On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 15:20:33 -0400, i18n@... <i18n@...> wrote:
{excerpted}

> Katakana is generally used to render foreign terms into Japanese.

Indeed; while unemployed for a sustained period in the early 90s, I spent
some time with a free ad-supported Japanese-language Boston-regional
tabloid-format weekly periodical, having lots of fun "decoding" the
katakana. Eventiually, I couldn't resist looking up some kanji, and even
tried translating a sentence now and then. With the help of the Nelson
Dictionary, it took me maybe a half hour per sentence, and even then,
there were some doubts.

> Nobody in their right mind would want to read a whole document in
> katakana - it is maddening.

Interesting, and believable.

> Once you learn kanji, you won't want to read in kana only.

> It may be that digital copies of documents were rendered once in
> katakana because there exist 7 bit katakana-only encodings. Of course
> that is no longer necessary, but there may be legacy documents. Is that
> maybe what you are referring to?

Not knowingly. As well, useful katakana can be rendered by an array of
maybe 5 x 7 dots, or, if not that, not much bigger.

> Not sure Chinese encourage precise interpretation of legal documents
> either ;)

My; cultural and political differences here! Hardly unexpected.

> I think you are touching on a deep and fundamental philosophical
> difference that may be visible through writing systems.

> Not likely English is going away anytime soon, but no fundamental reason
> why that couldn't happen or won't happen eventually that I know of.

Again, not to be chauvinist, but over several future centuries, English
might take a place roughly equivalent to that of Latin among the educated
in Europe some centuries ago.

Most-interesting reply; thanks, Barry.

--
Nicholas Bodley /*|*\ Waltham, Mass. (Not "MA")
The curious hermit -- autodidact and polymath
who still has trouble getting used to "more then enough"
and other "than-->then" usages in the popular dialect.