Polysyllabic sinoglyphs
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From Markus Samuel Haselbeck, responding to Egas Moniz-Bandeira on Twitter/X:
As the discussion of polysyllabic sonography goes on, I want to add a character that I recently discovered in a Chinese restaurant, here in Leuven. I guess it is pronounced Zhōngguó (中國), China? https://t.co/1cc65vq4fC pic.twitter.com/UveFSHK3dz
— Markus Samuel Haselbeck (@CiaoCiaota) April 8, 2024
Proof that the sinoglyphic writing system is open-ended, both with regard to the number of sinoglyphs it includes and the number of syllables each glyph contains.
Selected readings
- "A new polysyllabic character" (4/3/16)
- "Polysyllabic characters in Chinese writing " (8/2/11)
- "Polysyllabic characters revisited" (6/18/15)
- "The unpredictability of Chinese character formation and pronunciation" (2/6/12)
- "Yet another polysyllabic Chinese character" (10/31/16)
- "The infinitude of Chinese characters" (9/9/20) — with an extremely long bibliography
Chris Button said,
April 12, 2024 @ 8:49 am
Conversely it's interesting how some Japanese multi-syllabic kun-yomi occasionally vary between one dedicated character and another spelling using one character per syllable.