[conlang_learners] khanjis in Sambahsa

[Eugene Oh]

Ironically, 冰 is the Simplified Chinese equivalent of 氷 (go figure), but it
originated as a glyph variant. TTBOMK, 冰 is used in Taiwan only in the name
of a veteran actress, and in all other contexts (as well as in Hong Kong,
Malaysia and Japan) the latter character is used.
Anecdotally, it is actually physically possible to find multiple synonyms
for practically every basic-enough word in Chinese (i.e. not modern
inventions like "computer", and barring debates over what a word is and
where semantic boundaries lie). That's thanks to dialect variation in
vocabulary, all merged into the same literary standard via Qin Shihuang's
unification of the script.

Eugene

2009/7/26 Philip Newton <philip.newton at gmail.com>

> 2009/7/25 Eugene Oh <un.doing at gmail.com>:
> >
> > 赤 and 犬 both are still current, and still mean "red" and "dog" in
> Chinese.
>
> Ah, I suppose I was confused because they're not the "default" words
> for those meanings, as I learned them (that would be 紅 and 狗,
> respectively). I didn't know that the other characters are also used.
>
> I'm not sure whether 冰 would be understood in Japanese, though -- nor
> do I know whether the Japanese 氷 is a separate character or just a
> glyph variant of the Chinese one.
>
> Cheers,
> Philip
> --
> Philip Newton <philip.newton at gmail.com>
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