There are even times when a Chinese person will have to refer to the writing system to make himself known, though not commonly. This is because in Mandarin there are only a very limited number of possible syllables. All syllables begin with a single consonant (or rather, sound) and end with a vowel, diphthong, -n or -ng. This means that, for example, chang or zhang is possible but blang or trang is not. Because Mandarin has four tones, this means that even within certain phonemes with identical tones you have multiple meanings expressed by radically different characters. One that immediately comes to mind is yì (the fourth tone, a dropping, emphatic sound). The various characters used for that sound are (and these are all written distinctively):
- Meaning, idea (意)
- Subjective (臆)
- Also, too (亦)
- Descendants, posterity (裔)
- Benefit, advantage (益)
- Overflow (溢)
- Hang (縊)
- Friendship (誼)
- Easy (易)
- Justice, righteousness (義)
- Opinion (議)
- To mow, cut down (刈)
- To be lost (軼)
- Leisure (逸)
- To study (肄)
- Firm, resolute (毅)
- Epidemic, disease (疫)
- Labor, service (役)
- Art (藝)
- To talk in one's sleep (囈)
- To translate (譯)
- Immediate (翌)
- Different (異)
- A bird's wing (翼)
I excluded a few of the really obscure ones, like "a towering mountain", which is only encountered in duplicate (yìyì). However, the point is that a Chinese person may refer to "yì" and then say something like "yìshu de yì" when people don't understand, where the longer phrase also means, in this case, "art", and so you know which yì the person is referring to. (de is a particle that is pronounced as a short "duh" - with a shewa sound - and shows possession).
ἡ δὲ κἀκ τριῶν τρυπημάτων ἐργαζομένη ἐνεκάλει τῇ φύσει, δυσφορουμένη, ὅτι δὴ μὴ καὶ τοὺς τιτθοὺς αὐτῇ εὐρύτερον ἢ νῦν εἰσι τρυπώη, ὅπως καὶ ἄλλην ἐνταῦθα μίξιν ἐπιτεχνᾶσθαι δυνατὴ εἴη. – Procopius
Ummaka qinnassa nīk!
*MySmiley*
