won't go far with your own writing system alone, even
>if it is hangul.
>




    I've never thought that Hangul is superset of Japanese Kana. I just
    think that the number of syllablles represented by KANA is much
    smaller than the number of syllables represented by Hangul or
    Roman Alphabet or any other writting system with Phonetic Elements
    That is the set of syllables represented by Hangul(A) is much larger
    thatn the set of sylla. in KANA (B)although the former does not
    include the latter.   (In set theory notation, B-A is not an empty
    set as you indicated and I know well.)
    . As I mentioned before and as far as I know, One letter in
    Japanese Kana roughly correspond to one syllable. So with only
    about 50 letters in KANA, the number of syllables expressed by
    KANA is at most order of 10^2.  On the other hand, using Hangul or
    Roman alphabet, we can combine tens of vowels and consonants to
    express tens of thousands of syllables (two order of magnitude
    larger than can be done with Kana). It's a big difference, I
    think, between Japanase Kana and Hangul or Roman Alphabet. 
    Wth respect to my exmaple about Kopu, I admit I was wrong,but it
    doesn't hurt my arguemnt that Japanese KANA is not able to express
    as many syllables as Hangul or Roman alphabet can do. Kopu is just
    a mistakenly mentioned example. How about my another example?
    Ball ==>  Boru(in KANA) Simply KANA does NOT have effective ways to
    represent syllables with 'Patchim' in Hangul with only few
    exceptions.  


   
Jungshik Shin | APS(Am.Phys.Soc.)  | E-mail              |The unreasonable try  
Columbia Univ.| OSA(Opt.Soc.Am)    |Internet:js92@cunixb.|to change their    
New York      | IEEE member        |cc.columbia.edu      |society to fit their 
Tel. 212-932-3860                  |Bitnet:js92@cunixc   |ideal. Bernard Shaw