Talk:Origin of Hangul

Doesn't this theory on the origin of Hangul belong in the Korean alphabet article? --Macrakis 23:54, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

It was there originally, and is still summarized there, but was moved because people didn't feel that it had sufficient support to be treated there at length. kwami 02:24, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Overstatement of Ledyard's position

Several articles have contained statements like "Ledyard believes that Phagspa was the source for Hangul". Having recently read Ledyard's 1966 doctoral thesis The Korean Language Reform of 1446, I would like to correct this.

Ledard says: (p.376)

I have devoted much space and discussion to the role of the Mongol 'phags-pa alphabet in the origin of the Korean alphabet, but it should be clear to any reader that, in the total picture, that role was quite limited.

And: (p. 368)

The origin of the Korean alphabet is, in fact, not a simple matter at all. Those who say it is "based" in 'phags-pa are partly right; those who say it is "based" on abstract drawings of articulatory organs are partly right. ... It is because everybody is "partly" right that they are wrong. ... Nothing would disturb me more, after this study is published, than to discover in a work on the history of writing a statement like the following: "According to recent investigations, the Korean alphabet was derived from the Mongol 'phags-pa script..."

And finally: (p. 370)

In other words,'phags-pa contributed none of the things that make this script perhaps the most remarkable in the world.

-- Dominus 00:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

"Post hoc" explanation

The article says:

Ledyard believes that the traditional account of the derivation of the hangul consonants from the shapes of the speech organs, as described in the Hunmin Jeong-eum, is a post hoc explanation. . .

As stated, this appears to be false; Ledyard does not believe that the Hunmin Cheongum Haerye explanation is post hoc:

After the discovery of the Hunmin chong'um haerye in 1940 . . . any Korean doubts (and there had been some) over the origin of the letter shapes were dissolved by the Haerye's revelation that the letters had been designed to depict the outline of speech organs involved in the articulation of the various classes of consonants (translated above). Along with general scholarly opinion in Korea and internationally, I accept the Haerye's testimony as both convincing and authoritative. I consider it to be an unmovable rock of fact that is not only strongly documented but makes sense in its own terms. . . . Against this background, I can proceed with an investigation of 'Phags-pa and Korean letter shapes, recognizing that any conclusions must accomodate the Haerye's speech organ explanation of the Korean letter shapes.

(Gari Ledyard, "The international linguistic background of the correct sounds for the instruction of the people", in The Korean Alphabet: its History and Structure, University of Hawai`i Press, Honolulu, 1997, p.57.)

Accordingly, I am going to rewrite that part of the article to conform more closely with the facts.

-- Dominus 16:03, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

The Title of this article

The title should be changed to something along the lines of "Development of Hangul". "Origin of Hangul" implies that Hangul was based on another writing system, which is in contradiction to the majority of the belief that it is an artificial script. Wookie919 (talk) 03:56, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no such implication. "Origin of writing" does not imply that writing was itself based on an earlier writing system. On the other hand, you could argue that "development of hangul" implies that hangul developed from another writing system. kwami (talk) 05:48, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Let me confirm that kwami (talk) is right, there is absolutely nothing faulty with the title as the way it stands. Also regarding the English language, the words "Origin of X" does NOT in any way imply that X was based on something else. For example: Origin of the universe, Origin of life, e.t.c. - Agnistus (talk) 03:58, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Alright, I accept. Wookie919 (talk) 03:15, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

How about "Historical hangul usage" or "History of hangul"? 60.48.231.179 (talk) 04:30, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

romanization of ㆍ (araea)

In this article, currently ㆍ (아래아, araea) is romanized as ə. But since ㆍ is no longer in use in modern Korean, no one is sure how ㆍ was actually pronounced and as a result therefore there's no romanization rule for ㆍ. Do we still need to romanize ㆍ as ə? --­ (talk) 19:16, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

That's what I've always seen in the lit, e.g. in Ledyard and I believe Kim-Renauld, though I'm open to suggestions if you're used to a different convention. But you could make the same argument about all the vowels: We don't really know how any of them were pronounced (though ㅣ and ㅜ were probably pretty much like they are today), so by the same logic you could argue that ㅏ should not be romanized as a when discussing the 15th century. Even today there isn't a consistent pronunciation, but that doesn't affect romanization. kwami (talk) 19:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

So you mean, ㆍ is officially romanized as ə, not only in Wikipedia? (I personally think the best way to romanize Korean is just not romanizing it; Korean really struggles with romanization.) --­ (talk) 07:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, "official" implies government sanction, which I don't know is the case. But yes, <ə> is what I've seen in the lit. It's not just Wikipedia.

Let's see ... Kim-Renaud transcribes it <ʌ>. That's not as well-known a symbol to most English speakers. (Everyone sees ə in school, but most Usonians at least have never seen a ʌ.) kwami (talk) 08:16, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Some people say it was ə, and some people say it was ʌ. In modern Korean, it stands for [ɒ] in Jeju dialect. I think we'd better not romanize it. ə, ʌ, and ɒ are not even romanizations; they're just IPAs for it. --­ (talk) 21:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

If we don't romanize it, how do we write it? ə is simply a convention for transcription, which is all that romanization is. ə is also what's used in the primary source for this article. The IPA may be [ʌ], [ɒ], or [a], but that's not particularly relevant here. kwami (talk) 21:27, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

OK. Then I'll just leave as it is. --­ (talk) 21:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Copyright of Hangul?

BTW, you say Sejong didn't copyright hangul, making it free for people to use. But was there any concept of copyright at all in 15th century Korea? kwami (talk) 08:18, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

No, but if King Sejong held copyright on Hangul, people couldn't use Hangul at all; that's why Hangul was on public domain when it was first promulgated. --­ (talk) 21:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

But 'what-if' speculation is OR. I don't see the point in placing the 15th-century origin of hangul in the context of the 20th century. People will also be confused by this, because there's no logical connection to public domain. I thought when you wrote 'ministers in public domain' maybe you meant 'ministers of public affairs' or something, and that the link was a mistake. kwami (talk) 21:27, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I just fixed the first sentence so that people don't get confused. And it doesn't matter the copyright law was on the 15th century or not. It's based on the "modern sense." --­ (talk) 21:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

No, you say that Sejong promulgated it "in [the] public domain", and now "copyleft" as well. Not that we would consider it so today, but that he promulgated it that way. And even if I bought your argument, it's not copyleft in the modern sense either, because you can't copyright a writing system. It makes no sense to say he did A, when it's impossible to do not-A. kwami (talk) 06:28, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, in this case, King Sejong could copyright the writing system because basically he made it on his own. In the modern sense, it can be either in the public domain or copyleft. --­ (talk) 06:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

No, he could not. You cannot copyright a writing system. Or prove me wrong with a reference. kwami (talk) 06:45, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

This case is different. Hangul was not naturally made; it was purposely made by him. Therefore he could copyright it. --­ (talk) 06:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Repeating a false claim doesn't make it true, no matter how many times you say it. You cannot copyright a writing system. Let's try that again: You cannot copyright a writing system. If you believe I'm wrong, show me an example of anyone who has successfully copyrighted a writing system. kwami (talk) 06:54, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

All right, you've hit 3RR (once again) with this nonsense. Once more and I'll ask to have you blocked. kwami (talk) 06:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Then is there any reason why no one can copyright a writing system? --­ (talk) 05:43, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

That's international copyright law. So, for example, Tolkien's tengwar is not copyrighted, despite the fact that the books they're found in are still under copyright. I think you can't copyright a language either, but I'm not sure. kwami (talk) 08:12, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

에멜무지로, you're causing the same nonsense with the same original research at Korean Wikipedia, and doing the same thing? #한글, [1]--Caspian blue (talk) 07:06, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Hangul might be from Sanskrit

"...With the assistance of the Envoys who had acquired at Nanking a knowledge of the different alphabets in use by countries bordering on China, viz., Mongol, Thibetan, Burmese ; and especially of Sanscrit, which was then largely studied in connection with Buddhist liturgy and ritual, the King evolved the present Corean alphabet...."

"The Sanscrit alphabet passed from India through Thibet into China, and by the time it finally reached Corea the letters had been subjected to great modifications, necessitated from the circumstance that they had to be written, down the page,' with a Chinese pen or rather brush, instead of horizontally with the Indian reed. Again under Corean hands this Sanscrit alphabet was further transformed, much as English print differs from English writing—the Coreans curtailed and modified the square or angular shaped letters of the Sanscrit into a short cursive script for convenience and speed in writing. And it is from this cursive script that the Coreans have evolved the form and construction of the letters of their alphabet."

A table of comparison of the Sanscrit and Hangul is shown: Scott, James. A Corean manual or phrase book: with introductory grammar (1893) pp. xv-xvi —Preceding unsigned comment added by Greg Best (talk • contribs) 05:11, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Wow, what a great thing to dig up! Thanks very much. —Dominus (talk) 06:26, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

That is indeed interesting! Here's a working link to that table at the Internet Archive: A Corean manual or phrase book with introductory grammar. 2d. ed. Published 1893 by English Church Mission Press in Seoul, by James Scott, M.A., p. xvi —Kai Carver (talk) 18:37, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Sourcing concerns

I have a couple concerns with this article's sourcing. The first is that one of the Ledyard sources is just a dissertation. I'm not sure if this meets the wiki-standards for verifiability/reliable sources, but in any case I'm sure there are plenty of published books that can be used instead.

The second concern is that there's a mixing of footnotes and citations, particularly note 8 about "If you have the font Code2000". I'm not experienced enough to draw a clear distinction between notes, footnotes and references, but perhaps someone else can work on this.

I also added a fact tag to the part about hangul being the emperor's pet project, because the source I added states that his exact role in its development is unclear. So a citation for who/where this comes from is a good idea. Recognizance (talk) 22:41, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The Ledyard dissertation (which was written in 1966) has been published in book form more than once since then. It is, for obvious reasons, the canonical source for information about Ledyard's theory of the origin of Hangul. Since the section of the article that is cited to it specifically concerns Ledyard's own theory, I don't think you're going to find a more reliable or authoritative source. It certainly satisfies Wikipedia standards, as it is a published, peer-reviewed scholarly work. Have you read Gari Ledyard?

I recall that the Ledyard book takes up the question of whether Sejong was directly involved with the invention of Hangul, or whether he merely put his name to work done by other scholars at his command. It concludes that Sejong was indeed personally involved, and might well be a source for the claim that it was a pet project of his. —Dominus (talk) 04:46, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm new to the wiki culture and was trying to go by WP:SPS ("caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so"). But since the obvious question to whether I'd read the article on the author or even heard of him is no, I probably acted too quickly.

If I get a chance tomorrow, I'll look up the tidbit about the degree of the emperor's involvement. The footnote/citation confusion is still an issue though. Recognizance (talk) 05:36, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

A bit of caution is required with Fischer. According to his book Glyphbreaker, he's the greatest epigrapher who's ever lived. Funnily enough, he is apparently the only one who thinks so. kwami (talk) 08:02, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. :) Thanks for the tweaking my additions to the lead, by the way. I hope the way I started out didn't give the wrong impression - I do admire the work you've done here, which is what inspired me to want to help improve it. Recognizance (talk) 17:53, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Why would it give the wrong impression? I might not agree with the accuracy of a particular word, but it was still an improvement. kwami (talk) 21:23, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

A doctoral dissertation is not a self-published source, so WP:SPS is not relevant. —Dominus (talk) 22:06, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification, Dominus. And Kwami, I was referring to the ill-informed way I started the section off. Recognizance (talk) 23:34, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Hey, do any of you think that with full inline sourcing, this might qualify for FA? Or is it too centered on Ledyard? kwami (talk) 22:49, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Funny you bring it up that way. I was thinking the same thing when I started this section. It partly depends on how much of the article comes from Kim-Renaud, which has no inline citations to it. When I made the comment about "just a disseration" what I was getting at was that including other sources who concur with Ledyard's theory would be helpful in establishing him as the authoritative source. Recognizance (talk) 23:34, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Kana?

Probably not the best place to ask my "heretical" theory, but has any one noticed that Japanese katakana ス (su) is virtually identical to the jamo ㅈ (j) - especially in hand-written form? Although neither ス (su) nor ズ (zu) match phonetically, hangul clearly didn't materialise from a vacuum. The Japanese kana systems predate hangul by 6 centuries, King Sejong's wise scholars must have known about it. I'm curious. Cashie (talk) 14:14, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Possible, but hangul doesn't function anything like kana. Also, the Koreans saw the Japanese as being on the fringes of civilization; given that kana aren't adequate to transcribe Korean, I don't see any motivation to use them. After all, hangul ㅇ looks like a numeral 0, which also predates it, and hangul ㅣ looks like a Latin I. With simple geometric shapes, physical appearance can easily be coincidence. — kwami (talk) 16:30, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Cultural references

Where should a link to Deep Rooted Tree (as a fictionalisation of the events of the alphabet's creation) be put? Jackiespeel (talk) 13:07, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Improper statements

The statement "in the gradual and unconscious way that Tibetan derived from Brāhmī" is quite offensive to users of other Brahmic-descended abugidas, espcially of Tibetan, as only the Tibetan consonant glyphs are gradually derived from Indic scripts (thus yes if the Phagspa theory were to be true, Hangul as to Phagspa is more like Fraser's Lisu abugida as to Roman alphabet than Tibetan as to Siddham, in terms of glyphs, albeit Tibetan also applies the Hangul/Fraser way and "invented" letters such as ཊཋཌཎ), Tibetan orthography is nothing less deliberately changed than Hangul does to Phagspa - the tseg system works exactly like the Hangul spacial configrations: བདུན would be understood as baduna if Tibetan were an Brahmic abugida, however in the Tibetan tseg system it is apparent that this is bdun through a systematic way of finding head, pre, base, medial and final letters (unlike Thai which judges it arbitrarily and contains ambiguity such that even modern computers cannot tell the syllable boundary and thus unable to transliterate it). This entire section is written in a tone of Korean exceptionalism as if Hangul is special and its invention were not comparable to invention of any other alphabets, but this is neither true in glyph design nor in orthographical design. I'm going to tag the article with POV. --146.96.29.135 (talk) 23:05, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

You already tagged the article at this point; it's overkill to tag the whole article as POV because you dispute one statement in it.

I would appreciate a source that supports what you describe. — kwami (talk) 03:57, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand what source you are expecting, as "the way that Tibetan derived from Brāhmī was unconscious" is an opinion (which may or may not be due to Ledyard), that this opinion is offensive is a sociology topic, so you might need a sociologist to find a source for that, and I highly doubt if there is one, but come on, think about the following scenario: if I put a sentence "Hangul is not ugly, in the way the Roman alphabet is" in the article, and you tag the article NPOV and offensive, and I ask you to find a source that supports what your claim, would that be appropriate? There's most likely not going to be a socialogy paper discussing why calling Roman alphabet ugly is offensive.

If you are asking for a specific statement, such as "བདུན is bdun rather than baduna, as opposed to Siddham", I would like to provide a source. But since most are basic common senses (well, some may argue that there used to be a schwa between b and d in Old Tibetan, but no one would put a vowel, or even a schwa, after n), I would appreciate if you can point out which statement needs further citiation. A number of published materials have established that in Old Tibetan time the aspiration distinction was not phonemical, however, the inventer of Tibetan apparently removed the Siddham/proto-Nagari gh, jh, dh, bh series and intentionally substitute them with ligatures (such as g+h,...), but meanwhile kept the voiceless aspirated series, as they did have phonetical value among speakers of Old Tibetans. The syllable egs was not written as vowelLetterE,GA,halanta,SA,halanta, but as consonantletterA,vowelmarkE,GA,SA,tseg. This fundamental topological difference from Indic scripts is not seen in most Trans-Himalayan alphabets (and by doing such, the Tibetan Sanskrit alphabet, which keeps the halanta system, might be considered the first true abugida - not including any alphabetic vowels - among all Indic scripts).

According to the Tibetan tradition, it took Thonmi Sambhota several months in a house in Lhasa to invent the Tibetan alphabet that has the above features, so I do consider the opinion stated in this article very inappropriate. That entire section, promoting Korean as special by degrading other alphabets, is problematic, thus this article deserve a POV tag, not just one sentence. That sentence has some accuracy problems, which doesn't mean the other part is in a correct tone (Hangul is special, but that should not be established through degrading other alphabets). 146.96.25.103 (talk) 23:11, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that is indeed the kind of thing you can reference.

I changed the example to Greek > Latin, which was simply the adaptation of neighboring alphabet to a new language [through etruscan].

As for hangul exceptionalism, there are plenty of RS's that hangul is exceptional. You may find that offensive, but we don't censor WP based on what you find offensive. We will, of course, make factual corrections such as tibetan being a conscious creation. — kwami (talk) 18:44, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Sorry I still don't get what you refers to by "that". Would you please point it out mlre specifically? Thanks. For most of that I believe the phonotactics section of Hill, Nathan W. (2010a), "Overview of Old Tibetan synchronic phonology" (PDF), Transactions of the Philological Society, 108 (2): 110–125, doi:10.1111/j.1467-968X.2010.01234.x, archived (PDF) from the original on 28 July 2013 would work.

Yeah, Greek > Latin might be a good example of unconscious development, though I am not very certain of the letter W.

Every script is special in a sense, but calling a script exceptional is subjective a d unencyclopediac. For example, one can say Chinese is exceptional among common scripts as it is a "logogram"-based system, but if one looks at the historical Chinese phonology since Zhou dynasty one could say Chinese was and is a syllabary (in that almost no two Chinese characters beared exact same pronunciation in reconstructed Old Chinese while modern homophones could be explained the same way on Tkbetan homophones - nobody calls Tibetan a logograms system due to modern Lhasa homophones) while kanjis are logograms (as the Japanese love using kun-heterograms). It might still be way better to call Chinese a logogram system instead of a syllabary because the latter statement would bring way worse confusion to the reader than the small confusion logogram could bring (so nobody would like to claim that way). However, it's better not to call Chinese exceptional due to that convenient classification "logogram" because for each feature Chinese character has, one can find a similar feature in a phonogram system - it is the combination of the features makes Chinese writing a logogram system, or special. Same logic, hangul is special in that it fits into the syllable structure of the MSEA sprachbund (more specifically the Sino-Korean vocabulary) perfectly, though not so much in Korean phonological structure. I doube if any RS would describe hangul exceptional (unless there's highly emotional ones which really shouldn't be considered reliable) as that would require ruling out any featural similarity between hangul and a different system, but I do believe there should be a good amount of RS calling it special. Saying a system special is never offensive, but emphasize its specialness (or exceptionalness) based on degrading other system is offensive - it's not me but I don't think any serious publication would call Tibetan "unconcious". 146.96.29.114 (talk) 00:00, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

The statement "Besides the grouping of letters into syllables, like what Tibetan does, in the form of squares, like what Chinese does" did not at all claimed the syllable blocks to be "based on" Tibetan. It is simply stating the fact that hangul is similar to Tibetan in the way that it has a syllable block, while it is similar to Chinese in that each syllable is a squared character. All past scripts such as Chinese, Tibetan, Sogdian and Greek may or may not have inspired Sejong the Great's team when they development of hangul, but that's not the topic of that statement. 146.96.29.114 (talk) 00:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

There is no W in the Latin alphabet.

There are plenty of RS publications that state hangul is "exceptional", so that's not an issue.

Tibetan is not similar. Tibetan doesn't have syllabic blocks, it has consonant clusters. For example, Tibetan tseg is written ཚེག, with two "blocks", one for each consonant despite it being a single (and simple) syllable. Korean would do that with one block. There's no purpose to adding Tibetan to that statement, and doing so fails SYNTH. — kwami (talk) 00:23, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Tseg ཚེག་ is one block. Tse ga are two: ཚེ་ག་. Talking about syllable block Tibetan is no less than hangul, only more complicated syllables. Only in Tibetan Sanskrit alphabet would ཚེག become two blocks and read tsega, but from the begining we were not discussing Tibetan Sanskrit alphabet. Mentioning Tibetan doesn't fail SYNTH unless one put an opinion with that. SYNTH doesn't deal with merely stating helpful facts. --146.96.29.114 (talk) 00:30, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

For example, if Tibetan doesn't have a syllable block structure and inherit the Sanskrit one, བསྡུས་རྟགས་གཡོན་ would have to be written as བ྄སྡུས྄རྟག྄ས྄ག྄ཡོན྄. Note the fundamental difference between the function of tseg and the of halanta. 146.96.29.114 (talk) 00:51, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

That's just a syllable marker, like claiming the Latin script is written in syllable blocks when Wade-Giles hyphenates "Tai-lun". That's nothing like Korean.

You're engaged in OR and pushing an obviously false claim with no RS's no back you up. If you continue to edit war rather than seek consensus, I will ask to have the article protected so that you can't edit it. — kwami (talk) 01:00, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

That's an inappropriate analogy, because in Latin such as Vietnamese Quoc Ngu alphabet/Chinese WadeGiles, the presence of - (or space for Quoc Ngu) doesn't tell you how you should read a letter. However, in Tibetan, ག་ཡ་ག་, ག་ཡག་, གཡག་ and གྱག represents four dramatically different pronunciation, but only the first two can be explained by syllable delimiter. The latter two represent the structure of Tibetan syllable block instead of a syllable delimiter like Quoc Ngu alphabet does. In no ways could Quoc Ngu or Wide-Giles delimiter represent that difference out. It is the relative spacial location of the three letters གཡག inside a syllable block (bounded by two delimiters) determines how they should be pronounced, which is nothing like WadeGiles (where no special information between delimiters can tell you any phonotactic information) or Indic scripts (where one stacked letter is one block). You should probably have some basic idea about Old Tibetan phonotactics from that RS I mentioned above in order not to make an invalid analogy like that. --146.96.29.114 (talk) 01:10, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

In the Yale romanization of Cantonese, whether a letter is at the beginning or end of a syllabic "block" determines how it's pronounced. But that's beside the point, because that's not what you claimed.

"grouping of letters into syllables, like what Tibetan does, in the form of squares". Please show me how Tibetan groups letters into syllables in the form of squares. — kwami (talk) 01:39, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

I think English is primarily right-branching (head-initial). The sentence reads "Besides the grouping of letters into syllables like what Tibetan does, in the form of squares like what Chinese does". Tibetan text group letters into syllables but Chinese text doesn't, Chinese text has syllables in the form of squares but Tibetan doesn't. I think the statement is very clear. --146.96.29.114 (talk) 01:54, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Ah yes, good catch. Can you supply a source that Chinese groups letters in the form of squares? — kwami (talk) 02:23, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

I have no clue why you are keep playing word game, when I made it clear I meant "Tibetan text group letters into syllables but Chinese text doesn't, Chinese text has syllables in the form of squares but Tibetan doesn't", which clearly didn't at all mean Chinese groups letters in the form of squares.

You are presumably a native English speaker which I am not. If you consider that sentence ambiguous you can easily change it in an unambiguous way that still carry the same information, instead of pushing meaning to it. When you first said "how Tibetan groups letters into syllables in the form of squares" I was surprised that you had a dramatically different understanding of the sentence. But when you keep adding new meaning to it after I had explicitly told you that's not the way the sentence meant to say, I am not sure whether it due to an indeliberate catching of ambiguity from the perspective of a native speaker or something totally different. 146.96.28.28 (talk) 23:04, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Your Yale romanization of Cantonese, whether a letter is at the beginning or end of a syllabic "block" determines how it's pronounced example is an interesting perspective, but it's not necessarily the case, as in Yale romanization one can easily treat the space or "-" as an omitable zero initial or even glottal stop and the linear direction still carries the full speech phonemical information. The so called "determines how it's pronounced" is merely allophones of consonants on whether it's before or after the glottal stop. Actually, not only Cantonese p/t/k/m/n/ng, the Mandarin n can also have different pronunciation depending on its location. But that all such examples can not at all be comparable to the Tibetan case that location of a letter in a block determines how it's pronounced phonemically with minimal pairs, such as gyag and g.yag. Also in Tibetan even if intersyllabic variants across a tseg cannot be explained as a phenonmenon of zero initials - the s in syllable combiniations gangs bag and gang sbag cannot be explained by inserting any zero initial phoneme between syllables. So no, unless you find a RS that gives gyag/g.yag-like minimal pairs in Cantonese or Vietnamese you cannlt make such a claim. 146.96.28.28 (talk) 23:23, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

That Old Tibetan phonology article supports it. Please check it first before claiming I have no source. In Tibetan the majority of consonant letters with no halant sign represents pure consonant with no vowel A, and whether it's with A or without A is not judged by whatever marks on the letter but by the location of that letter in its syllable block. 146.96.29.114 (talk) 01:01, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Supports what? That hangul is like Tibetan script? — kwami (talk) 01:38, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

It supports that Tibetan text do group letters into syllable blocks (thus g.yag is not pronounced gayaga), and that the spacial location of a letter inside a block determines how it should be read (unlike Wade Giles), as a medial or as a primary initial (such as the difference between gyag and g.yag). --146.96.29.114 (talk) 01:57, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

In other words, like Wade-Giles rather than like hangul. — kwami (talk) 02:22, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

I think our disscussion can only work if both of us have common sense. I already mentioned "It is the relative spacial location of the three letters གཡག inside a syllable block (bounded by two delimiters) determines how they should be pronounced, which is nothing like WadeGiles" before and you still made an extraordinary claim "spacial location of a letter inside a block determines how it should be read" was "like Wade-Giles rather than like hangul", without any explanation. I mean, I respect that you can have converse opinion but when directly calling my point is "in other word" your point you should at least list some fact supporting that. Since last week I mentioned the gyag example a number of times but you never had anything supporting your WadeGiles claim. That (In oyher words, like...; Ah yes, good catch...) doesn't sound like a right mood to discuss, but sounds more like an "wikt:不聽不聽，王八念經" interjection. 146.96.28.28 (talk) 23:34, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I didn't think I needed to spell out the obvious. But however you spin the POV you're pushing, you need sources. Without that, your beliefs are completely irrelevant. — kwami (talk) 00:31, 9 November 2022 (UTC)