Senlando:

It seems the Chinese use the word dialect instead of language, in order to try to give the impression of unity, cause truthfully China is made up of many different peoples with their own languages, who used the Chinese written scripted as a sort of "international language of diplomacy and Trade". Many people would disagree with me of course, but that's just my personal opinion on the Chinese language Tree.

What I find amazing is that those characters are still a means of conducting commerce. I have a miserable time communicating in Chinese. My inflections are AWFUL! I am a Japanese speaker, however, so when I go to Taiwan or China I write things down in characters and pray the characters have the same meaning in Chinese. For the most part, they do. On my last trip, however, I discovered that the characters for "letter, correspondance" in Japanese mean "toilet paper" in Chinese. *THAT* was an interesting discussion!

andogigi: What I find amazing is that those characters are still a means of conducting commerce. I have a miserable time communicating in Chinese. My inflections are AWFUL! I am a Japanese speaker, however, so when I go to Taiwan or China I write things down in characters and pray the characters have the same meaning in Chinese. For the most part, they do. On my last trip, however, I discovered that the characters for "letter, correspondance" in Japanese mean "toilet paper" in Chinese. *THAT* was an interesting discussion!

haha, i have a few story's but mostly on inflection mistakes it can be quite a painful experiences for people who didn't grow up with it. From what i know, the Japanese use a great deal of Chinese characters, and a lot of it is the same, in Taiwan, we would often play Japaneses video games but would have to read the script to guess what was going on. And when my sister visited Japan, she said that it was more useful to be able to read the signs if you knew Chinese, then if you knew English. I think there where quite a few cultures in the past that used the Chinese writing, i believe the Koreans also use it until about a 100 years ago. And i think many of high officials in the surrounding countries also used it as it was often used in diplomacy. please correct me if i have my facts wrong.
I just find the Chinese written language, extremely fascinating (although extremely difficult!) as it is the last pictographic language left in use. Its to bad the Egyptians no longer use Hieroglyphs. Now that would be cool to see in common use on the internet

Rogir:The main problems in Dutch spelling are with compounds. Some use an -, some are glued together, some use capitalization, some don't. And accents or not in foreign words is a big issue.

Ah, I have noticed this too - there seems to be no real system there, which confuses casual/lazy learners like me. In English (as you probably know) we have the same problem with compounds, but because we have no central language body nothing gets done about it and no one really cares, instead remembering how different words compound is left to memory (well, in formal settings. Informally you can do what you like ).
Overall though that was quite interesting. I guess if the same thing happened in English you'd have all sorts of problems.

@ Andogigi: I completely agree with the whole Croat/Serb/Mandarin/Cantonese thing. Although I'd add a further phenomenon - that some speakers who are perfectly capable of understanding another language will shut off or attempt to use a bridging language like English. For example, most slavs and germanic peoples could communicate with ease if the speakers made compromises. Instead, often (but not always) there seems to be a shutdown, as if there's some mental blockage brought on by the realisation that it's a 'foreign' language.

Sorry if that didn't make sense, I couldn't find a better way to describe it myself.

Senlando:I "personally" classify a Chinese language, as a language that uses the Chinese written language (which in truth could be classified as its own language, as sign language is.)

Min Dong, Teochew, and Hakka are all Chinese languages written in latin letters. So your personal definition has some issues there.

Back to the thing about reforms, is this meant to be an example of things to come?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllable_rime

The article is about Syllable Rhyming, only Rhyme is spelt Rime - I just found it interesting.

Oŝo-Jabe:

Senlando:I "personally" classify a Chinese language, as a language that uses the Chinese written language (which in truth could be classified as its own language, as sign language is.)

Min Dong, Teochew, and Hakka are all Chinese languages written in latin letters. So your personal definition has some issues there.

i guess your right about that, you can also add Minnan to that list, but i believe that in the past, some of these languages did use the Chinese script, but of course only the educated would be able to read it, and therefor it was quickly lost. but i could be wrong. The adjective Chinese is really like the adjective European, they encompass so many vast and different cultures, i'v even heard a Chinese man say that Korea should be part of China, because their people where originally "Chinese" (whatever that means). which is quite ridiculous as Korean isn't even a tonal language. either way ethnicity and language is no reason to annex another country - as you can see, I'm from the Republic of Taiwan and got a little off topic, sorry about that.

so what was this form about again? haha.

Senlando:so what was this form about again? haha.

I was meant to be the 'author' of the thread, but even I've forgotten the original point

ceigered:

Senlando:so what was this form about again? haha.

I was meant to be the 'author' of the thread, but even I've forgotten the original point

forms always go this way, its like when i start surfing youtube with video clips of architecture in Dubai and end up four hours later watching clips about people with polydactylism (mutation where people grow extra fingers and toes). I have no idea how i got there, but interested non the less.

Senlando:forms always go this way, its like when i start surfing youtube with video clips of architecture in Dubai and end up four hours later watching clips about people with polydactylism (mutation where people grow extra fingers and toes). I have no idea how i got there, but interested non the less.

Same happened to me, except it was an Anime show to "learn Bulgarian!".

andogigi:Is there a central authority (at a government office or university) which is making these decisions? Spelling reform in English has failed miserably in the past for this exact reason. There was no central authority that everyone respected to make these decisions.

Yes, de Taalunie (language union) of the Netherlands, Flanders and Surinam.

I hope that by the next revision the rules about compounds will be cleared up, but I have little faith in it.