For example: 漢字 from both 日本語 (JP) and 中文 (ZH) are derivative from semantic concepts based on what they saw around them (when both languages were first created), kind of like this:

There’s more examples of it I can come up with such as the following:

Also, both languages allow this writing orientation (R-L vertical):

I mean, they even have words that are “swapable” (mainly how characters are positioned but retain the same definition) as shown:

The thing is, both languages are logographic which allows for this form of conceptualization regarding vocabulary based on “shape”:

That is in contrast with languages that use alphabets (as those are based on sound) while 日本語 (JP) and 中文 (ZH) are “pictorial” if that makes sense, meaning each character conveys a word or concept rather than a single letter that has no inherent definition.

  • Yaky@slrpnk.net
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    2 hours ago

    IMO the “visual concept” is a weak argument - those are very abstract shapes.

    each character conveys a word or concept rather than a single letter that has no inherent definition.

    And each character consists of strokes, or even unjoined glyphs, making them more eqivalent to a word rather than a letter.

    they even have words that are “swapable”

    In languages that I know, order of compound words mostly matters but order of words in a sentence can change a lot. In Ukrainian and Russian, it could be used for emphasis without tone, e.g. “она пошла домой” (she went home, neutral), “домой она пошла” (she went home), “пошла она домой” (she walked home). But in English, at least in conversational, non-contorted way, word order has to be preserved.

    alphabets (as those are based on sound)

    Well, yes, but, actually, no. Alphabets co-evolved with pronunciation. While Ukrainian and Belarusian (AFAIK) are very close phonetically to written text, Russian has a lot of a-o sound swaps, and English, in addition to a = æ and the th sound is… Well, you just have to know how to pronounce every word because they could derive or be borrowed from Spanish or French or any other latin-script language, but for some reason they keep the original spelling.