Interestingly, I've been trying my hand at Chinese. The most intimidating aspect of the language is probably the writing system. Chinese writing is symbolic while western writing is phonetic (or is supposed to be). If I had more discipline in retirement, I'd probably be further on the way in Chinese. The Chinese had the opportunity to abandon the traditional characters for Pinyin Romanization some 45 or 50 years ago. They did not. Literacy in China now is very high, so the probability of abandoning Chinese characters anytime soon is probably very low.
I'm told by people who are fluent and literate both in Chinese and English, that the Chinese symbolic writing system once mastered is a quicker read than the Roman alphabet. Also since the characters stand for the basic word elements in Chinese, you really don't have to worry about spelling. English on the other hand has a chaotic spelling system. So English spelling is taught well into high school. I'm not sure how long Chinese writing is taught in China, but it certainly cannot be substantially longer, even though of the 6000 characters in Modern Chinese, 2000 have made it to the "standard list", which I believe the kids must master. In terms of simplicity as related to keystrokes, I'm not sure you've got equivalence. I'm told the Chinese keep all sort of statistic information concerning their writing system, and that the average number of keystrokes per character is somewhere around 10, and the majority of words in Chinese are actually 2 syllable compounds, requiring 2 characters, and therefore, typically about 20 keystrokes. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than I could confirm this. I suppose the symbolic nature of Chinese characters is analogous to the symbolic nature of J's use of the ASCII character set, but it doesn't take nearly as long to master, and if needed, you can always keep a crib sheet in front of you, at least while in transition. I believe that the effort to learn this is well worth the reward of being able to develop stuff 10 times faster, getting instantaneous gratification/feedback along the way. Bob from Boynton Beach, FL Morten Kromberg wrote: > > Yes, I think that is true. And I don't think the Chinese are ready to > abandon symbols for a technically simpler solution requiring more (but > simpler) symbols. In Denmark, technical limitations of early printing > presses (imported from Germany or the UK) forced us to temporarily abandon > the use of æ, ø and å in favour of multi-character sequences ae, oe and aa > - but as soon as the technology advanced we reclaimed our extra vowels > (except on web addresses :-)). > > Interestingly (perhaps), the entry of the Chinese text probably required > roughly the same number of keystrokes as the English(?). I think the same > comparison holds fairly well if you compare J to APL - because typing APL > requires you to use control, alt or altgr combinations, the number of keys > touched in order to enter an expression is roughly equivalent in the two > languages :-) > > Having objective arguments about what is easiest to read or the best tool > of thought is somewhere between difficult and impossible, even if you are > truly bilingual. Nonetheless, we all have strong opinions. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Roger Hui [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: 20. december 2007 22:16 > To: Chat forum > Subject: RE: Subject: Re: [Jchat] J readability > >>From http://zh.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=J%E8%AF%AD%E8%A8%80&variant=zh-hant > J，是圖靈獎獲得者肯尼斯·艾佛森和許國華(Roger Hui)於九十年代初發明的一種程式語言，是APL語言 > (亦是由艾佛森所創) 、FP、FL函數編程語言的繼承者。 > >>From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_programming_language > The J programming language, developed in the early 1990s by Ken Iverson > and Roger Hui, is a synthesis > of APL (also by Iverson) and the FP and FL function-level languages > created by John Backus. > > I suppose one billion or so Chinese speakers may agree with the assertion > that one symbol = one token is intrinsically more readable. In fact, it > is > more compact, even more so if you remove the phrase 圖靈獎獲得者 > (Turing award winner) from the Chinese which is not in the English. > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Morten Kromberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: Thursday, December 20, 2007 11:19 > Subject: RE: Subject: Re: [Jchat] J readability > To: 'Chat forum' <[email protected]> > >> In a language where trains of primitives have powerful meanings: >> hooks, forks and other tacit constructs - the idea that "one >> symbol = one token" is not intrinsically more readable than >> variable-length sequences involving punctuation marks, is very >> hard for me to get my head round. But I'm happy to admit it >> could just be "old APL dog" syndrome. > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Subject%3A-Re%3A-J-readability-tp14430048s24193p14459490.html Sent from the J Chat mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
