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Ruling on Chinese Characters | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Old Chemist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5174 days ago 227 posts - 285 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 9 of 44 21 October 2010 at 9:37am | IP Logged | ||
I agree although my knowledge of Chinese is almost non-existent, I want to be linked to the culture and its history. I would have kept Fraktur for German! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| John Smith Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6043 days ago 396 posts - 542 votes Speaks: English*, Czech*, Spanish Studies: German | Message 10 of 44 21 October 2010 at 10:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Pinyin is too Western.
How about doing what the Japanese/Koreans did. Keep lets say 2,000 of the most used characters then use a Chinese looking alphabet to write the remaining words. Make it illegal to use a character that is not on the official list. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 11 of 44 21 October 2010 at 11:44am | IP Logged | ||
It's already illegal to use a character that's not on the official list. Though I don't think it's enforced as much anymore. Needless to say, I'm not much in favor of such linguistic oppression. Anyway, what people who haven't studied a Chinese language are often not aware of is the chengyus. A chengyu is a four-character idiom that has a linguistic history (they can often be traced to a specific source) and a story behind it. Chengyus are used frequently in written Mandarin and there are thousands of them (it's one of the reasons it's so hard to learn a Chinese language). The chengyus don't follow modern standard Mandarin grammar, but rather Classical Chinese grammar. A chengyu can often be understood by looking at the characters (although it often has a metaphorical meaning that's not self-evident). The chengyus cannot be reduced to the sounds, as each character holds a lot of meaning, but has a lot of homonyms. This is why they are seldom used in spoken language. "Educated" written Mandarin is full of these things and it makes it incredibly rich, incorporating phrases from authors and works throughout the long history of Chinese thought. Removing the characters would kill the chengyus as it would be extremely hard to understand them as sounds only. This is why replacing characters with phonetic representations would harm Chinese literature. The written language is different from the spoken language, and a representation of only the sounds can only be used to write down spoken language. There are plenty of Chinese writings that are difficult if not impossible to understand when read aloud. People who only know languages where spoken and written language are close can have a hard time grasping this. Also, I hope the fans of Japanese will forgive me for this, I find the Japanese mixing of kanji and kana to be very unpleasing to the eyes. Edited by Ari on 21 October 2010 at 12:40pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| crafedog Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5819 days ago 166 posts - 337 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean, Tok Pisin, French | Message 12 of 44 21 October 2010 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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A few weeks ago I would've said don't change it. Traditional style is too much hassle
for everyday use (imagine trying to write a shopping list in a hurry) but I like the legacy of the characters and am against the 'dumbing down' of the world in general/I'm pragmatic. However, recently I was speaking to my friend who had lived in China for a while and she told me about how many illiterate people she encountered there. One of my friends (who spoke/could read Chinese) couldn't show the native Chinese taxi driver where to go on a map because the taxi driver couldn't read the language of his own country. When it's harming the people of a country's ability to live in that country, I say it's more detrimental than it is beneficial to have a language like that and therefore needs changing. Romanization would maybe be too far/limited/the Chinese government are far too nationalistic for that but perhaps a unique yet simple alphabet like Korean (but with tone marks) would improve the literacy rate of the country and its people. Maybe one day far in the future they will do it but I can't imagine it happening anytime soon. Edited by crafedog on 21 October 2010 at 12:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fireflies Senior Member Joined 5182 days ago 172 posts - 234 votes Speaks: English* | Message 13 of 44 21 October 2010 at 12:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Is it usual for people to learn both sets at the same time? What about learning traditional first and then simplified? A lot of materials come in 2 editions (traditional and simplified). Some speakers are passionately opposed to the simplified system on the grounds it makes some characters less meaningful. In the end I decided I didn't know enough to decide which system to learn. Perhaps being able to write the simplified and recognize the others is best.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6295 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 14 of 44 21 October 2010 at 1:57pm | IP Logged | ||
This is a legacy education issue not a use of character vs. not use of character issue. Poor people in Taiwan and Japan can read. They use characters. China will get it sorted using characters (traditional or simplified. Doesn't matter.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5341 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean | Message 16 of 44 21 October 2010 at 4:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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Personally, I will definitely not opt for PinYin, because nothing beats the triumphic feeling of being able to write Chinese/Japanese/Korean sentences after having learnt them.
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