From: phantom@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (James Choi)
Subject: Re: Super-set system
Keywords: Korea, writing system
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 22:36:12 GMT

In article <1992Apr8.191320.11695@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> js92@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Jungshik  Shin) writes:
>    You would see a lot of sounds created by children and babies
>    if you lived in Korea.  

Babies of any nationality creates new sound.  It has nothing to do with the
writing system, and the odd sounds are surpressed well before they learn to
write.  It is the language that make people conform, not the writing
system.

>    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.) 

A writing system cannot mimic any color or taste or shape.  It is purely a
convention that everyone agrees upon and understand collectively.  I know
what you are referring to.  This supposedly rich expressions in Korean
language (ex.  'ban-chak ban-chak' to describe something shiny) has
corresponding part in Japanese (bika-bika), as I found out.  I do not think
it has anything to do with the writing system and it is my suspicion that
these rich expressions existed long before hangul came along.

>    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. 

You mean Korean elementary school student can write better poem because of
hangul?  Wow...

>    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. 

I have a little trouble following your argument here.  I just want to add
that ANY language, regardless of its writing system, has a way to express
these animal sounds, etc.  This again is a purely convention.  Frankly I do
not know which one of 'chak-chak' or 'clap-clap' or 'pachi-pachi' comes
closest to clapping sound.  It all depends on what you grew up with.

>    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.    

It indeed defeats the purpose of hangul.  However, there are many redundant
or illegal combination in hangul (ex. u-a and o-a will sound practically
the same).  When each of this never used vowel combination is multiplied by
all possible consants that could have come before and after them, a huge
number of them are redundant or illegal.  I remember laughing reading
ko-woo-young's comic book because he used imppossible to read combination
to express a guy screaming in agony.  This kind of misuse would not
bepossible under the coding scheme you described above.

>    Ball ==>  Boru(in KANA) Simply KANA does NOT have effective ways to
>    represent syllables with 'Patchim' in Hangul with only few
>    exceptions.  

But everyone understands what 'boru' is and that surved the purpose
perfectly.  How it relates to the original language is not important.  Who
cares where 'seku-hara' came from as long as those who speak know what it
means. :)  (this is a quiz.  I could not figure this one out.  it came from
english word)

>Jungshik Shin | APS(Am.Phys.Soc.)  | E-mail          

James Choi