The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[Jorge_Stolfi]

But that is not true for the Chinese script -- because it is not phonetic!  In Chinese writing, each symbol (or pair of symbols) represents directly a concept. 

It is not that simple. There is a large group of characters which consist of a radical plus a sound element.  At some point in time, for some version of the language, these sounds helped define the character set.

Yes, originally the characters stood for words.  Some 80-90% of the characters now include a phonetic element; but that element must have been added later, since it is itself an ideographic character.  

However, according to GAI (Google AI) the phonetic elements were accurate only for some Old Chinese language spoken between 1200 BCE and 200 BCE, when the majority of the characters were created.  But then the characters remained frozen while the spoken languages evolved and diverged.  

Thus today the "phonetic" component gives the correct Mandarin pronunciation for somewhat less than 30% of the characters.  For Cantonese it is a bit more than that.  It gives an incorrect but still somewhat useful pronunciation hint for another 40-45% of the characters.

An example of the latter is 怕  = "to fear" or "afraid" which has semantic component 忄= "heart" or "emotion" and phonetic component 白 = "white.

• In Mandarin, 白 is bái while 怕 is pà.
  
• In Cantonese, 白 is baak6 while 怕 is paa3.
  

GAI says that the phonetic element still gives the proper rhyme in Mandarin.

But it is notable that the phonetic element often works in different languages even though the sounds may be very different.  Google AI gives the example of 煌 = "bright".  It consists of the semantic element 火 = "fire", and the phonetic element 皇 = "emperor".  

• In Mandarin, 皇 and 煌 are both pronounced huáng.
  
• In Cantonese, 皇 and 煌 are both pronounced wong4.
  

But he meaning of each character is exactly the same for both Mandarin and Cantonese speakers.

All the best, --stolfi