phonetic maps explained

goulnik

September 23, 2008, 08:05 PM posted in General Discussion

to answer henning's question, who said he still hadn't figured how to read those (phonetic map) tables, here's the idea :

list the most frequent characters containing a specific phonetic element (for example 召 zhào),
give one, sometimes more examples of compounds containing them (2-characters words,e.g. 照片 zhàopiàn for 照 zhào) .
group characters with the same pronunciation (except for tone) on one row. For reasons of space (3 columns max), these often need to span several rows (2 in 召 zhao above, possibly 3),
from top to bottom row, go from closer to phonetic to less frequent reading (zhao, chao, shao, tiao)

When I came up with this representation, my vision was that of a 3 x 3 matrix with the phonetic root in the center and 4 characters using it in the corners, or more as required, with some idea of symetry.

Another option would have been 5 columns for each of the tones, but as you can see there isn't any regular pattern, so I end up sort of centering the root and grouping the other characters around using some uh fuzzy heuristic like same tones closer together or same arrangement of radical vs phonetic (L|R, Top/Bottom etc.)!

Keep in mind that I am no linguist, and only have finite and somewhat limited amounts of time, so it isn't meant to be comprehensive or completely orthogonal. Instead, I am going for simplification wherever possible, with inevitable inconsistencies along the way. It's also a learning exercise, and I find new tricks / patterns / issues as I explore more characters.

henning

September 24, 2008, 05:19 AM

Thanks for the explanation, goulnik. Very helpful.

goulnik

October 03, 2008, 02:54 PM

here's an example of the vision I had, for the phonetic character 马 ma. this looks more like a map,

it's automatically generated, I just need to fine tune it to accomodate multiple pinyin sounds. I will then add a link to all past and future entries.

goulnik

October 03, 2008, 04:16 PM

and here's an example of a map with multiple pinyin sounds (中 zhong)

goulnik

October 06, 2008, 12:22 PM

links to visual maps are now systematically included in my phonetic character tables.

on a different subject, I am copying a reply I wrote about my examples, repeating that :

I am not trying to be comprehensive : the choice of definitions as well as words and character examples is arbitrary.

For words, I try go for high-frequency both on characters used and meaning. For characters, I rely on the Wenlin / ABC dictionary. If there is no example listed, the character is not included.

I am not trying to be encyclopedic, there are a other references for this (and unequalled support from changye where required).

ooka

November 10, 2008, 03:33 AM

Hi Goulniky !
Did this  www.visualthesaurus.com inpire you at all ?

I've been trying to find if all your interesting maps could be linked in a similar way. I have no idea how difficult it would be to develop such a thing but I think it'd be amazing...

Thanks again anyway!

goulnik

November 10, 2008, 05:09 AM

ooka, it didn't inspire me as I hadn't come across it, but it would have, it's really cool stuff (not freeware unfortunately)