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Earlier quoted context omitted.
We talked about this years ago. This is very much taught in the PRC (and I believe Taiwan for that matter). I specifically gave you examples of standardized tests that go over this material. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33312227
Luxun's works and opinions are far, far less well known in Taiwan than in the mainland.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We talked about this years ago. This is very much taught in the PRC (and I believe Taiwan for that matter). I specifically gave you examples of standardized tests that go over this material. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33312227
You seem to be conflating "someone taught it at a university" with the apparently well evidenced view that Lu Xun's overwhelming coverage in popular media and secondary schooling neglects to point out his anti-character stance.
What do you mean by "apparently well evidenced view?" No I'm not saying "someone taught it at university." That's a public high school exam. That is specifically secondary schooling.
Moreover, this gets mentioned in official publications and popular media frequently. See for example this official article from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (which is a state-run entity), which just happened to be the first article that caught my eye.
> 1935年12月，蔡元培、鲁迅、郭沫若、叶圣陶、茅盾、陈望道、陶行知等688位知名人士，共同发表文章《我们对于推行新文字的意见》，其中说：“中国已经到了生死关头，我们必须教育大众，组织起来解决困难。但这教育大众的工作，开始就遇着一个绝大难关。这个难关就是方块汉字。方块汉字难认、难识、难学。……我们觉得这种新文字值得向全国介绍。我们深望大家一齐来研究它，推行它，使它成为推进大众文化和民族解放运动的重要工具。” (http://ling.cass.cn/keyan/xueshuchengguo/cgtj/202112/t202112...)
And my very rough translation.
> In December of 1935, 688 well-known individuals including Cai Yuanpei, Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, Ye Shengtao, Mao Dun, Chen Wangdao, and Tao Xingzhi, published "Our views on spreading Sin Wenz [Latinxua Sin Wenz, i.e. a Latin alphabetization of Chinese]." It stated in part, "China has already arrived at the point of life or death, we must educate the masses and organize [them] to solve difficulties. But the work of educating the masses, at its very beginning already runs into an enormous problem. That problem is Chinese square characters [Chinese characters usually are roughly proportioned as if they were in a square frame]. Chinese square characters are difficult to recognize, difficult to understand, and difficult to learn.... We believe that Sin Wenz deserves to be introduced to the entire nation. We deeply hope that everyone will study them, spread them and put them into practice, and make them into an important tool for improving the culture of the masses and the movement to liberate the people."
More broadly this is a very common topic among Chinese netizens. There are as I linked dozens of forum posts on this across Zhihu, Baidu, etc.
It's not the first thing people learn about Lu Xun. But it's definitely not hidden.
This article seems to completely ignore the fact that languages change over time on their own and attributes all differences between Literary Chinese and Modern Standard Chinese to contact with European languages, which is rather excessive. Lu Xun was interested in translation, but he was even more interested in writing for the common folk, i.e. not in some relexified foreign language. There are definitely some innov…
> I think most of the claims about grammar are false. This part about "forced the English plural We [..] injecting mandatory number-specificity where context once sufficed" really struck me. Sounds cool for poetry to be ambiguous about this, but really now, how is an advanced society handling the practical matters of writing contracts and keeping records without it
By "it" I guess you mean grammatical plurals? It's indeed semantically redundant. Say in a context of contracts, how is "3000.00 dollar" in any way more ambiguous than "3000.00 dollars"? The Chinese language indeed has been supporting an advanced society without grammatical plurals for thousands of years.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You seem to be conflating "someone taught it at a university" with the apparently well evidenced view that Lu Xun's overwhelming coverage in popular media and secondary schooling neglects to point out his anti-character stance.
> apparently well evidenced view that Lu Xun's overwhelming coverage in popular media and secondary schooling neglects to point out his anti-character stance What do you mean by "apparently well evidenced view?" No I'm not saying "someone taught it at university." That's a public high school exam. That is specifically secondary schooling. Moreover, this gets mentioned in official publications and popular media freque…
> Traditional Chinese relies on context: “Rain heavy, not go”, “雨大，不去了”. > Modern Chinese demands explicit logic: “Because the rain is heavy, therefore I will not go.””因为雨下得很大，所以我决定不去了。” No, what? Most native speakers today definitely say things like “雨大，不去了” in daily conversations. > Take his most famous poem, Saying Good-bye to Cambridge Again (再别康桥). In Classical Chinese, a farewell to a river might be compressed…
> Traditional Chinese relies on context: “Rain heavy, not go”, “雨大，不去了”. > Modern Chinese demands explicit logic: “Because the rain is heavy, therefore I will not go.””因为雨下得很大，所以我决定不去了。” I would say "下雨了，我不去“ or something like that. The second example is perhaps what a language learner would say in order to "speak correctly", but nobody actually speaks or writes like that.
> Traditional Chinese relies on context: “Rain heavy, not go”, “雨大，不去了”. > Modern Chinese demands explicit logic: “Because the rain is heavy, therefore I will not go.””因为雨下得很大，所以我决定不去了。” Two observations. One, I see this in Thai, too, which might yet preserve that earlier syntax. ไม่เผ็ด ไม่กิน ("No spicy, no eat") is perfectly fine in Thai, though it is possible (and very unidiomatic) to create a formal conditional…
Tai languages are a completely different language family to Chinese, written using Indian abugidas and largely prisoner to a confluence of religious affectation, court ritual and the popular language of the peasantry as popular literacy never occurred. By contrast, Chinese has an uninterrupted written history spanning thousands of years with world leading poetry, philosophy and science. In terms of historical and lin…
> Traditional Chinese relies on context: “Rain heavy, not go”, “雨大，不去了”. > Modern Chinese demands explicit logic: “Because the rain is heavy, therefore I will not go.””因为雨下得很大，所以我决定不去了。” Two observations. One, I see this in Thai, too, which might yet preserve that earlier syntax. ไม่เผ็ด ไม่กิน ("No spicy, no eat") is perfectly fine in Thai, though it is possible (and very unidiomatic) to create a formal conditional…
"to Thai, squid, octopus, and cuttlefish are all ปลาหมึก. For English speakers, those are similar things, but all clearly distinct. But for Thai speakers, they're all ปลาหมึก, just different types." Then, ปลาหมึก = coleoidea? If so, the squid, octopus, and cuttlefish are (in English and many other languages) all just types of coleoidea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coleoidea