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A phonetic complement is a phonetic symbol used to disambiguate word characters (
logogram In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek 'word', and 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chine ...
s) that have multiple readings, in mixed logographic-phonetic scripts such as
Egyptian hieroglyph Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters. ...
s, Akkadian cuneiform,
Linear B Linear B is a syllabary, syllabic script that was used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest Attested language, attested form of the Greek language. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries, the earliest known examp ...
, Japanese, and Mayan. Often they disambiguate an ideogram by spelling out the first or last syllable of the word; occasionally (as in Linear B) they may instead abbreviate an adjective that modifies the logogram. Written English has few logograms, primarily numerals, and therefore few phonetic complements. An example is the ''nd'' of ''2nd'' 'second', which avoids ambiguity with 2 standing for the word 'two'. In addition to numerals, other examples include Xmas, Xianity, and
Xing Xing may refer to: * an abbreviation for crossing such as Pedestrian crossing, Pedestrian Xing or Wildlife crossing, Wildlife Xing, primarily used in North America * Chinese surname (姓, ''xing'') * Xing (surname) (邢), a Chinese surname * Xing ...
for
Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a Religion, religious and Culture, cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by coun ...
,
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...
, and Crossing – note the separate readings ''Christ'' and ''Cross''.


In cuneiform

In Sumerian, the single word ''kur'' ( 𒆳) had two main meanings: '
hill A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. It often has a distinct summit, and is usually applied to peaks which are above elevation compared to the relative landmass, though not as prominent as Mountain, mountains. Hills ...
' and '
country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. When referring to a specific polity, the term "country" may refer to a sovereign state, state with limited recognition, constituent country, ...
'. Akkadian, however, had separate words for these two meanings: '' šadú'' 'hill' and '' mātu'' 'country'. When Sumerian cuneiform was adapted (known as ''orthographic borrowing'') for writing Akkadian, this was ambiguous because both words were written with the same character (𒆳, conventionally transcribed KUR, after its Sumerian pronunciation). To alert the reader as to which Akkadian word was intended, the phonetic complement ''-ú'' was written after KUR if 'hill' was intended, so that the characters KUR-ú were pronounced ''šadú,'' whereas KUR without a phonetic complement was understood to mean ''mātu'' 'country'. Phonetic complements also indicated the Akkadian
nominative In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants of E ...
and genitive cases. Similarly, Hittite cuneiform occasionally uses phonetic complements to attach Hittite case endings to Sumerograms and Akkadograms. Phonetic complements should not be confused with
determinative A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they ...
s (which were also used to disambiguate) since determinatives were used specifically to indicate the category of the word they preceded or followed. For example, the sign DINGIR ( 𒀭) often precedes names of
gods A deity or god is a supernatural being considered to be sacred and worthy of worship due to having authority over some aspect of the universe and/or life. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines ''deity'' as a God (male deity), god or god ...
, as LUGAL ( 𒈗) does for kings. It is believed that determinatives were not pronounced.


In Japanese

As in Akkadian, Japanese borrowed a logographic script, Chinese, designed for a very different language. The Chinese phonetic components built into these ''
kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...
'' () do not work when they are pronounced in Japanese, and there is not a one-to-one relationship between them and the Japanese words they represent. For example, the kanji 生, pronounced ''shō'' or ''sei'' in borrowed Chinese vocabulary, stands for several native Japanese words as well. When these words have inflectional endings ( verbs/ adjectives and adverbs), the end of the stem is written phonetically: *生 ''nama'' 'raw' or ''ki'' 'alive' *生う ��u''o-u'' 'expand' *生きる ��kiru''i-kiru'' 'live' *生かす ��kasu''i-kasu'' 'make use of' *生ける ��keru''i-keru'' 'living, arrange' *生む  ��mu''u-mu'' 'produce, give birth to' *生まれる or 生れる ��mareru or 生reru''u-mareru'' or ''uma-reru'' 'be born' *生える ��eru''ha-eru'' 'grow' ( intransitive) *生やす ��yasu''ha-yasu'' 'grow' ( transitive) as well as the hybrid Chinese-Japanese word *生じる ��jiru''shō-jiru'' 'occur' Note that some of these verbs share a kanji reading (''i,'' ''u,'' and ''ha''), and okurigana are conventionally picked to maximize these sharings. These phonetic characters are called '' okurigana.'' They are used even when the inflection of the stem can be determined by a following inflectional suffix, so the primary function of ''okurigana'' for many kanji is that of a phonetic complement. Generally it is the final
syllable A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...
containing the inflectional ending is written phonetically. However, in adjectival verbs ending in ''-shii'' (-しい), and in those verbs ending in ''-ru'' (-る) in which this syllable drops in derived nouns, the final two syllables are written phonetically. There are also irregularities. For example, the word ''umareru'' 'be born' is derived from ''umu'' 'to bear, to produce'. As such, it may be written 生まれる ��mareru reflecting its derivation, or 生れる ��reru as with other verbs ending in elidable ''-ru''.


In Phono-Semantic Characters


In Chinese

Chinese never developed a system of purely phonetic characters. Instead, about 90% of Chinese characters are compounds of a
determinative A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they ...
(called a ' radical'), which may not exist independently, and a phonetic complement indicates the approximate pronunciation of the
morpheme A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...
. However, the phonetic element is basic, and these might be better thought of as characters used for multiple near homonyms, the identity of which is constrained by the determiner. Due to sound changes over the last several millennia, the phonetic complements are not a reliable guide to pronunciation. Also, sometimes it is not obvious at all where the phonetic complements reside, for instance, the phonetic complement in is 𡈼, in is 頪, and in is 朕, etc.


In Vietnamese

''
Chữ Nôm Chữ Nôm (, ) is a logographic writing system formerly used to write the Vietnamese language. It uses Chinese characters to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, with other words represented by new characters ...
'' of Vietnamese is almost all constructed as phono-semantic characters, whose phonetic component and semantic component are usually individual unabridged Chinese characters (like the ''Chữ Nôm'' 𣎏 and 𣩂), instead of often radicals as in Sinographs.


In Korean

A handful of Korean '' gukja'' are also constructed as phono-semantic characters, such as (pronounced as 돌, dol) whose phonetic complement is the bottom 乙.


In Japanese

Some of Japanese '' Kokuji'' are phono-semantic characters, like 働, 腺, 鑓, whose phonetic complement is 動, 泉, 遣 respectively.


In the Maya Script

The Maya Script, the logosyllabic orthography of the
Maya Civilization The Maya civilization () was a Mesoamerican civilization that existed from antiquity to the early modern period. It is known by its ancient temples and glyphs (script). The Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writin ...
, used phonetic complements extensively and phonetic complements could be used synharmonically or disharmonically. The former is exemplified by the placement of the syllabogram for ''ma'' underneath the
logogram In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek 'word', and 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chine ...
for " jaguar" (in Classic Maya, '' BALAM''): thus, though pronounced "''BALAM''", the word for "jaguar" was spelled "''BALAM-m(a)''". Disharmonic spellings also existed in the Maya Script.


See also

* Ruby characters * Kana *
Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...


References


Phonetic complement
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