I am, of course, a total newbie when it comes to the Chinese language.
China is about as far as it gets for me geographically. And going to beginner
Chinese sites has gotten me into all kinds of stuff about Chinese being a 'tonal'
language, and how I have to master those tones.
But here is the thing: accented vowels are part and parcel of French, and it is
those very accents one finds in pinyin Chinese: aigu, grave, circonflexe (albeit
upside down) and high tone (which is conveyed by vowel groups in French).
So why all the blah blah: accents are said to enrich the lot of semes available in
the language (these being indivisible units of meaning of a language).
As explained in Wikpedia, seme (related to semiotics) is a key concept in 'comparing
languages for the purpose of instruction'. A native speaker of anything doesn't worry
about semes as such...
ahem, Fine!
The heart of the language, and its pictograms, should be a hurdle yet; but I
probably have those to thank for the fact that the verbs don't conjugate and the
adjectives don't gender or plural. I no longer find it amusing to hear an Asiatic person
drop an s of mispronounce: I've got your back.
Pinyin Chinese, using the Roman alphabet, developed in the Modern Era in China,
as did an appreciation of rhyming poetry. I am told newspapers are now in pinyin, and
often omit those pesky accents, leaving the reader work with context to decipher meaning.
Looking forward to finding my way around.
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