LiliCharlie

DYK

I put Nôm up for a DYK. I also put a note on the talk page addressing with the various issues that were so controversial on en Wiki. Kauffner (talk) 23:44, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Character question

I gave the composition of 𠶡 as ⿰口磊. Does that look right to you? This character is either in Kangxi, or not. If it was actually in Kangxi, that would make it a standard Chinese character. But none of the character dictionary sites have much to say about it. Kauffner (talk) 03:39, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Nope, 𠶡 isn’t ⿰口磊, but ⿰口𥐧. The latter character is U+25427 and is in Unicode’s CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B block, like 𠶡 which is U+20da1. An alternative character description for 𠶡 is ⿰口⿱石廾. This is more complex but has three common Kāngxī radicals as its components.

Neither 𠶡 nor 𥐧 are in Emperor Kāngxī’s Dictionary. (My copy has a Four Corner Method index for the dictionary and its appendices, and there is no 𠶡 under 6104.6, nor 𥐧 under 1044.6.) — If you want to make sure yourself that it’s not on page 196 of the dictionary (which is the source given) go to www.kangxizidian.com/org/index.php, click radical 口 (the first one with three strokes), then enter 196 in the search box above the image, click the 快速跳頁 button and look at the characters with 口+8strokes on that page. (The last three characters on page 196 are 口+9strokes.)

BTW the Unicode source “0196.261” given in the field kIRGKangXi is a virtual source: It is the place the character 𠶡 would occupy if it were in the dictionary; it would be character #261 on the last page for radical 口+8strokes (=p. 196). The source “Kangxi: p.196#26” given on ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&char=𠶡 is a plain error. —LiliCharlie (talk) 05:14, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

It certainly looks like your right. In my defense, I can only say they that I got ⿰口磊 from the Institute of Vietnamese Studies. (It's like the Nôm Foundation, only geared toward Vietnamese speakers.)

I see why this character is troublesome. Generally speaking, the remainder is a Chinese character and the Han-Viet reading is used as a phonetic. But in this case, the remainder is itself a Nôm character. Kauffner (talk) 06:44, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

That’s right. And 𥐧 & 𠶡 are probably homophones or near-homophones in Vietnamese, maybe even orthographic variants of the same character. But apart from that Unicode’s ideographic descriptions are merely visual descriptions. That is to say that even if 𠶡 was a shorthand form for 𡂳 (with 廾 replacing 砳) ⿰口磊 would not be correct for 𠶡 but only for 𡂳. —LiliCharlie (talk) 08:36, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

FWIW: A search for characters with the component 𥐧 yielded the following: 𠶡𣷮𤊠𥇼𥓹𩸷𫃫. The first six of these are in the CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B block, the remaining 𫃫 in Extension C. —LiliCharlie (talk) 09:17, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

• 𥐧 is lỏi. In Han-Viet, 磊 is lối. In Nôm, it's whatever -- the Nôm Foundation gives 14 readings. As for trối, it could be written either 𠶡 or 𡂳. It's the Vietnamese equivalent to OMG. I hear it all the time, which is why I selected the character. On another issue, Arbcom has turned me down. Kauffner (talk) 12:39, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Writing

Good collaboration efforts on the article for writing. Looks better than ever now. Cheers Cultural guru (talk) 13:23, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

However, I personally disagree that they were all developed independently due to close proximity of the cultures. Cultural influence spread and so did symbols from the script. It was bound to happen, however, due to the Vinča cache containing over 200 symbols when the average alphabet contains less than 30. Cultural guru (talk) 13:30, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

But I won't make any changes to it, it is in its best form for Wikipedia. Cultural guru (talk) 13:31, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words. I agree that no further changes would improve the article.

Haarmann (1991) cites five references for Vinča symbols not being related to later scripts. The main reasons for this are the full two millennia that separate them, as well as the frequent occurrence of similar character shapes in modern or historical writing systems. (With the writing material used it is even probable that certain simple shapes are preferred.) And, as you say, the sheer number of symbols adds to the probability of coincidental similarities.

Who said that the Vinča symbols repesented an alphabet? —LiliCharlie (talk) 14:06, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Well Marija Gimbutas coined the term 'old European script' indicating that it was a sort of proto writing, but was never said to be a fully developed written language. The symbols, however, are found to be ubiquitous across the Balkan for that time, meaning that there must have been a mutual understanding of them. I'm not too familiar, and it seems that linguists are not either so I am unable to make a statement of certainty. Perhaps the Vinca cache was readily available for millenia for the use by other cultures that eventually the most popular spread? It's an interesting topic. I hope they discover more but it seems the investigation was severely slowed down. Cultural guru (talk) 17:36, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

@LiliCharlie: Hi LiliCharlie. I've seen that you've discussed in the Help:IPA for Italian talk in the past, so I thought you could help me to understand a thing. Note 5 of the help page says: "the n in /nɡ/~/nk/ is a velar [ŋ], and the one in /nf/~/nv/ is the labiodental [ɱ]". I was wondering why in the symbol list does appear ŋ but ɱ doesn't, but I've read in the same note: "but for simplicity, ⟨m⟩ is used here". Why such a distinguo is made here? In Italian a nasal always assimilates to the following consonant, so ŋ can be found just before k and g while ɱ can be found just before f and v. If it's for simplicity, then also ŋ should be transcribed as n (since, unlike in other languages, in Italian this sound can't be found elsewhere). But this makes the transcription less accurate. Then, why doesn't ɱ have its own place in the list? It's weird to me such a different treatment... Could you enlighten me about this issue, please? Thank you if you will! Emonteleon (talk) 11:30, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

@Emonteleon: That's correct.

Italian pre-consonantal nasals and the consonants they precede (even across word boundaries) are always homorganic, and the distinction between m and other nasals is a purely orthographic one (which applies only within words in current orthography, but is disregarded across word boundaries). /N/ (the pre-consonantal nasal archiphoneme without the phonemic opposition /m~n~ɲ/) is definitely realized as [ɱ] when it precedes labiodentals ([f; v]) and as [m] when it precedes bilabials ([p; b; m]); and otherwise preceding consonants with other places of articulation. — Those who assert that labiodentals and bilabials are different from one another (and not just “labials”) are compelled to assert that the nasal allophones preceding them have different places of articulation as well. Exactitude for [n~ŋ] but “simplicity” for [m~ɱ] is justifyable neither on phonemic („emic“) grounds, nor on literally phonetic (“etic”) ones. LiliCharlie (talk) 18:38, 22 December 2018 (UTC)