From: jfriedl+@CS.CMU.EDU (Jeffrey Friedl)
Newsgroups: sci.lang.japan
Subject: Re: `silliness' of historical radicals
Date: 6 Oct 92 16:27:22 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.BvpKDq.J09.1
Reply-To: jfriedl@cs.cmu.edu
Organization: Carnegie Mellon / Omron Corporation

mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) writes:
|> The traditional radical order may seem to be silly to beginners, but I can
|> assure you that the `reformed' radical systems such as in Spahn's book cause
|> endless hassles to anyone who has already learned the traditional order.

I absolutely understand that to one who learned a particular way of things,
a new (for better or worse) system to do the same thing would indeed cause
hassles, if not resentment.  Of course, that doesn't mean that the old way
wasn't silly.....  just not what you're used to.

And even though it is perhaps even second-nature to you as one skilled in
its use, I'm sure that if you stand back and look at it, you've got to admit
it's truly silly.

But then, so is the English Language (or any spoken language, for that matter).

But then again, radicals (as other than a linguistic interest) are simply
a tool....  a tool to index and occasionally describe characters.
Because one generally only uses them in the privacy of their own dictionary,
I feel no need to be saddled with the baggage of using a "historicaly correct"
method.  I just want to find the character as painlessly as possible.

And even when describing characters (i.e. over the phone), I would guess
that Japanese don't use the true historical radicals (but I don't know).

For example, consider the grade-3 character with approved readings
    MON to(u) to(i) ton
    [QUESTION ... Nelson 4944, JIS 4c64, unicode 554f]
The historical radical for this character is KUCHI (mouth), not what it
obviously appears to be as MON [gate].  However, if someone described it
as "a MON character with KUCHI inside", I think everyone would understand.
However, I can imagine some confusion if one described it properly as
"a KUCHI character with a MON outside", as they'd wonder why in the heck
you didn't describe it in the "obvious" way, and think they must have
missunderstood....

For another really interesting one, consider the character indexed
in Nelson as #1542 (JIS 673f, unicode 81ba).  If one was looking at it
with no information about it, one might conceivably look under the MADARE
(roof) radical. Not finding it there, you might then try the TSUKI (moon),
FURUTORI (small bird), and NINBEN (person) radicals.  If you're not so
discusted yet at this point, and if you think of it, you might just
try looking under NIKUZUKI (meat) and then find it there.

Well, there are lots of silly ones... those are just two.

I suppose that to those that have used the historical radicals for a long
time, changed radicals systems are about as welcome as a new alphabet order
in English.  However, for one just starting out, my personal feeling is that
learning the old radicals (as opposed to learning about them) is a waste of
time.

Radical systems based upon the modern characters (such as in Spahn')
are both consistant and logical, which is what an indexing method should be.

Mmm. Maybe if they were called "indexing systems" rather than "radical
systems", that would ease the tensions with the old guard?

BTW, I am in no way attempting to start a flame war.... just a discussion.
If I wanted a flame war, I suppose I could mention how silly and destructive
romaji is to the student of the Japanese language.

	*jeff*

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl   jfriedl@cs.cmu.edu -or- jfriedl@omron.co.jp
Omron Corporation, Section RZE, Shimokaiinji, Nagaokakyo Kyoto 617, Japan
Visiting researcher to the Mach Project, Carnegie Mellon University