Contains some of the usual generalizations like “perhaps even thousands of different Chinese dialects can all read the same script”, and it also honors the long tradition of Communist states of attributing famous inventions to one of their own obscure comrades: “Fang Shizeng, now retired, was once at the heart of the effort … to develop the first really practical pinyin-based input program”. Never mind that most of the work on computerized input of Chinese characters was done in Taiwan.
However, the article also gives voice to DeFrancis and his theory on the inevitable demise of characters, and it concludes “spoken Chinese, after all, can be more or less perfectly represented by pinyin and the four tones”.
I wanted to say that “If spoken Chinese can be accurately represented by the four tones then we should try to do it,” but the closest I could get was “Ruguo pinyin hui biaoda pupian de hua, women zai zheli yinggai yong pinyin bici goutong.”
As I see it, replacing the Chinese characters by this stupid roman Pinyin could only be imposed under some very authoritarian regime.
The clock is ticking and the window of opportunity will probably be missed.
So perhaps better to learn those damn chicken scratches now.
I have little doubt that characters will be around a lot longer than I will be but I really can’t bring myself to study them. I am at about my limit with what I can learn now. I have to learn to speak Chinese, use a computer, and I am developing a fairly unique system for learning English. It is all just too much for my bald little head to handle I am afraid. Besides, that chicken scratch system just looks so goddam dumb to me. I love and respect quite a few things Chinese but the writing system just isn’t one of them. My loss I know.