On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 10:06:37 -0600, John H. Jenkins <
jenkins@...>
wrote:
[...]
> Nor does this reflect the way that the people in East Asia refer to
> them, which is simply "Han characters" in the respective languages.
> Personally, I believe that just calling them "Han characters," or
> "Chinese characters," or "sinograms" is to be preferred over other words.
(Dilettante warning :) ) I agree. It seems to me that some term that
indicates that they are characters written by a system originating in
China would be appropriate. I've adopted "CJK" for personal use,
explaining the initialism when it seems desirable to do so, although that
term by no means indicates Chinese origin.
Only educated people recognize the root in "sinogram" as implying
"Chinese" (iirc! "Sinitic"?). Although there's a real possibility of
confusion with "sign", "sinogram" seems to be a good choice. I don't
recall the details of objections to it; no need to repeat them, just for
me.
Regards,
--
Nicholas Bodley /*|*\ Waltham, Mass.
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