Tenebrarum wrote:"Diacritics everywhere" applies to a lot of other Latin alphabets as well, but I don't see you good Anglo folks say anything about them. That's intriguing.
Actually I think Czech looks like a pile of puke, but even that language still doesn't have diacritics on nearly every single syllable as well as more than one on the same letter. That's why I and other people think Vietnamese looks "cluttered". Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, though, and I've always thought that Quoc Ngu suits Vietnamese much better than Chu Nom did. I can admire its functionality while finding it ugly to look at.
In any case, please make don't state your view on aesthetics like it's the only truth in the world. Vietnamese is a language with very nationalistic speakers so the potential for flame is high. Some people would construe your smug disapproval of the way their language looks as a personal spit in their face (and frankly, you can't really blame them). If a statement like "I think Celtic languages will go extinct in 200 years" warrants someone going bad shit insane, I think we must cut back on this type of it-doesn't-fit-my-idea-of-beauty trashing.
My view of it is nothing but my own opinion. I've heard lots of people say traditional Chinese looks cluttered and unreadable, and they're entitled to that opinion.
The term is "batshit crazy", by the way. Don't ask me who came up with it.korn wrote:What do you mean by "smallish"? Vietnam is comparable with Germany regarding it's size and population. And I never heard of anyone saying "Germany is a smallish country."
It is compared to China, a country which is right next to it and constantly in the public eye. Besides, Germany is an economic powerhouse and Vietnam isn't (even if it's growing fast), and Germany is in the heart of Europe while Vietnam is on the other side of the world from the West. That's why I'm not surprised most Westerners have no interest in it. You also have to keep in mind that German is an Indo-European language while Vietnamese isn't and therefore it's much closer to other European languages.
We are both wrong I guess
I prefer to call them logograms, but the characters that are in fact ideograms were once pictographs. I dropped the ball on that one by saying ideogram when I meant logogram.