--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
wrote:

> This idea certainly didn't begin with DeFrancis -- it was

recognized by

> DuPonceau in 1838,

DuPonceau's letter can be read here

http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/duponceau.html

and the modern locus classicus is the debate between

> Creel and Boodberg in the 1930s. (I think one of them published in

T'ung

> Pao and the other in a journal with Harvard in the title, but maybe
> not.) The refs. are probably in his *The Chinese Language: Fact and
> Fantasy* of 1985 if not in the later more general book.

Yes, the debate between Creel and Boodberg is described in
DeFrancis, The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy.

http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/ideographic_myth.html

> Actually the Principles say they have attempted to provide a graph

for

> every sound _that is distinctive_ in some language or other --

it's not

> meant for transcriptions on a level much below the phonemic.
> Phoneticians have devised other transcription systems that are

better

> suited for recording minute differences in speech sounds.

So phonemic but not for any given language. How does it rate as a
writing system?

Suzanne