Dear M, OK, please let me know how I can get these articles. It seems funny for you to send me these from the US, since they are published in Tai-lam. Please just let me know whom I may contact in Aletheia Univ. I know very little about plants. But as to the maple, it seems people call itâpeh8-ka-hiuNâ or âpng-a2â--there may be other local names for it, I guess. (It is very possible that I am wrong about the Taiwanese name(s) for maple. As said, I know very little about plants.) I have never heard that it is called âhong7â. And the only âhong7â as a word I know in Taiwanese, is a verb meaning âto stir up or encourageâ. In a dictionary like Campbellâs, of course, we may find âhong1âfor âmapleâ, but it is how we use âbun-gian-imâ systemto read a Han character, and not every Han character that can be read so is a Taiwanese word. âHan3-bun5â may be a language, but it is not Taiwanese. And, no, I am not at Seng-kong Tai-hak. Lip-bun (Babuza hiaN, Si-chong hiaN, please see the following mails that I forgot tocc you.) -----Original Message-----
From: Yan, M [mailto:]
Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 9:27 PM
To: ''
Subject: RE: [TGB] Konrad's introduction Levin: These two are in the same category. Both try to solve the flood-of-homonym problem in pure phonetic coding of Holo language. Mr. Tan uses 90 letters (30 phonetic, tonal included, and 60 roots). The Holo ideo-phonetic language in the articles has 77 letters (27 phonetic and 50 radical). It also has an ASCII component of additional 22 phonetic letters, total 99 letters. If you know other such system please let me know. I am collecting such information. We have to differentiate among the flood of homonyms before we can have a real serious literature language which should have no or few homonyms for every word. There is much more to a written spelling language than what we can discuss here. We can make a few PhD theses out of it. If you are really interested in the fundamental issues of Holo written language, you should read those articles even just for curiosity. The articles are more academic for common consumption. If you still want and can not find the publications please let me know. I can send you a copy. By the way, are you the Chairman of seng'gong Univ. Taiwanese Dept? Thx.

-----Original Message-----
From: levin [mailto:]
Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 8:14 AM
To: 'Yan, M'
Subject: RE: [TGB] Konrad's introduction Dear M., Thank you for your correction. The âideo-phoneticâ system you mentioned sounds like Mr Tan Kheng-chiuâs invention. I cannot find the publication you mentioned right now. Please let everyone know if my guess is correct or not. Thanks. Levin -----Original Message-----
From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of Yan, M
Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 7:26 PM
To: 'Hokkchu'; ; 'Konrad Hsu Aschenbach'; 'taigu'
Subject: RE: [TGB] Konrad's introduction Babuza: Before we discussion the issue further, please check out the articles on "ideo-phonetic language" in the Aletheir Univ. publication, Tainan Mato. Ideo-phonetic is NOT ideographic. The former is a spelling language, while the latter is a graphic language which includes Han-ji. Thx.

-----Original Message-----
From: Hokkchu [mailto:]
Sent: Sunday, August 24, 2003 8:08 AM
To: Yan, M; ; 'Konrad Hsu Aschenbach'; 'taigu'
Subject: Re: [TGB] Konrad's introduction Tai-keCTT! Tui MR.Yan lai kong, kho-leng kan-ta Big-5 chiah-si bun-ji, ki-thae long m-si. In-ui i kong e bun-te ma chhut-ti Eng-gi kap ki-tha, pau-ham Tiong-kok-hi(chiu-si kan-the e Han-ji). Na-si an-ne chiu bo su-iau liau si-kan kong tho-lun lah. Babuza

----- Original Message ----- From: Yan, M ; Yan, M ; ['taigu'](https://web.archive.org/web/20060117083236/mailto: "") Sent: Friday, August 22, 2003 7:20 PM Subject: RE: [TGB] Konrad's introduction Levin:

"Thx" is a corrupted American word for "Thanks" to close. "Ideo-phonetic" is
not "ideographic". The "ideographic" writing in Chineseis also called Han
Characters.

Taiwanese "ideo-phonetic" language is a spelling language by a 99-letter
alphabet. Said alphabet consists of 3 kinds of letters, namely phonetic to
indicate pronunciation, tonal to lead tonal variation, and radical to
differentiate meaning among the homonyms. There is no Chinese Character per
se in the alphabet.

For example, if I write in Peh-oe-ji "hong". You don't really know what I
mean. You might argue that you could find out in the text. Or rather, you
will "guess" from the text, because in a Peh-oe-ji dictionary "hong" carries
too many meanings (homonyms). If I assign "a middle-tone (the 7th tone, or -
in Church coding) and a radical-wood symbols to it", it indicates "a word
sounds like 'hong' in the 7th tone in the wood category", which seems to
mean "maple" without ambiguity in Taiwanese. This is the basis for the
Taiwanese ideo-phonetic spelling, no Characters for sure.

Thx.