LINGUIST List 15.3236

Thu Nov 18 2004

Qs: Reports about Andrei Tolstyk; Japanese Kanji

Editor for this issue: Steven Moran <stevelinguistlist.org>




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Directory




        1.    Christine Haunz, Reports about Andrei Tolstyk


        2.    Rodney Biddle, Japanese kanji





Message 1: Reports about Andrei Tolstyk

Date: 17-Nov-2004
From: Christine Haunz <christinling.ed.ac.uk>
Subject: Reports about Andrei Tolstyk




Dear Linguists,

I have come across a newspaper article [1] describing the media coverage
(''A News Item and its History'') of the story of Andrei Tolstyk, a
7-year-old boy from the Altai region of Russia, who was neglected by his
parents and is now in an orphanage. The original reports from August this
year ([2], [3], [4]), all by the same Moscow correspondent and a little
rich in Jungle Book references, mention ''speech and hearing
difficulties''; the newer article says that the boy is now learning to speak.

I'm a little unsure about the credibility of this story, and would be
interested to hear from anyone who has more information, or knows whether
there are any linguists who are investigating or planning to investigate.

Thank you!

Christine Haunz


[1] http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/inhalt/0,1518,327734,00.html (in German)

[2]
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3582191&thesection=news&thesubsection=world
(full article)

[3] http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=547689
(with subscription)

[4] http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=547785
(with subscription)


*************************************************************
Christine Haunz
University of Edinburgh
Theoretical and Applied Linguistics
40 George Square
Edinburgh
EH8 9LL

Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition



Message 2: Japanese kanji

Date: 17-Nov-2004
From: Rodney Biddle <rbiddlegpwu.ac.jp>
Subject: Japanese kanji




Dear all,

Can anybody tell me where I might find a list of Kanji, katakana and
hiragana frequencies? I need to find examples of high frequency kanji,
katakana and hiragana, preferably in English.

Also, can we define katakana and hiragana as phonolgy? Are they
phonological? And is kanji not phonological? These are questions to which I
would very much appreciate an answer.

Thank you very much.

Linguistic Field(s): Phonology





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