3 ms·

English has a similar problem with ridiculous spellings. But I don't know many people that think this isn't a problem, there is just no way to coordinate everyo

English has a similar problem with ridiculous spellings. But I don't know many people that think this isn't a problem, there is just no way to coordinate everyone to agree to change. > But the information density of a language has to go somewhere. In English, I guess this is facilitated by a relatively granular sound system and complex grammar. Mandarin ended up with a relatively simple and inflexible sound system and simple grammar, so the complexity went into the characters. I don't know if this tradeoff is really necessary. How much extra space would it really take to write out chinese, if it had it's own phonetic script with a few dozen characters? Maybe it would need more characters than English, but certainly not thousands. Second, there is a big difference between a complicated spoken language, and a complicated written language. Human beings are actually quite good at learning complicated languages when we are young. We just naturally absorb them. There is no worry about languages being too complicated for it's own speakers to learn. But writing systems are learned later in life, and therefore take more effort and can lead to illiteracy. We don't absorb writing naturally like spoken language. >when I tell people that I really care about them and want to get along with them peacefully _in their own language_, I think it goes straight to their hearts and means a lot more to them. And it means a lot more to me, too. If that's stalling "development", I'm OK with that. I really can't believe you said that. Development means pulling poor people out of poverty and vastly improving the quality of life for the average person. Increasing literacy is also very important for that goal.

b6 11y ago
> How much extra space would it really take to write out chinese, if it had it's own phonetic script with a few dozen characters? I'm not a linguist, but my intuition is, that's not the problem. We could come up with a system of writing Mandarin sounds compactly using English characters, but I think there would still be too few sounds chasing too many ideas. When you see Chinese characters, meaning immediately appears in your mind. When you see the sounds of Mandarin words, I guess you start thinking about numerous possible meanings. Totally concede that the writing system takes a lot of effort to learn. I think very few people other than the Chinese will ever learn to read it, much less write it. On "development", it wasn't perfectly clear to me what the author meant. Honestly it never occurred to me they meant that the Chinese writing system was slowing the rise of the standard of living in China. Has any country's standard of living ever increased more quickly than China's? Of course I want all people everywhere to be lifted out of poverty ASAP. I want opportunity for everyone ASAP.

b6 11y ago

> How much extra space would it really take to write out chinese, if it had it's own phonetic script with a few dozen characters? I'm not a linguist, but my intuition is, that's not the problem. We could come up with a system of writing Mandarin sounds compactly using English characters, but I think there would still be too few sounds chasing too many ideas. When you see Chinese characters, meaning immediately appears in your mind. When you see the sounds of Mandarin words, I guess you start thinking about numerous possible meanings. Totally concede that the writing system takes a lot of effort to learn. I think very few people other than the Chinese will ever learn to read it, much less write it. On "development", it wasn't perfectly clear to me what the author meant. Honestly it never occurred to me they meant that the Chinese writing system was slowing the rise of the standard of living in China. Has any country's standard of living ever increased more quickly than China's? Of course I want all people everywhere to be lifted out of poverty ASAP. I want opportunity for everyone ASAP.