"Alex" > writes:

> Lewis Perin wrote:
> > This is fascinating stuff. But - and please don't take this as a
> > protest - from the standpoint of someone who's never systematically
> > studied the language, it seems like a tremendous amount to learn in
> > order to understand a character. It makes me wonder how many readers
> > of, say, Chinese newspapers have this level of literacy.
>
> That's the problem, right? It takes years of concerted effort even for
> native speakers, even using simplified characters.

And wouldn't simplified characters make the etymological understanding
in Samarkand's post harder to attain? Simplified characters are
easier to write, but they often hide the full compound nature of
traditional characters.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html