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How to write in Cuneiform

(www.openculture.com)
100 points PaulHoule | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.207s | source
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eloisius ◴[] No.45534254[source]
> Like Japan’s kanji alphabet, the oldest writing system in the world is syllabic.

I think they have that mixed up with hiragana and katakana. Kanji are Chinese characters.

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thaumasiotes ◴[] No.45534765[source]
Well, if you call them kanji, they're Japanese characters. (Japanese characters with a name that literally means "Chinese characters", but still not Chinese characters.) Kanji are very much not syllabic.

But Chinese characters are.

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pezezin ◴[] No.45535649[source]
Chinese characters are syllabic in the sense that most Chinese words are just one syllable. But still the characters have a meaning associated to them, that's why there can be dozens of characters that map to the same syllable.
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yujzgzc ◴[] No.45535715[source]
Or multiple syllables for some characters depending on context, like 了 being le or liao. Chinese characters really aren't syllabic.
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1. thaumasiotes ◴[] No.45535721[source]
What? Le and liao are both syllables.