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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 bar

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
emodendroket 10y ago
That's a ridiculously contrived example. By this logic I guess we need to introduce a system based on Chinese characters because it's hard to interpret the meaning of "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffal...)
- imjustsaying 10y ago
  Sign up for WeChat and start talking to people in just pinyin. They'll tell you how much they don't enjoy talking to you.
  - jason_slack 10y ago
    I like a good discussion, but you are really stretching each and every post you make. I know people that simply don't write characters at all. I know people that prefer characters.
    - imjustsaying 10y ago
      I've written people messages in just pinyin and they tell me they don't understand when it's just pinyin. Maybe they were just illiterate?
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    Nobody will have a discussion with you in English using Cyrillic characters either, but not because English is uniquely suited to the Latin alphabet. Obviously people who read and write with Chinese characters all the time are going to prefer what they're familiar with.
eva1984 10y ago
Languages are for communicating, if there is ambiguity, ask and let the person clarify it. In fact, zhuyin is equally bad resolving the Lion Poet as well. While in reality, no one really speaks like this. > Now people who want to be seriously literate have to learn an additional set of characters It is not left to you to decide what is 'literacy'. In a society that most of people using simplified characters, understanding traditional chinese brings marginal benefits, as you don't speak Shakespeare's english on daily basis. More convincing counterexample will be nation like Vietnam and Korea, where Chinese characters have been long deprecated, are not illiterate in any way, and are doing absolutely fine. Some traditional Chinese users often fall into the trap of associating language/writing system to their own identity, preventing themselves from thinking about the stuff they are actively objecting in a more rational and constructive way, such is this case. Simplified Chinese is here because people are happy with it and it is not limiting their expression. If the language serves the purpose of enabling communication between people, then it is a good language, and it has every reason to stay. I didn't see why a thriving language with 1 billion user base should go anywhere based on some niche group's agenda.
- chei0iaV 10y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I've been explained, the issue with Simplified Chinese is that it's "simplified" by removing characters for homonyms in Mandarin Chinese. So this works fine for Mandarin speakers, but in places like Taiwan, where they speak a different dialect, it does not make sense since there is one character for different words that are not pronounced the same, making the writing difficult or impossible to read... Which is why they stick to Traditional, and might understandably feel Simplified as an affront to their identity.
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    Ok: you are wrong. There are several classes of simplification and most of them involve standardizing common written shorthand or replacing radicals to form new characters. There is some replacing of characters for homophones, but this is the least common type of simplification. As for Taiwanese, the problem there is that, simplified or not, the language features a lot of words that just don't have a standard representation in Chinese script. The whole idea that Chinese script lets Chinese people just write their vernacular speech and all understand each other is fallacious. Almost all written material in Chinese (especially anything formal) is written according to the grammar and vocabulary of Mandarin (although perhaps it will be read with the pronunciation of a different Sinitic language).
DonaldFisk 10y ago
> there's high amounts of ambiguity. Were that true, Mandarin speakers would have trouble understanding each other when they speak. The poem is written in Classical Chinese, and in that language, the different characters would have different pronunciations (as is also the case in modern Cantonese). With hindsight, you're right about the simplified characters. Traditional characters are still used in Hong Kong and Taiwan ROC. Simplified characters are easier to write, but not necessarily to read. But Chinese isn't written as much nowadays - it's usually typed in Pinyin and the appropriate characters selected by software, a development that couldn't have been foreseen when simplified characters were introduced.
Aldo_MX 10y ago
The "shi shi shi shi shi" poem caught my attention, so I looked for a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jtiw721RAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jtiw721RAg

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

emodendroket 10y ago

That's a ridiculously contrived example. By this logic I guess we need to introduce a system based on Chinese characters because it's hard to interpret the meaning of "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffal...)

imjustsaying 10y ago
Sign up for WeChat and start talking to people in just pinyin. They'll tell you how much they don't enjoy talking to you.
- jason_slack 10y ago
  I like a good discussion, but you are really stretching each and every post you make. I know people that simply don't write characters at all. I know people that prefer characters.
  - imjustsaying 10y ago
    I've written people messages in just pinyin and they tell me they don't understand when it's just pinyin. Maybe they were just illiterate?
- emodendroket 10y ago
  Nobody will have a discussion with you in English using Cyrillic characters either, but not because English is uniquely suited to the Latin alphabet. Obviously people who read and write with Chinese characters all the time are going to prefer what they're familiar with.

eva1984 10y ago

Languages are for communicating, if there is ambiguity, ask and let the person clarify it. In fact, zhuyin is equally bad resolving the Lion Poet as well. While in reality, no one really speaks like this. > Now people who want to be seriously literate have to learn an additional set of characters It is not left to you to decide what is 'literacy'. In a society that most of people using simplified characters, understanding traditional chinese brings marginal benefits, as you don't speak Shakespeare's english on daily basis. More convincing counterexample will be nation like Vietnam and Korea, where Chinese characters have been long deprecated, are not illiterate in any way, and are doing absolutely fine. Some traditional Chinese users often fall into the trap of associating language/writing system to their own identity, preventing themselves from thinking about the stuff they are actively objecting in a more rational and constructive way, such is this case. Simplified Chinese is here because people are happy with it and it is not limiting their expression. If the language serves the purpose of enabling communication between people, then it is a good language, and it has every reason to stay. I didn't see why a thriving language with 1 billion user base should go anywhere based on some niche group's agenda.

chei0iaV 10y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I've been explained, the issue with Simplified Chinese is that it's "simplified" by removing characters for homonyms in Mandarin Chinese. So this works fine for Mandarin speakers, but in places like Taiwan, where they speak a different dialect, it does not make sense since there is one character for different words that are not pronounced the same, making the writing difficult or impossible to read... Which is why they stick to Traditional, and might understandably feel Simplified as an affront to their identity.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  Ok: you are wrong. There are several classes of simplification and most of them involve standardizing common written shorthand or replacing radicals to form new characters. There is some replacing of characters for homophones, but this is the least common type of simplification. As for Taiwanese, the problem there is that, simplified or not, the language features a lot of words that just don't have a standard representation in Chinese script. The whole idea that Chinese script lets Chinese people just write their vernacular speech and all understand each other is fallacious. Almost all written material in Chinese (especially anything formal) is written according to the grammar and vocabulary of Mandarin (although perhaps it will be read with the pronunciation of a different Sinitic language).

DonaldFisk 10y ago

> there's high amounts of ambiguity. Were that true, Mandarin speakers would have trouble understanding each other when they speak. The poem is written in Classical Chinese, and in that language, the different characters would have different pronunciations (as is also the case in modern Cantonese). With hindsight, you're right about the simplified characters. Traditional characters are still used in Hong Kong and Taiwan ROC. Simplified characters are easier to write, but not necessarily to read. But Chinese isn't written as much nowadays - it's usually typed in Pinyin and the appropriate characters selected by software, a development that couldn't have been foreseen when simplified characters were introduced.

Aldo_MX 10y ago

The "shi shi shi shi shi" poem caught my attention, so I looked for a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jtiw721RAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jtiw721RAg