And in what universe does the word for direction, road, or even school of thought also mean say? The Chinese predilection for loading five unconnected meanings on the same hanzi baffles me. Chinese has way more* characters than Japanese but Japanese doesn't work its kanji nearly as hard. (Shall start a society for the relief of overworked and underpaid hanzi. Am soliciting contributions now.)
Linguistically it makes sense - it means you only have to learn to write and pronounce one. It's easier to load alternate meanings onto a hanzi you already know than to learn to write a whole new one. But you already know Japanese, is the thing, so it doesn't help you that way. XD
IMO none of those meanings are actually unconnected anyway: they're semantically or metaphorically related to the concept of road, highway, path (of least resistance, of thought/ideas - you use this character to mean "speech" because you can have a "train of speech" in the same way you have a "train of thought", except for "train" read "road". Come to think of it, the word "train" has just as many meanings in English if not more.)
Anyway the thing is, the Japanese "chose" (of course it's not a choice, it just ended up that way) to make their rule of thumb one meaning, multiple sounds. Chinese is one sound, multiple meanings.
I still don't see it. You have a perfectly good hanzi for say-- several perfectly good hanzi, in fact, which IIRC mean nothing other than 'say' or 'state' or whatever. Why force poor old road into such metaphorical hyper-extensions?
But of course train is *different*. ^_^
I'd grumpily say I prefer many readings, one meaning, but being at present knee-deep in some non-fic Japanese work I rather incline to the Chinese mode just now. Meanings are easier to remember than readings. Of course this isn't a problem for people who don't subvocalize, but it's a bitch for those of us who do.
Actually there are Chinese words that have double reading/pronunciation and double meanings. For example, my surname: 曾. Pronounced Zeng or Ceng. Zeng as 曾祖父 grandfather and Ceng as 曾经 for once.
At least a connection with 道 can be made, down a tortuous path (no pun intended). Another word for say is "云" (cloud), an archaic usage which survives in the proverb 不知所云 ("to not know whereof one speaks").Which conjured up severely anachronistic mental images of cartoon-style thought-clouds when we came across it in school.
Snorfle snorf to the cloud-shaped thought bubbles. Am also bemused by the literal parallel between 所 and whereof. Pure chance or translation from the English?
But in Japanese's random borrow-from-the-mainland way, 云 gets used for say a lot. I encountered that meaning ages and ages ago, whereas TTBOMK the cloud meaning has been lost completely. I didn't come across it until last February when I sat down with my learn the hanzi book. And thought the author was being a touch arbitrary in calling that element a cloud. -_-
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IMO none of those meanings are actually unconnected anyway: they're semantically or metaphorically related to the concept of road, highway, path (of least resistance, of thought/ideas - you use this character to mean "speech" because you can have a "train of speech" in the same way you have a "train of thought", except for "train" read "road". Come to think of it, the word "train" has just as many meanings in English if not more.)
Anyway the thing is, the Japanese "chose" (of course it's not a choice, it just ended up that way) to make their rule of thumb one meaning, multiple sounds. Chinese is one sound, multiple meanings.
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But of course train is *different*. ^_^
I'd grumpily say I prefer many readings, one meaning, but being at present knee-deep in some non-fic Japanese work I rather incline to the Chinese mode just now. Meanings are easier to remember than readings. Of course this isn't a problem for people who don't subvocalize, but it's a bitch for those of us who do.
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Zeng as 曾祖父 grandfather and Ceng as 曾经 for once.
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But in Japanese's random borrow-from-the-mainland way, 云 gets used for say a lot. I encountered that meaning ages and ages ago, whereas TTBOMK the cloud meaning has been lost completely. I didn't come across it until last February when I sat down with my learn the hanzi book. And thought the author was being a touch arbitrary in calling that element a cloud. -_-
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