11–20 of 96 posts
“Safari can’t open the page because the address is invalid” How strange. More on topic: Considering how inefficient Chinese characters are in general (but especially evident in computing) as one of the few languages where characters have no direct relation to phonetics, I wonder why there hasn’t been an effort to modernize it similar to Hiragana in Japan. Well, considering how Chinese is basically Kanji, why not just…
We are not in the 90s anymore. UTF-8 has been around for 32 years now. If you’re working for a system that has no UTF-8 support, you have a much bigger problem to worry about.
> characters have no direct relation to phonetics
Most characters are phono-semantic where one part of the character is a phonetic hint and the other is a semantic hint.
> modernize it similar to Hiragana
Hiragana isn’t and wasn’t intended to replace kanji (unless you are from the fringe Kanamozikai). It serves a different grammatical purpose and is complementary to the other two. Kana is useful for an agglutinating language like Japanese, but not Chinese languages.
> like Chairman Mao Zedong, who seemed to equate Chinese modernization with the Romanization of Chinese script One of Mao's better ideas
However, the Chinese language has evolved alongside the characters for about 3000 years, and it's very difficult to just separate the two. A huge amount of culture is bound up with the characters. Not only that, but the Romanized writing system is viewed as something that only little children use (as an aid to learn the characters). Once you've put in the effort to learn the characters (as about a billion people have), it's very difficult to accept their replacement by what is viewed as a script for children.
> like Chairman Mao Zedong, who seemed to equate Chinese modernization with the Romanization of Chinese script One of Mao's better ideas
Thank God it didn’t happen.
Not only did it propel literacy rates to basically 100%, but it added a phonetic component to the language
> like Chairman Mao Zedong, who seemed to equate Chinese modernization with the Romanization of Chinese script One of Mao's better ideas
Romanization of Chinese writing was already proposed during the New Culture movement in the 1910s-20s. China's most famous modern writer supported it. However, the Chinese language has evolved alongside the characters for about 3000 years, and it's very difficult to just separate the two. A huge amount of culture is bound up with the characters. Not only that, but the Romanized writing system is viewed as something t…
“Safari can’t open the page because the address is invalid” How strange. More on topic: Considering how inefficient Chinese characters are in general (but especially evident in computing) as one of the few languages where characters have no direct relation to phonetics, I wonder why there hasn’t been an effort to modernize it similar to Hiragana in Japan. Well, considering how Chinese is basically Kanji, why not just…
> how inefficient Chinese characters are in general (but especially evident in computing) We are not in the 90s anymore. UTF-8 has been around for 32 years now. If you’re working for a system that has no UTF-8 support, you have a much bigger problem to worry about. > characters have no direct relation to phonetics Most characters are phono-semantic where one part of the character is a phonetic hint and the other is a…
FWIW, the Japanese did develop a kana-based system for Taiwanese during the occupation, but it was an abomination.[1]
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Romanization of Chinese writing was already proposed during the New Culture movement in the 1910s-20s. China's most famous modern writer supported it. However, the Chinese language has evolved alongside the characters for about 3000 years, and it's very difficult to just separate the two. A huge amount of culture is bound up with the characters. Not only that, but the Romanized writing system is viewed as something t…
Almost all digital communication is written using pinyin, which today is almost all written communication
> like Chairman Mao Zedong, who seemed to equate Chinese modernization with the Romanization of Chinese script One of Mao's better ideas
Romanization of Chinese writing was already proposed during the New Culture movement in the 1910s-20s. China's most famous modern writer supported it. However, the Chinese language has evolved alongside the characters for about 3000 years, and it's very difficult to just separate the two. A huge amount of culture is bound up with the characters. Not only that, but the Romanized writing system is viewed as something t…