WRITING SYSTEMS OF CHINESE, JAPANESE,
VIETNAMESE AND MONGOLIAN
LOG OF UPDATES
The cjvlang site originally went up in mid-July 2000. The project on CJV writing systems was added in about July 2001, consisting of three main pages, one devoted to each of the three languages. The initial version had considerable problems of content, particularly the section on Chinese, which was heavily flawed. I have made sporadic attempts to rewrite the content, but since it takes a lot of energy to do so, such attempts usually come in bursts, after long periods of gestation. The Chinese script section is still heavily flawed and will need further fixing.
The 'pre-history' of the project is as follows:
The section on hiragana and katakana was added in the late summer/autumn of 2002.
Japanese signs were added in the late summer of 2003, after a trip to Japan.
The page of photos showing Vietnamese writing of foreign authors' names was added in December 2003, after a trip to Vietnam.
Notes on transliteration is one of the oldest pages of cjvlang that belonged to no particular section. It was transferred to Writing Systems in December 2003.
The writing of foreign names in CJV originally belonged to Harry Potter and was also transferred here in December 2003.
These logs begin at 21 December 2003 (starting from the bottom).
LOGS
11 October 2019 (Ulaanbaatar)
- Changed layout of header.
30 November 2018 (Ulaanbaatar)
- Major rewriting of the page Making Sense of the Traditional Mongolian Script. The problem was that the earlier page, in attempting to position the script with regard to the modern language and past stages of the language, was groping and failed to present a clear 'mind-picture' for the prospective learner. The rewritten page is hopefully better, although perhaps oversimplified.
2 November 2018 (Ulaanbaatar)
- Replaced graphics at many pages in section on orthographic variation in Japanese signs.
July 2018 (Ulaanbaatar)
- Considerably expanded and updated the list of Websites in Mongol Bichig.
28 October 2017 (Ulaanbaatar)
- Fixed some navigation botches
26 October 2017 (Ulaanbaatar)
- Added a navigation panel to all pages of the project.
- Some cleaning up of page formatting.
26 August 2017 (Ulaanbaatar)
- Rewrote the page on Putting Mongol Bichig on your website
- Tried to fix page formatting.
20 February 2017 (Ulaanbaatar)
- Added page on the spelling of Mongolian verbs using Cyrillic.
- In an act of desperation, I tried to revamp the whole section in the face of inexplicable differences in rendering of the site locally and on the server, especially in Firefox.
15 February 2017 (Ulaanbaatar)
- Updated section on Inputting the Mongolian script in order to correct earlier confusion resulting from the failure to distinguish о and ө, and у and ү in the traditional script.
- Around this time added page on Putting Mongol Bichig on your website.
12 February 2017 (Ulaanbaatar)
- Added new section on External websites using traditional Mongolian font.
10 May 2016 (Queensland)
- Slight changes to the page on Inputting Traditional Mongolian.
9 January 2016 (Queensland)
- Added links to the Mongolian alphabet song.
24 November 2014 (Beijing)
- Made an attempt to fix the faulty implementation of Responsive Web Design at Writing Systems.
23 November 2014 (Beijing)
- More extensive changes to the page on the Mongolian script. This hopefully expresses better some of the concepts that I was struggling to grasp and convey when I originally wrote the page.
- Also tried to update and clarify the page on looking up dictionaries in the Mongolian traditional script.
22 November 2014 (Beijing)
- Slight changes to the page on the Mongolian script.
9 September 2013 (Beijing)
- Rewrote and expanded somewhat the section on looking up dictionaries in the Mongolian traditional script. Hopefully a little clearer now.
4 December 2013 (Beijing)
- Updated the page on inputting Mongolian Traditional Script using Mongolfont fonts to include further information and rectify some presentation issues. It is quite difficult to get everything to show up correctly (and uniformly) in all browsers and systems.
10 November 2013 (Beijing)
- Added table at typing Mongolian Traditional Script giving an idea of the performance of different browsers.
20 October 2013 (Beijing)
- I discovered that the symbols showing special characters in typing Mongolian Traditional Script (Mongol Bichig) weren't showing up. I've put in images where necessary.
23 September 2013 (Beijing)
- Slight modification to Inputting Mongolfont Traditional Mongolian Font.
16 September 2013 (Beijing)
- Considerable improvements, additions, modifications, and corrections at Inputting Mongolfont Traditional Mongolian Font.
15 September 2013 (Beijing)
- Added a page on Inputting Mongolfont Traditional Mongolian Font on a Mac.
4 September 2013 (Beijing)
- Added Index page for Traditional Mongolian Script
1 May 2013 (Beijing)
- Further tweaking at Mongolian scripts.
29 April 2013 (Beijing)
- Made some improvements in wording at Mongolian scripts to improve clarity and comprehensibility.
13 February 2013 (Beijing)
- Added traditional Mongolian font to title, author, publisher, etc. of books in the Mongolian writing section.
12 February 2013 (Beijing)
- Provided a second typeface (more common in Mongolia than Inner Mongolia) at the conversion tables.
11 February 2013 (Beijing)
- Added Conversion Tables between Handwritten and Printed forms of Traditional Mongolian Letters. Currently this shows only te Inner Mongolian handwritten style and typeface.
10 February 2013 (Beijing). New Year's Day in China, New Year's Eve in Mongolia
- Added material on 'citation forms' to the page on the Mongolian alphabet. Also changed some formatting, changed a few small errors.
9 February 2013 (Beijing)
- Made a few small changes to Alternative treatments of the Mongolian script, notably by adding shading in columns to letters used alone (i.e., without a following vowel). Should make the columns clearer.
3 February 2013 (Beijing)
- Rewrote and expanded the page on looking up dictionaries in the Mongolian traditional script (in Inner Mongolia). It should be much clearer now.
- Added pages on 蒙汉辞典 / Монгол Хятад толь, mongol tsagaan tolgoi kart, minii mongol bichig, Manuel d'écriture mongole, and Монгол хэлний товч тайлбар толь.
2 February 2013 (Beijing)
- Added a page on looking up dictionaries in the Mongolian traditional script (in Inner Mongolia).
1 February 2013 (Beijing)
- Fixed a few errors in the section on the Chinese writing system.
27 January 2013 (Beijing)
- Added a page on alternative approaches to the Mongolian traditional script (that is, approaches that differ from the Inner Mongolian approach).
25 January 2013 (Beijing)
- The more I look, the more the small errors seem to stand out at Mongolian traditional alphabet.
24 January 2013 (Beijing)
- Made a few more changes to Mongolian traditional alphabet.
22 January 2013 (Beijing)
- Fixed a few errors in the page on Mongolian traditional alphabet.
20 January 2013 (Beijing)
- Added section and examples of vowel harmony and ambiguities to Mongolian traditional alphabet.
18 January 2013 (Beijing)
- Made some changes to the page on the Mongolian traditional alphabet.
13 January 2013 (Beijing)
- Added page on the approach to teaching the Mongolian alphabet.
18 November 2012 (Beijing)
- Updated pages on Chinese writing to Unicode (with a some changes in content).
22 June 2012 (Beijing)
- Updated page on Vietnamese writing to Unicode (with a few minor changes in content).
21 June 2012 (Beijing)
- Cleaned up links page, mostly removing the rotten links.
4 January 2006 (Beijing)
- Updated some more pages in Signs to Unicode, with a few changes to the text as well.
30 December 2006 (Beijing)
- Updated some pages (in Signs) to Unicode, replacing graphics and adding macrons.
13 September 2006 (Beijing)
- Added Kanji Networks to Links page.
- I am selling my soul to Mammon by putting Adsense above each page title. This is at the suggestion of a friend who feels that 50c a day is not really good income from a site as large as this :(
22 August 2006 (Beijing)
- Various serioius errors rectified (pages in the old layout, pages that did not redirect, errors in menus, etc.)
- Slightly rewrote the Japanese Writing System.
20 August 2006 (Beijing)
- The folder structure of the entire project has been re-arranged (never a good idea, but it was just too much of a mess). This took an inordinate amount of time.
- New layout and Milonic left-hand navbar (Tramline) have been implemented. The project proved too unwieldy for one navbar to handle. Separate navbars have been implemented for Hiragana & Katakana and Signs.
- Adsense has been implemented.
1 October 2005 (Beijing)
- Fixed faulty katakana graphic for チョ and ニョ at the katakana and hiragana tables. This is a long-standing error of more than three years. Unfortunately I have lost the font that I originally used and and have been forced to use a slightly different version of the same font.
22 August 2005 (Beijing)
- Changed the note on the pronunciation of Vietnamese đ (
).
11 February 2005 (Macau)
- Edited some pages in the Chinese Writing System. Once again, the pages have too many rough edges. Also fixed up navigation and decided on the index page for once and for all. Added samples of Vietnamese and Japanese writing.
10 February 2005 (Macau)
- Rewrote sections of the Japanese Writing System.
9 February 2005 (Macau)
- Corrected a couple of errors in the Signs in Japanese section.
14 January 2005 (Macau)
- Having made extensive changes to the Chinese Writing System, I discovered, as usual, that there were unnoticed navigation problems. These have been fixed up.
13 January 2005 (Macau)
- Split the Chinese Writing System into 5 separate sections. This is an act of desperation. Previously I had hoped to keep it to one or two pages but after paring it down till it had virtually nothing to offer, it was still too long. With so many other pages on the Internet dealing with Chinese and its writing system, and so many other sections of the site that demand my attention, there seems little sense in devoting so much effort to this page. But it is, inexplicably, the most popular page on the entire site (although I suspect there are few who read it to the bitter end) and I have no choice but to delete it or fix it up. There is still some work to be done on the Bridge Between Dialects section but otherwise it's largely complete.
2 January 2005 (Macau)
- Added a couple of links to Characters as a bridge between dialects.
27 December 2004 (Macau)
- Did an interim rewrite of characters as a bridge among dialects. This page reattempts to do what I first did, very badly, at 'Language and Dialect' (page discontinued) in 2001.
16 November 2004 (Beijing)
- Rewrote parts of the Vietnamese Writing System. It now reads somewhat better.
3 November 2004 (Beijing)
- Added link to Writing System Links.
28 October 2004 (Beijing)
- More information added to the Vietnamese Writing System.
27 October 2004 (Beijing)
- As usual, didn't get it right the first time. The new sections of Vietnamese Writing System have been considerably rewritten.
26 October 2004 (Beijing)
- Added considerable additional information to the Vietnamese Writing System, mainly concerning the quoc ngu.
1 October 2004 (Beijing)
- Added extra information to The 'ci' and 'zi in lexicography (Writing Systems)
25 September 2004 (Beijing)
- Cleaned up headers.
19 September 2004 (Beijing)
- A menu that follows you as you scroll down the page has been added. This nifty device has been licensed from Milonic.
- At the same time, the section on Orthographic Variation in Japanese as Seen in Signs and Advertising has been extensively reorganised and a few corrections and changes also made at certain pages. The main page for this section has been moved to a new location to allow the menu to function properly.
12 September 2004 (Beijing)
- Redirect added for Writing List Links (mysteriously omitted), redirects for Hiragana and Katakana fixed up for style.
- Slight changes to Writing System Links.
6 September 2004 (Beijing)
- Revised the navigation slightly at Writing Systems.
- Removed incorrect information from the Chinese Writing System.
5 September 2004 (Beijing)
- Pruned text at how Chinese has been moulded by characters, the use of meaning radicals to create characters, and the role of characters as a bridge among dialects.
3 September 2004 (Beijing)
- Again tinkered with the Writing System of Chinese. There are still too many kinks in this page.
30 August 2004 (Beijing)
- Made a few small changes to the Japanese Writing System.
22 August 2004 (Macau)
- Fixed up style features in 'Exceptions to the generalisation that Chinese characters represent monosyllables'.
21 August 2004 (Macau)
- The navigation / arrangement of the Chinese Writing System has been overhauled. What were formerly popup notes have now been made fully-fledged pages accessible from the Writing Systems home page. This has involved adjustments in wording here and there, but mainly changes to the navigation.
20 August 2004 (Macau)
- Added a section on radicals as meaning-related elements in the Chinese writing system.
19 August 2004 (Macau)
- Slightly rewrote the section on Characters as a bridge between dialects.
17 August 2004 (Macau)
- Section on terseness in the written language added to how the Chinese writing system has moulded the language.
- Tinkered slightly with the Chinese Writing System.
- Navigation error rectified at the main page for CJV Writing Systems.
- Page of links fixed up to ensure that all links open in a blank page.
16 August 2004 (Macau)
The project has undergone extensive changes.
- For a start, the entire project has been given a totally new look, which (I feel) is a vast improvement over the old yellow, orange, and blue.
- The section on the Chinese Writing System has been extensively rewritten (again), splitting the over-long single page into two: one section gives an outline of the Chinese writing system; the second describes some of the ways the writing system has moulded the language and the way it is perceived.
- A bridge between dialects has also been revised.
- A quote from Hannas has been added at the page entitled Self-fulfilling prophecy: How Chinese characters confer independent status on elements that were not originally independent.
- In addition, a primitive navigation system has been put in place allowing visitors to rotate through the variant spellings in Japanese (as seen in signs and advertising).
- Some navigation errors and other mistakes in a number of pages have also been fixed up and some links added to the Writing Links page.
Although I have gone public with this revised version, more rewrites are forthcoming. Navigation issues remain to be resolved.
13 August 2004 (Macau)
- Added an additional 'idiom' to the Chinese Writing System.
12 August 2004 (Macau)
- Began phasing out frames from the section on Writing Systems. The 'index' page is now http://www.cjvlang.com/Writing/writsys/index.html. Also tried to unify the look of the section and converted to Cascading Style Sheets.
11 August 2004 (Macau)
- Made yet further changes to the Chinese Writing System. Finally approaching a version I'm reasonably happy with.
10 August 2004 (Macau)
- A few further changes to the Chinese Writing System.
9 August 2004 (Macau)
- Rewrote the Chinese Writing System again to make it more logical and coherent. Some parenthetical notes have been converted into popups. A few traditional/simplified rollover errors have been rectified. While still ungainly, the new version is an improvement on the old.
- A few minor changes have been made to the Japanese Writing System and Writing System Links.
6 August 2004 (Macau)
- Slightly rewrote the Chinese Writing System page to make it read smoother. Nothing short of major surgery will fully rectify this page's faults!
14 June 2004 (Hainan)
- Added links concerning the Chinese language, Chinese names, Chinese characters, etc. to sections on Romanisation, Writing System Links, and Foreign Names in Chinese.
22 March 2004 (Hainan)
- Added a link or two to Writing Systems.
5 January 2004 (Hainan)
- Writing Systems: Minor corrections to Chinese Writing System and Writing System Links.
- Added missing graphics to Foreign Names.
- Fixed errors in the Chinese Writing System.
24 December 2003 (Hainan)
- Created link from the Chinese Writing System to 'wren babblers' (project on bird names).
21 December 2003 (Hainan)
- Added small pictures to entry page for Japanese Orthographic Variants (Writing Systems). Aim is to make this dull-looking page more visually attractive.
- Writing Systems: Added extra example on the page about づ ('du'). Also added new information and rewrote part of the page. Cleaned up the header.
- Added Wikipedia articles to links for Writing Systems.
Oct, Nov, Dec 2003:
The main changes during these three months were:
- The transliteration of foreign names and the system of transliteration were transferred to Writing Systems.
- A section showing the transliteration of foreign authors' names on Vietnamese book covers was added.
- A section showing examples of the actual usage of hiragana づ ('du') was added.
- Headers and footers have been cleaned up and many sections given a new look. Many (but not all) errors in internal links have been rectified.
