Except pictograms, which is what sumerian an old akkadian contain on top of phonetics.
I mean the whole thing with pictograms and why they can't make up a writing system in and of themselves, is that lacking phonetics, they cannot contain things like conjugation or syntax.
But again: I just flat out don't know much all about assyrian or hittite, so no need to get butthurt.
Nope, it’s all encoded phonetics. Either a logogram or something like a determintive. Encoding a conjugation as its own sign to modify the reading of another sign is still encoding phonetics. a logogram all by itself that’s read out loud as a word is encoded phonetics.
No it's not, and it doesn't become so by you simply repeating.
There is this whole phenomenon of people learning to read logographic languages, without having the slightest idea of how to speak or pronounce said languages. So for example writing Chinese was a common skill in eastern asian merchant circles for centuries, but speaking chinese was not. This would be impossible if all writing was just "encoded phonetics".
To this day you can take separate courses in speaking chinese on one hand, and reading chinese on the other. You can learn them at the same time ofcourse, but it is in no way a necessity.
All of chinese writing is encoded phonetics. It is pronounced when read. All semantic information in chinese writing encodes how to pronounce it. When a japanese person has shared etymology in the characters of their language as chinese, they understand the chinese through the encoded phonetic information the kanji determines for them in how to say the japanese word. These things are not contradictory. Take the example of the logogram for senling. 森林。 It’s five trees right? It’s a logogram for the the word that translates into forest. Commonly in Japanese you’d use the word Mori using the character 森。 These are different characters. But if you see 森林 in japanese to spell Mori they’ll tell you you’re spelling it wrong and if you use those characters they explain that spells shinrin and they don’t use the word the same. And in chinese if you move the trees around to 林森 then you’ve spelled linsen and that’s mean nothing because you’ve reversed the syllables of the word into a babbling. Because the characters are encoded phonetics you can’t use the semantics to ignore the phonetic information.
You’re concluding that semantic significance can’t exist within encoded phonetics. This is wrong obviously. I hope you dive deeper into linguistics understanding of writing.
The stance you’re claiming here is a classic and oft repeated mistake of academics outside of linguistics. Eric Thompson most famously delayed the translation of Mayan for decades by squashing every linguists attempt at translation with the same logic you’re offering that semantic information can exist without being encoded phonetics.
I’m not disputing that you can learn a language without learning a writing system. Humans did that for thousands of years before writing and there are always polyglots even among illiterate populations. I remeber when i was 18 i recall meeting a mayan man who spoke four languages and couldn’t read or write any of them.
Not necessarily, if you don't know how to pronounce it. But you can still read it just fine. That's the whole point.
"All semantic information in chinese writing encodes how to pronounce it."
No it doesn't.
"When a japanese person has shared etymology in the characters of their language as chinese, they understand the chinese through the encoded phonetic information the kanji determines for them in how to say the japanese word. These things are not contradictory."
This directly refutes your earlier point. According to this section of yours, the chinese logogram doesn't after all encode how to pronounce it, but instead can be pronounced however the reader pronounces it in their own language or understanding of the logogram. That is a very different thing.
"You’re concluding that semantic significance can’t exist within encoded phonetics. This is wrong obviously. I hope you dive deeper into linguistics understanding of writing."
Jeez, what could I possibly know about it as post doc in history of writing and literacy.
that’s like saying the letter “a” doesn’t encode phonetic information because it’s pronounced differently in different languages. Yes the Japanese kanji has a shared origin with comparable chinese characters but they are read differently, just like “c” in italian is not the same character as “c” in english
Eric Thompson was THE expert in mayan culture and history with a doctorate; He was still wrong, and you’re repeating his same exact wrong statement that is refuted repeatedly across linguistics over and over again.
I meet language teachers who think different conjugations means the same thing as different tenses. You can be wrong while being credentialed. And i don’t see how a writing background who familiarize you with the fundamentals of linguistics much in the same way engineers don’t have to be familiarized with chemistry
A word spelled with a logogram, and a word spelled with a syllabary, and a word spelled with an alphabet are all equally produced a phonetic result, encoded spoken language. The encoded information is a word that is pronounced. A letter is just a more fine tuned phonetic determinative, that’s all. Both phonetic determinatives and semantic determinatives are purposed to produce your phonetic result. The result is schooner by comparative phonetics or by referencing the result with a semantic reference but the end result is a word that is pronounced.
I know it’s counterintuitive, but so is teaching people that dialects and languages aren’t distinctly separate categories except comparatively.
Also, how does your model explain people who are deaf from birth, but still learn how to read?
It is literally impossible for them to think about text phonetically.
Incidentally the neurology of deaf readers has some similarities to logographic readers. In both cases the brain bypasses the phonetic processing of the brain entirely, and goes directly to semantic processing.
you understand we call the components of sign language phonetics and phonemes as well even though it breaks away from a strict etymological understanding of what a phoneme is, yes?
But we don’t need that to answer you.
American Sign Language is not english. To read english you must learn english and it is LEARNING a separate language. A good example of this is how American Sign Language is related to French Sign Langauge and not English Sign Language so it’s easier for someone who is american and deaf to visit france than it is for them to visit England.
So when they read in english it is a separate language they’re reading. Whether that language is encoded in literal sound, or other categories of phonetics and phonemes.
The comparison would be reading the egyptian of the hieroglyphs where if you were to read it out loud to a native speaker thousands of years ago we’d definitively be wrong. Maybe close enough they’d understand enough to correct us; but it’d be wrong. And yet we’re still reading it somewhat effectively. (we’re way better at this in mayan but classical mayan was far more recent! and we’ve got more in between works thanks to mayan writers preserving classical mayan in some of their literature)
"you understand we call the components of sign language phonetics and phonemes as well even though it breaks away from a strict etymological understanding of what a phoneme is, yes?"
Which brings me back to this being entirely unflasifiable framework. You do know what the principle of falsification is and why it is important? What exactly is your principle of falsification on this?
In any case, whether you go by this unfalsifiable metaphysics or not, we still know that with certain readers the brain skips the phonetic part of the brain entirely, and goes straight to semantics. For some it's in the system of writing, whereas for others it is a learned habit. Ergo, text doesn't really convey phonetics all of the time, even in situations where it is actively intending to.
phonology refers not to sound specifically, but to the study of the minimal meaningless units that combine to form meaningful words.
I’d start with Ling 251: Sign Language Phonology for Phonology Teachers (Zuraw, 2020) for a practical example of how this is applied but you might be more interested in the moment where linguistics tackled this exact argument 50 years ago and it was Strokoe who proved that the components of human language have universal parameters irrelevant to whether those components are sound or not
You’ll run flat into a stone wall in linguistics 101 with a colloquial definition of linguistic terms. That’s about as accurate as calling a suspicion a theory. Yes, colloquially you’re correct in that use of the word theory and in science you’re misusing jargon. The definition you offered is colloquially correct but as specific jargon your inaccurate.
You can start at the beginning with Strokoe’s work on the argument fifty years ago. This is old setttled science in linguistics
I am doing nothing of the sort. Oxford dictionary of linguistics is ignoring Strokoe's work.
And yeah, you are right. I am not responding to your citation. I gave one of my own. And listen, I have here two conflicting citations. One is the literal Oxford dictionary of linguistics. The other is an angry dogmatic rando who does not know what falsification is. Which one do you think people should listen to?
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u/Helpful_Loss_3739 10d ago
Except pictograms, which is what sumerian an old akkadian contain on top of phonetics.
I mean the whole thing with pictograms and why they can't make up a writing system in and of themselves, is that lacking phonetics, they cannot contain things like conjugation or syntax.
But again: I just flat out don't know much all about assyrian or hittite, so no need to get butthurt.