Are they hard to learn? When I was a kid my dad, Giuseppe, (a.k.a., Papa Pepe, Martini Joe) used to alla time snarl, "Gozzamm radicals!" and throw a half-empty beer can TV-wards. Maybe if had learnt his Chinese, he'd be an Alzhammered ol' colorful character roamin' the streets of the Jing today, intead of hallucinatin' the plaster off them Oval Office walls like he is.
Look, they're like basic things, : water, dirt, fire, male, female, this and that and the other thing. Of course a conceptual representaation of language is a helluva ineffeciant way to represent language, compared to a phonic representation as concepts are endless and phonemes are relatively limited. Jus check out your IPA, Maybe 360 meaningful sounds a human can enounce, Including burps and gurgles.
