Hi all- I would disagree with "Bopomofo is roughly equivalent to hiragana"--
1) Hiragana is part of the Japanese written language, whereas Bopomofo is not part of Chinese written language--Bopomofo is an aid for pronunciation, used primarily for educating children or for computer input in Taiwan; 2) Bopomofo is alphabetic, whereas Hiragana is syllabic (i.e. Bopomofo (albeit inconsistently) represent consonant/vowel sounds, whereas Hiragana represent the pronunciation of an entire syllable). Mark > -----Original Message----- > From: Autrijus Tang [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: 2002�~3��20�� �U�� 6:49 > To: Dan Kogai > Cc: Larry Wall; Jean-Michel Hiver; Anton Tagunov; > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: No phonetic scripts and still happy? > > > On Thu, Mar 21, 2002 at 03:24:34AM +0900, Dan Kogai wrote: > > >: Not as far as I know. Hiragana / Katakana is exclusively > a Japanese > > >: thing ain't it? > > >Yes. Bopomofo is the Chinese equivalent. > > Not quite. Bopomofo is more like international phonetic > symobols; use > > in education but not in real life. And even that seems to > have been > > replaced with Roman equivalent of Ping Ying. > > Bopomofo is roughly equivalent to hiragana; i.e. it's used to > spell out > Chinese characters, and is the dominant input method in Taiwan. > > Although there are plans to ditch BPMF in favor to Hanyu > Pinyin, the vast > majority of Taiwanese people still learns Chinese via > Bopomofo, and the > usage in online communication is considered c00l and 3133t. That is, > frown upon by some senior netizens, but is part of life anyway. > > /Autrijus/ >
