Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 14:15:33 -0700 From: "Jack Velte" <jackv@earthling.net> To: "Duncan Barclay" <dmlb@ragnet.demon.co.uk>, "Terry Lambert" <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: <nik@iii.co.uk>, <freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG>, <itojun@itojun.org> Subject: Re: internationalization Message-ID: <01bd9647$bd5a5460$LocalHost@eliot.pacbell.net>
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>On 12-Jun-98 Terry Lambert wrote: >>> > > The origins of Kanji as an ideogrammatic writing system owe more to >>> > > the need for Imperial China to control the availability of persistent >>> > > information available to Chinese Serfs in support of a feudal society >>> > > than they do to their information density compared to alphabetic >>> > > writing systems. >>> > >>> > I have absolutely nothing to add to the discussion, I just want to >>> > hold up the above paragraph as a shining example of why I like these >>> > mailing lists so much :-) >>> >>> I agree, I tend to save more of Terry's articles for the >>> non-computing content than those of other people (as well as saving >>> many for the computing content of course)! >> >> I don't know if I'm supposed to be flattered or offended... I thought >> that the information density of Kanji was relevent. ;-). while agreeing that the information density of Kanji is low (or high, depending how you measure it -- you can say more with fewer characters, anyway), i disagree it was the need to control information. languages evolve and grow and aren't planned [much]. they may have had a lot of cruft over the system to separate "high class" from "lower classes" (like german and old english), but i can't really believe it was planned to hold the peasants down. enough was already holding chinese peasants down... >>> Terry, how do you manage to keep all this in your head, or are you a >>> more advanced version of the JKH Tcl script with AltaVista plug in? >> >> No one can rival Jordan... he's a much better humorist than I will >> probably ever be. boy, jordan can be funny sometimes. it's hard to respond to some of jordan's postings because no response can even come close. >> Some people watch television; I read. A lot. At one point in time, I >> actually ran out of science fiction books to read at my local Carnegie >> Free Library (the Weber County Library at the time), and had to start >> on the history and biography sections. > >I think I almost read all the SiFi too when I was younger (much smaller me too. dr timothy leary said SF was very dangerous mind altering stuff. be careful out there! :-) -jack To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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