First, my thanks for the continuing education (specifically,
replies to queries) that I'm enjoying receiving here. For the
most part, I anticipate reading much, posting comparatively
little, and learning more (in proportion) than posting about
items probably not already known to many/most.

Although it was only for a very few characters and for a short
time, I was especially impressed by the difficulty of writing
even decent-looking hiragana. In particular, I was simply trying
to write the H. letter I (U+3044, decimal 12356, [?]) although
iirc, with much less of a hook on the left stroke than in the
typeface used for the Unicode 3.0 book.

Indeed, decent-looking CJK characters are not easy to write!
(One shouldn't expect them to be, really.)

I have considerable respect for adults (heck, even the kids!) who
learn CJK characters to any serious degree.

A few decades ago, when the USA was still occupying Japan after
WW II, an English-language newspaper (fairly sure) contained
(daily?) cartoons called Nipponoodles*, (fairly sure). These
were, for the most part, based on the kanji character as the
starting point for imaginative and light-hearted cartoon fun,
iirc, often ornearly always ignoring the meaning of the character
in the cartoon, although its pronunciation and meaning were
nevertheless provided but with less emphasis, I think.)
*possibly referring to [Roger Price's Droodles, iirc]?

In a manner of speaking, the delightful Web site
<www.engrish.com> is something like a reversal, but only loosely.
Fortunately, neither Nipponoodles nor Engrish is at all mean-
spirited, nor belittling. (Recent item: Several signs saying
"No Smorking". That might even become the standard romaji
spelling.

Slightly off-topic for this message, but it seems to me that the
mostly-unconscious design of CJK characters is to make them as
easy to differentiate as possible, to minimize misreading
confusion. Nevertheless, I'm aware that there are some detailed
counterexamples, which people new to them need to be careful of.
One would wonder whether the graphic elements (mostly strokes,
both in isolation, and superposed?) are especially well-adapted
to the human visual recognition system.

Fwiw, some time ago, while I had lots of time available, for
recreation, I was trying to translate Japanese (found in a local
ad-supported newspaper-like publication). I had discovered the
Nelson dictionary, and averaged maybe one half hour per sentence,
not knowing any significant amount of kanji. I discovered that
it's not so simple to be sure of accuracy in meaning, without any
particular cultural awareness; there was more ambiguity than I
had really expected.

Btw, just for fun, what's the largest stroke count Qalam people
know of, for a CJK character? In my infrequent perusals of
dictionaries, I don't think I recall seeing as many as 45, and
perhaps not even 40, but am not sure. In any event, they are a
delight. (That is, when you're not 1) required to learn them and
2) don't really want to!)

Many thanks, and best regards!

Nicholas Bodley |@| Waltham, Mass.
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