This point has been made before in this thread. I quoted from a Chinese professor who made this point. It was dismissed as bigoted ethnocentricism, so you’re probably better of pretending the facts are otherwise, or else just not mentioning them here.
[quote=“Freakin’ Amazing”][quote=“sjcma”]Classical Chinese is purely a written language and has no close equivalent in any modern spoken variants of Chinese. Thus, you won’t be able to tell from context because everyone has difficulty when classical Chinese is read out loud.
[/quote]Which, if I may say, is the entire point. When people write a diary entry, when people write an email to a friend, when people write a business contract, when people write almost any form of communication BESIDES literature, they are not writing Classical Chinese as that is a different language. I don’t write using Old English unless I’m trying to be an prissy ass or make a fool of myself.[/quote]
No one writes purely in classical Chinese. However, people write using classical Chinese elements all the time. That includes business contracts, personal writings, government regulations, codes of law, novels, instruction manuals, etc.
Being called a “foreigner” makes me want to puke.
This point has been made before in this thread. I quoted from a Chinese professor who made this point. It was dismissed as bigoted ethnocentricism, so you’re probably better of pretending the facts are otherwise, or else just not mentioning them here.[/quote]
Here’s an recent post on English and Science in China and Japan by romanization proponent Prof. Victor Mair. Do read the discussion at the end of the post for more points of view.
But you’re not really addressing the question, are you? Do they need to use classical Chinese elements? Is it possible to communicate effectively in Chinese without them?
I saw an impressive amount of empirical evidence in the article, and some handwaving in the comments. The main argument appears to be from incredulity (‘I don’t see how orthography could make any difference in the capacity of individuals to communicate on a certain subject, so it can’t be true’). I’ll stay with the scholarly articles thanks.
But you’re not really addressing the question, are you? Do they need to use classical Chinese elements? Is it possible to communicate effectively in Chinese without them?[/quote]
Written communication will be compromised and so will verbal communication to the extent that character clarification happens during speech. This is due to the loss of vocabulary in the written world. Many literary devices being employed today in all sorts of writing will be rendered impossible to use as well. This doesn’t render written communication impossible. Of course not, but it does reduce the effectiveness. I’ve already written pages ago that over time, this loss of vocabulary can be replaced and perhaps romanization will create new forms of literary devices. But don’t pretend there’s no cost in the interim or that the objections to romanization are purely cultural.
A wholesale switch to romanization will render writings done yesterday difficult to understand today. That’s why I think the best window to switch to full-scale romanization was in the immediate two or three decades aftermath of the creation of the ROC, when the breath and depth of modern writing was still at its infancy and literacy was still very very low.
The real question is whether the loss created by romanization is worth the benefit. I don’t think so. You seem to think so. Fine. We can agree to disagree on the value of the loss versus the value of the benefit. However, up until now, I couldn’t even convince you romanization would create any loss in the way modern Chinese is written.
I saw an impressive amount of empirical evidence in the article, and some handwaving in the comments. The main argument appears to be from incredulity (‘I don’t see how orthography could make any difference in the capacity of individuals to communicate on a certain subject, so it can’t be true’). I’ll stay with the scholarly articles thanks.[/quote]
There’s a lot more than simple handwaving in some of the comments. The comments, at least as I read them, do not present a common voice.
The point is then written Mandarin does not have to include Classical Chinese, its simply frequently does. The current “standard”, if you will, encourages use due to historical precedence and as there is prestige associated to it. Whether or not it’s practical or “acceptable” to remove that in the near term in the sticky point (I think I’m repeating you here sjcma). I’d wager it’d be easier to accomplish in China than Taiwan as I [that means empirically] see even less frequent use of classical structures over there than here in Taiwan and they’ve already been through a cultural revolution.
An analogy of similar scope but very different depth would be English and the use of Latin 50 or say 100 years ago. Impress your friends and start throwing “ergo…” into letters. There is a reason English moved on.
One should remember the primary impetus for the development of characters/Classical Chinese was to be elitist, the more characters you knew the more educated you were, the more obscure characters you could wip out the higher into officialdom you could climb. This is not unique among languages in process, but probably in scale.
History in on my side when I wager 50 years from now the question of “is it practical to move on from characters” is going to be in favour of moving on to some phonetic script. There are solid reasons why every other non-extinct language has done this. I also see a better way of incorporating loan words,like Japanese did awhile back. Mandarin stinks at it right now.
What was the original topic here again?
In other words, the language will change, people’s usage of language will change, but apart from that everything will continue as before because people will still be perfectly able to express themselves clearly and understand each other. So all this stuff about classical Chinese is irrelevant. It’s just an argument from tradition and culture, as previously noted.
A wholesale switch to simplified characters rendered writings done yesterday difficult to understand today.
What ‘loss created by romanization’? I’ve already pointed out that the Chinese themselves have embraced phonetic alphabets on the grounds of the very advantages I have pointed out and you have disputed. Your lack of recognition of the benefits simply isn’t grounded in reality. It’s grounded in a personal liking for a particular form of writing.
No, you’ve been unable to convince me that romanization would cause any loss of meaning, which (after much questioning), is the ‘loss’ you claimed. You claimed that writing Chinese in romanization results in a loss of meaning. But 馬 written as mǎ still means ‘horse’, so where’s the loss of meaning?
The only other argument you’ve made is ‘The Chinese can’t switch to an alphabet, because they wouldn’t be able to write in classical Chinese without it becoming highly ambiguous’, and the correct response to that is ‘So what?’. You’ve already acknowledged that people have no need to write in classical Chinese, so what’s the issue?
I didn’t suggest they present a common voice, but they don’t in any way offer a substantial rebuttal of the points which the article makes, which are the same points which have been made by other professionals (both Chinese and other).
[quote=“Fortigurn”]No, you’ve been unable to convince me that romanization would cause any loss of meaning, which (after much questioning), is the ‘loss’ you claimed. You claimed that writing Chinese in romanization results in a loss of meaning. But 馬 written as mǎ still means ‘horse’, so where’s the loss of meaning?
The only other argument you’ve made is ‘The Chinese can’t switch to an alphabet, because they wouldn’t be able to write in classical Chinese without it becoming highly ambiguous’, and the correct response to that is ‘So what?’. You’ve already acknowledged that people have no need to write in classical Chinese, so what’s the issue?[/quote]
This is becoming tiresome. You’re retreading old ground. The answers to your questions have already been given above. There’s no point going on and not because I concede to your point of view, but much like another poster in IP that simply won’t acknowledge the definition of science, your knowledge of written Chinese seems to be equally lacking that any further discussions on the topic would be fruitless for both of us.
Chinese culture would be greatly impoverished by the reduction of its writing system to some kind of alphabetical form.
The characters are one of the most aesthetically pleasing elements of Chinese culture. Their presence all around us hugely enriches the lives of those who are able to read them and/or appreciate their beauty. It was the beauty of the written language that drew me irresistibly to set about learning Mandarin and transplanting myself to this part of the world many years ago. It would be deeply saddening if this great font of beauty and inspiration were to be torn out of our lives in the name of utilitarian “progress”.
I don’t have the time or interest to read through all the posts. But I can tell you that a lot of local science workers and technicians almost purely use Chinese instructions and terminology (terminology is complete and clear, I can read Chinese okay and they have specific terminology for almost everything) for their daily work and scientific reports although they also can use English if they wanted to…usually locally educated folk, work quality is not affected.
So it sometimes means horse and sometimes doesn’t, even in classical Chinese. So we’re still stuck with ambiguities, even when we use characters, and even when we use a high literary form such as classical Chinese.
Classical Chinese is purely a written language and has no close equivalent in any modern spoken variants of Chinese. Thus, you won’t be able to tell from context because everyone has difficulty when classical Chinese is read out loud.[/quote]
As I said before, since classical Chinese creates these problems people find ways around them, such as not using classical Chinese. So if I read ma3 in a text today, I would be certain that in the vast majority of instances the context would help me to determine what ma3 meant because people tend not to write in classical Chinese.
[quote]We are still talking about classical Chinese right? I’m assuming yes since you wrote: If I read ‘horse’ in classical Chinese, and ‘horse’ in Pinyin, what do I lose when I write it in Pinyin?
Or do you have your own definition of classical Chinese that I’m not aware of?[/quote]
Yes, we’re still talking about classical Chinese. I’m interested to know of ‘ma’ in pinyin loses any meaning which 馬 has. So far it doesn’t look like it.
No I’m not kidding. I’m asking the reason why ‘For the most part, simplified characters have not affected meaning’. As I have pointed out, some of them are pretty simple. Your concern has been that alterations to the symbols used to represent written Chinese will result in an unspecified loss of meaning. It seems you believe this has even happened with the simplified characters. I’m interested in knowing what loss of meaning has occurred, and why it hasn’t occurred ‘for the most part’.
It can’t. I didn’t say it could. I asked if it would be impossible. Would it be impossible? If so, then intelligent people just won’t write like this. They’ll write in a manner which conveys their meaning more accurately.
Because you raised classical Chinese usage as a matter of relevance to modern day writing practice.
Well yes. And you’ve been arguing that Chinese shouldn’t be romanized, because it would mean the loss of these classical language forms. I pointed out that this was a cultural argument, so you then started to argue that these classical Chinese forms are sufficiently relevant to everyday Chinese usage that their loss would have a negative impact. I haven’t seen any particular evidence for this, but even if it were true so what? It’s just another form of cultural argument. It isn’t about science, pedagogy, or language learning efficiency. It’s just the shock of the new and the love of the old.
The entire discussion started when I said there’s not a lot of science involved in resistance to a phonetic alphabet, mainly cultural fears. I don’t see that it’s substantially any different to the traditional/simplified characters debate. You claimed there were ‘reasons beside cultural ones’. You offered:
- ‘the abandonment of many existing vocabulary of which there isn’t an appropriate replacement in the vernacular’
A cultural argument. All languages abandon existing vocabulary over time. There’s a wealth of Chinese vocabulary which isn’t used these days, just as there’s a wealth of English vocabulary which isn’t used these days. Why isn’t it used? Because people don’t actually need it. If they don’t need it, then this is not an argument against losing it.
- ‘the abandonment of existing high literary styles’
A cultural argument. You even said yourself ‘Given time, other high vernacular literary styles may emerge’.
- ‘Switching to Pinyin wholesale would be revolutionary as it would throw away a large chunk of the existing written language and would make much of the existing text either incomprehensible or quite difficult’
This is not a cultural argument. However, as we’ve seen from the movement from traditional to Chinese characters, this isn’t a problem either. Material which people need to read is simply transcribed into the new form (much easier to do these days, using computers, than before). Material which people don’t need to read, isn’t. Simple.
- ‘it would be much more difficult to learn Chinese in the long run. Instead of memorizing the meanings of individual characters one would have to memorize the numerous meanings that a one syllable word could have’
This is not a cultural argument. However, it isn’t a problem either. Why not? Because people already have to memorize the numerous meanings that a one syllable word could have. They either do that, or they find they’re unable to speak in Chinese. This isn’t introducing any new problem.
You’re switching the focus unjustifiably from the subject under discussion to my personal knowledge of written Chinese. My personal knowledge of written Chinese has nothing to do with the subject under discussion. You’re playing the man, not the ball.
What I still haven’t received from you is an answer as to what meaning is lost when Chinese is written in pinyin, not characters. You told me that ‘meaning’ was lost. I’m asking you what meaning. Since I acknowledge you’re in a position to know from your superior understanding of written Chinese, I’ve asked you. I don’t think this is a complicated question.
I suggest you read Jared Diamond’s ‘Guns, Germs, and Steel’, and ‘The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language’ by John Mcwhorter. See also the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. Around 100 years ago the Chinese were a modern era country with pre-modern era literacy levels. Why? Because of the language. They deliberately undertook steps to change this, with Zhuyin and other programs. Later still they switched to simplified characters. The benefits were immense. If you want a hundred flowers to bloom, it’s a good idea to make as many people literate as possible.
It’s difficult to imagine that a massive increase in literacy isn’t going to have any effect on a society’s ability to technologically innovate, as the history of ideas shows that high levels of literacy and the ease of sharing ideas in an accessible form between as many people as possible, have a strong correlation with technological innovation. Look at the effect of the movable type printing press on Europe. The place just exploded. It even had a huge effect on literacy levels. China invented the movable type printing press before Europe, but couldn’t put it to the same use because their language prevented it from being used optimally. So after using it for a while they just abandoned it. Their language prevented them from using the technology in an optimal manner. They still have the same problem with the humble keyboard and typewriter. The typewriter was another technological advance crippled by the Chinese writing system. The computer keyboard likewise. These are historical facts.
I don’t think anyone has suggested that any scholar has made such a simplistic argument.
Exactly. We’ve seen Chinese on the mainland evolve for precisely that reason. It hasn’t optimized yet, but given time it very probably will.
Cultures don’t usually lack that trait, it’s just a trait which is occasionally suppressed in the culture. It’s being suppressed right now in China, as sjcma has pointed out.
[quote]Chinese culture would be greatly impoverished by the reduction of its writing system to some kind of alphabetical form.
The characters are one of the most aesthetically pleasing elements of Chinese culture. Their presence all around us hugely enriches the lives of those who are able to read them and/or appreciate their beauty. It was the beauty of the written language that drew me irresistibly to set about learning Mandarin and transplanting myself to this part of the world many years ago. It would be deeply saddening if this great font of beauty and inspiration were to be torn out of our lives in the name of utilitarian “progress”.[/quote]
The cultural argument. Some people just don’t see the shape of the characters as that important, or aesthetically pleasing. I’m sure the millions of previously illiterate Chinese who were overjoyed by their ability to learn the language more efficiently through simplified characters weren’t weeping over aesthetic loss.
You’re switching the focus unjustifiably from the subject under discussion to my personal knowledge of written Chinese.[/quote]
Not unjustifiable at all. I’ve answered your questions already, but you don’t have the necessary foundation to understand them. Your simplistic questions on what is meant by classical Chinese and classical elements as well as others about simplified characters show as much. Much like a discusson on the best way to solve differential equations, you’re still asking about algebra. That’s why it’s become tiresome and that’s why we shall never agree.
This is wrong. You haven’t answered my questions. I asked you what meaning is lost from Chinese when it’s written in pinyin. You have never answered. You have only told me that various literary forms and some vocabulary would be lost. As I pointed out, so what? This happens to languages. It’s natural.
So once again, what meaning is lost from Chinese when it’s written in pinyin? You’ve also claimed that this meaning is lost when Chinese is written in simplified characters, though not in every case. Can you explain this please?
I haven’t asked any questions about ‘what is meant by classical Chinese and classical elements’. You just don’t seem to want to answer the questions I have asked.
I agree that the arguments against romanizing Chinese are mainly cultural. But as a poster a fewpages ago said, the vast majority (99.99%) of ethnic Chinese literate Chinese do not want to romanize Chinese and see no advanategs in doing so. Case closed in my book.
And why should they? Taiwan, which uses the traditional forms, has afar higher literacy rate than China. If you excluded the elderly, it is probably higher that the US’s literacy rate (not saying much). Sure kids spend a fair amount of time learning it, but this may just teach them good study habits. In any event, they learn to read just as quickly as kids learning other languages. The idea that written Chinese stunts scientific and technological progress is simply absurd. As China becomes more powerful, Chinese will become a more important language as it already has.
Many misunderstandings here. Movable type printing was used in China from the 12th century to the 19th century. It was not used ‘for a while’ and then abandoned. The main reason that it never became common was that woodblock printing was far more efficient (for linguistic reasons). A superior alternative technology in context meant that movable type printing never became very widespread. Far more books were published in China using this cheap, effective technology between 1500 and 1800 than in Europe.
The computer keyboard presents no difficulties for the entry of Chinese using modern input methods.
Haven’t seen anybody raise the dialect issue yet. I don’t know how relevant it is for Taiwan, but in mainland China, different dialects have different pronunciations but use the same characters. So everyone (who can read) can communicate via characters, even if they don’t speak standard Mandarin. In western China, I often saw people resort to drawing characters because the other person couldn’t understand some of the words that they were saying. It works because the characters aren’t necessarily tied to pronunciation. If you romanized everything, you’d lose that. Which written language would you use in say, Hong Kong? I imagine that romanized Mandarin and romanized Cantonese would be pretty different.
No one is arguing that they should. The debate is over whether or not it’s possible to communicate effectively in written Chinese using a romanization system.
It teaches them one study habit, rote learning. They then apply this to absolutely everything else, because the entire education system is built on rote learning, from the language up. Rote learning is a good study tool, but it’s not a good study habit.
You mean they learn 3,000 characters in the same time it takes other kids to learn 26 letters? I don’t think so. The Chinese experience of phonetic systems, romanization, and simplification in the learning of their own language proves that learning is faster when phonetic, alphabetized, or simplified systems are used. So clearly they don’t all learn at the same speed.
I’ll go with the scholarly literature on this one thanks. I’ve referred to three sources, please get back to me when you’re confident contesting them.
I’m not sure where you’re getting your facts from. Could you enlighten me? This is not the only source I’ve read which says that usage of the movable type printing press was never widespread, that it had little impact, and fell into disuse.
Your ‘woodblock printing was far more efficient’ and ‘for linguistic reasons’ is saying the same thing as my ‘Their language prevented them from using the technology in an optimal manner’. Exactly. You’ve just said what I said.
Relevance? The topic under discussion was literacy levels, not the number of books published.
The operative phrase here is ‘using modern input methods’. Such as romanization.
I believe China has had an official single dialect for some years now. It’s called something like ‘Mandarin’ or pǔtōnghuà (普通話). Seems to be quite successful. I’ve heard a lot of people are using it these days, even in Taiwan. So I’d suggest that the written language be in that dialect.
I guess you guys like making simple things complex, or at least it seems like that, judging by your discusion.
The short answer to the question is: it’s conceivable but it would be a really stupid idea. Why would anyone think it was worth it?
The first point is homonyms. Chinese cannot be rendered into a phonetic form without losing a lot of the information encoded within the ideograms. It would be like thinking that everyone name Bob or John had the same personality, when in fact they were extremely different people. Context would not be enough to make up for the missing information.
The next point is that changing the language involves educating the children to use it. Over time, that might mean that future generations would be unable to read classical Chinese, creating a cultural discontuity.
Sure they have an official single dialect, but it’s hardly universal if after “some years now” only 53% of the population can speak it well. The other 47% are going to be pretty bummed when they can no longer read or write it either.
[quote]
In December 2004, the first survey of language use in the People’s Republic of China revealed that only 53% of its population, about 700 million people, could communicate in Standard Mandarin. (China Daily) A survey by South China Morning Post released in September 2006 gave the same result.[citation needed] This 53% is defined as a passing grade above 3-B (i.e. error rate lower than 40%) of the Evaluation Exam. Another survey in 2003 by the China National Language And Character Working Committee (国家语言文字工作委员会) shows, if mastery of Standard Mandarin is defined as Grade 1-A (an error rate lower than 3%), the percentages as follows are: Beijing 90%, Shanghai 3%, Tianjin 25%, Guangzhou 0.5%, Dalian 10%, Xi’an 12%, Chengdu 1%, Nanjing 2%.[/quote]
Plus Hong Kong still seems pretty hung up on their Cantonese…
(both from Wikipedia, because I’m not that motivated to look things up)
In my experience, traveling with someone from Fujian in western Sichuan, characters came in pretty handy when he couldn’t understand what the hell people were saying.
[quote=“BigJohn”]I guess you guys like making simple things complex, or at least it seems like that, judging by your discusion.
The short answer to the question is: it’s conceivable but it would be a really stupid idea. Why would anyone think it was worth it?[/quote]
Well, because it would simplify the process of language education tremendously, for one thing.
Chinese can be encoded that way. That’s clearly true, because it can be spoken that way. The only exception would be any instance when you could imagine people drawing on their palms or making verbal allusions about a particular character. There is something more going on there than a simple exchange of information though.
True, about the cultural discontinuity. I don’t mean to devalue the importance of this. Educating the children would be easy. Educating the adults, not so simple 
If 47% can’t speak it, they sure as heck can’t write it. For all intents and purposes, you can’t write standard Chinese without being able to speak Mandarin. Oh you can point out characters sure, but standard written Chinese is based on Mandarin, and a speaker of another dialect will have to learn standard written Chinese explicitly before being able to use it. Put another way, Cantonese readers or Mandarin readers will be able to glean a lot of meaning from their respective texts, more so than an English speaker could from French text but similarly so. there won’t be anything like complete understanding.