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Very cool. I noticed an interesting quote in the article: Before Pinyin was developed, 85% of Chinese people could not read, now almost all can. While the li

Very cool. I noticed an interesting quote in the article: Before Pinyin was developed, 85% of Chinese people could not read, now almost all can. While the literacy rate used to be 15% and is now 95%, that means that there are still 54 million illiterate people in the country. Obviously nothing wrong with the quote and it is at least in spirit correct, but it's interesting how vague language can be. Edit: while looking for those numbers, came across this which is a bit dated now (2001), but gives more insight into the situation there: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/12/news/chinas-long-but-uneven-march-to-literacy.html http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/12/news/chinas-long-but-uneve... According to Wang Dai, an official with the ministry's Illiteracy Elimination Office, literacy rates stand uniformly near the 95 percent level in the nation's major cities, and throughout its more prosperous coastal region. In China's less developed western region, however, there remains much to be done. The problem is especially acute in areas populated by non-Chinese ethnic minorities, such as Tibet, where illiteracy rates today run as high as 42 percent. Nationwide, there are still 30 million Chinese between the ages of 15 and 50 who cannot read at all. Adding in all those defined as "semi-literate" and those, like Hua Lijun, who are above 50, the total approaches 150 million. About 70 percent of all illiterate Chinese are women. The largest gains against illiteracy were made in the 1950s and 1960s when the government made good on its promises to provide at least basic education throughout much of the country.

imjustsaying 10y ago
Communist China is really good at massaging statistics to make things look better than they actually are. Significant numbers of people in modern China can barely communicate to each other about complex ideas in Mandarin (several hundred million are 2nd language speakers or quasi 1st-language speakers). Someone reading faulty pinyin and making a barely-comprehensible sounds might count as literacy in fluffy government surveys commissioned to show progress, but in reality being able to read pinyin does not mean someone can read in the way you or I understand it. If you need to understand the meaning of something written in Chinese, you must see the Chinese character. Just because you can read the pinyin pronunciation doesn't mean you understand what's being said. Being able to produce sounds is not literacy - there's high amounts of ambiguity. For example, reading Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī. Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī. Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì. Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì. Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shì shì. Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shí shì. Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shí shì. Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī. Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī shī, shí shí shí shī shī. Shì shì shì shì. Does not tell you the actual the meaning of 石室詩士施氏，嗜獅，誓食十獅。氏時時適市視獅。十時，適十獅適市。是時，適施氏適市。氏視是十獅，恃矢勢，使是十獅逝世。氏拾是十獅屍，適石室。石室濕，氏使侍拭石室。石室拭，氏始試食是十獅。食時，始識是十獅屍，實十石獅屍。試釋是事。 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_Den https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_... Another story entirely is the idea of adding "Simplified" Chinese characters. Now people who want to be seriously literate have to learn an additional set of characters. But I digress. For another example of massaging statistics to show progress, notice how when a comparison of "China's educational progress!" is made to the West, a place like Shanghai - whose school district is among the best if not the best in the entire country - is often then compared to the national average of other countries as if one were somehow representative of the other.
- jason_slack 10y ago
  "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_Den" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_... Fascinating. Thank you for the link.
  - FabHK 10y ago
    It is fascinating, and a cute curiosity, but not a serious argument for the necessity of characters as opposed to an alphabetic writing system.
- nneonneo 10y ago
  As a neat curiosity, ambiguity sometimes cuts both ways - reading 云朝朝朝朝朝朝朝朝散潮长长长长长长长长消 does not help you unless you also know the intended pronunciation: yūn， zhāo cháo， zhāo zhāo cháo，zhāo cháo zhāo sàn；cháo，cháng zhǎng， cháng cháng zhǎng， cháng zhǎng cháng xiāo (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B1%9F%E5%BF%83%E5%AF%BA https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B1%9F%E5%BF%83%E5%AF%BA) I agree with the overall point - Pinyin will never be a replacement for written Chinese. Indeed, both Japanese and Korean struggle with this to some extent - in Japanese, a sentence written in pure hiragana with no kanji is very difficult to understand, and in Korean, many people learn hanja as they are sometimes needed in writing to disambiguate.
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    Actually, except for the very old most Koreans know pretty much no hanja beyond really basic ones like 大. I always think this argument is ridiculous. Japanese, Korean, and Chinese people have managed to speak their respective languages (or ancestors of them) for thousands of years without being excessively troubled by those pesky homophones despite the fact that until the 20th Century only a small minority of them were literate.
    - FabHK 10y ago
      Very much this. Some more thoughts: * Standard Mandarin has a surprisingly small number of distinct syllables, namely about 400 when tones are ignored, and 1300 with tones. English has about 7000 to 15000. So, homophones are a bit more of a problem in Mandarin than in English. * English disambiguates some homophones in writing (where/were, there/their/they're, and so on), though as less literate people increasingly demonstrate, one can communicate reasonably well without these disambiguations. * Spanish has an extremely close correspondence between what is written and what is said, and only disambiguates a very few words (typically question words) with an accent, and the writing system works just fine. * Given that spoken Mandarin works, and disambiguation of homophones in alphabetic languages is only sometimes done, I am personally convinced that some sort of alphabetic writing for Mandarin is absolutely feasible. That might be Pinyin or Bopomofo or some variation thereof. * Personally, I find the Chinese script very beautiful, but a colossal waste of time (think of the billion of poor kids that had to learn it). * Would switching to some sort of alphabetic system cut people off of their cultural heritage? Maybe somewhat, but I'd argue it's mitigated by two things: a) Classical Chinese is in fact so remote from modern one that you have to study it anyways in depth, if you are into it. You could still do that, if you are into it. b) Nearly nobody speaks Latin anymore in the West, the horror. Are we cut off of our cultural heritage? Well, somewhat, but there are translations, and if you're really into it, you can still go and learn it, see a). Great resources on these issues, btw: * "The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy", John DeFrancis * "Asia's Orthographic Dilemma", Wm. C. Hannas, extract available here http://www.pinyin.info/readings/orthographic.html http://www.pinyin.info/readings/orthographic.html * Pinyin Info, http://www.pinyin.info/ http://www.pinyin.info/ * Language Log, http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/ http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/ , in particular Victor Mair's posts

imjustsaying 10y ago

Communist China is really good at massaging statistics to make things look better than they actually are. Significant numbers of people in modern China can barely communicate to each other about complex ideas in Mandarin (several hundred million are 2nd language speakers or quasi 1st-language speakers). Someone reading faulty pinyin and making a barely-comprehensible sounds might count as literacy in fluffy government surveys commissioned to show progress, but in reality being able to read pinyin does not mean someone can read in the way you or I understand it. If you need to understand the meaning of something written in Chinese, you must see the Chinese character. Just because you can read the pinyin pronunciation doesn't mean you understand what's being said. Being able to produce sounds is not literacy - there's high amounts of ambiguity. For example, reading Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī. Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī. Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì. Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì. Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shì shì. Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shí shì. Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shí shì. Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī. Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī shī, shí shí shí shī shī. Shì shì shì shì. Does not tell you the actual the meaning of 石室詩士施氏，嗜獅，誓食十獅。氏時時適市視獅。十時，適十獅適市。是時，適施氏適市。氏視是十獅，恃矢勢，使是十獅逝世。氏拾是十獅屍，適石室。石室濕，氏使侍拭石室。石室拭，氏始試食是十獅。食時，始識是十獅屍，實十石獅屍。試釋是事。 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_Den https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_... Another story entirely is the idea of adding "Simplified" Chinese characters. Now people who want to be seriously literate have to learn an additional set of characters. But I digress. For another example of massaging statistics to show progress, notice how when a comparison of "China's educational progress!" is made to the West, a place like Shanghai - whose school district is among the best if not the best in the entire country - is often then compared to the national average of other countries as if one were somehow representative of the other.

jason_slack 10y ago
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_Den" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_... Fascinating. Thank you for the link.
- FabHK 10y ago
  It is fascinating, and a cute curiosity, but not a serious argument for the necessity of characters as opposed to an alphabetic writing system.
nneonneo 10y ago
As a neat curiosity, ambiguity sometimes cuts both ways - reading 云朝朝朝朝朝朝朝朝散潮长长长长长长长长消 does not help you unless you also know the intended pronunciation: yūn， zhāo cháo， zhāo zhāo cháo，zhāo cháo zhāo sàn；cháo，cháng zhǎng， cháng cháng zhǎng， cháng zhǎng cháng xiāo (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B1%9F%E5%BF%83%E5%AF%BA https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B1%9F%E5%BF%83%E5%AF%BA) I agree with the overall point - Pinyin will never be a replacement for written Chinese. Indeed, both Japanese and Korean struggle with this to some extent - in Japanese, a sentence written in pure hiragana with no kanji is very difficult to understand, and in Korean, many people learn hanja as they are sometimes needed in writing to disambiguate.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  Actually, except for the very old most Koreans know pretty much no hanja beyond really basic ones like 大. I always think this argument is ridiculous. Japanese, Korean, and Chinese people have managed to speak their respective languages (or ancestors of them) for thousands of years without being excessively troubled by those pesky homophones despite the fact that until the 20th Century only a small minority of them were literate.
  - FabHK 10y ago
    Very much this. Some more thoughts: * Standard Mandarin has a surprisingly small number of distinct syllables, namely about 400 when tones are ignored, and 1300 with tones. English has about 7000 to 15000. So, homophones are a bit more of a problem in Mandarin than in English. * English disambiguates some homophones in writing (where/were, there/their/they're, and so on), though as less literate people increasingly demonstrate, one can communicate reasonably well without these disambiguations. * Spanish has an extremely close correspondence between what is written and what is said, and only disambiguates a very few words (typically question words) with an accent, and the writing system works just fine. * Given that spoken Mandarin works, and disambiguation of homophones in alphabetic languages is only sometimes done, I am personally convinced that some sort of alphabetic writing for Mandarin is absolutely feasible. That might be Pinyin or Bopomofo or some variation thereof. * Personally, I find the Chinese script very beautiful, but a colossal waste of time (think of the billion of poor kids that had to learn it). * Would switching to some sort of alphabetic system cut people off of their cultural heritage? Maybe somewhat, but I'd argue it's mitigated by two things: a) Classical Chinese is in fact so remote from modern one that you have to study it anyways in depth, if you are into it. You could still do that, if you are into it. b) Nearly nobody speaks Latin anymore in the West, the horror. Are we cut off of our cultural heritage? Well, somewhat, but there are translations, and if you're really into it, you can still go and learn it, see a). Great resources on these issues, btw: * "The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy", John DeFrancis * "Asia's Orthographic Dilemma", Wm. C. Hannas, extract available here http://www.pinyin.info/readings/orthographic.html http://www.pinyin.info/readings/orthographic.html * Pinyin Info, http://www.pinyin.info/ http://www.pinyin.info/ * Language Log, http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/ http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/ , in particular Victor Mair's posts