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Pinyin or Bopomofo [0] doesn't really matter what symbols are used. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo

knolax 8y ago
The anger isn't towards Pinyin specifically, but towards attempts to switch the writing system to phonetic writing. Pinyin is still taught in schools today starting from preschool. Most of the current generation of Chinese people are familiar with both and the common sentiment is that truly phonetic writing systems aren't practical, and that CCP attempts to use Pinyin as a "real" writing system were misguided and yet another example of the government trying to destroy Chinese culture.
- digianarchist 8y ago
  > "If you actually talk to any Chinese people you'll realize that most are very opposed to the Latinization of the writing system." Bopomofo isn't Latin characters...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - knolax 8y ago
    But it's still phonetic.
- Koshkin 8y ago
  I wonder if there's something about Chinese language that makes phonetic writing somehow less suitable for it. What about a possibility of a syllabic system?
  - intopieces 8y ago
    Yes, that something is homophony. Mandarin has 1522 syllables when you include tone (413 syllables without). [0] English has 15,831. [1] [0] https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/14596/how-many-syllables-does-chinese-have https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/14596/how-many-s... [1] http://semarch.linguistics.fas.nyu.edu/barker/Syllables/index.txt http://semarch.linguistics.fas.nyu.edu/barker/Syllables/inde... [via wayback: https://web.archive.org/web/20091115065840/http://semarch.linguistics.fas.nyu.edu/barker/Syllables/index.txt https://web.archive.org/web/20091115065840/http://semarch.li...]
  - yorwba 8y ago
    The problem isn't Chinese in general, but the written register of Chinese specifically, and all the texts already using it. If you've ever looked at a verbatim transcript of a spontaneous conversation, you'll probably have noticed how much of an incoherent mess spoken language can be. Written speech is much tidier, because people have the opportunity to be very deliberate in what they write down. For Chinese in particular, that means that people can be much more succinct in writing than orally, because the characters provide additional disambiguation beyond just indicating the pronunciation. Any purely phonetic writing system would require everyone to readjust their standard of what kind of sentences are comprehensible.
  - FabHK 8y ago
    DeFrancis book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy is excellent on that and many related questions [1]. First, Mandarin has no inflection (love/loves), which allows for writing in characters in the first place. Then, Mandarin has a fairly impoverished phonetic system, allowing for only about 400 different syllables ignoring tones, or 1200 or so when distinguishing tones (while English for example has some 7000 or so, without tones). This leads to many homophones, which can be distinguished by being written with different characters. Or so the traditional justification goes (I don't think much of that argument, because clearly people can speak to each other just fine, without having to clarify which word they mean - disambiguation happens by longer words (two or more syllables), which you could just write down. What happens is that in writing, you only need to write parts of a word: spoken out loud it would be ambiguous, but the chosen character disambiguates it, and thus people conclude that writing wouldn't work without the characters.) However, arguably it's just a matter of habit (and resistance on the part of those that have already put in the time and effort to learn the characters). There are, in fact, Sinitic languages written alphabetically, eg Dungan [2]. The whole issue is very politicised, as you can see with the animated discussion here and the vigorous resistance to the initial comment (which was a bit unfortunately phrased, in my view, but fundamentally sound: Chinese is a very hard language to learn, mostly by virtue of its archaic writing system, and that is arguably somewhat deliberate.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chinese_Language:_Fact_and_Fantasy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chinese_Language:_Fact_and... [2] see the articles linked from here: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=40417 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=40417
    - knolax 8y ago
      >just a matter of habit That's a vast understatement. Adopting a writing system that would render everything written in the formal register incomprehensible isn't exactly a tenable position.
      - FabHK 8y ago
        Europeans used to write in Latin, which is now incomprehensible to most, and yet, it has all worked out. But granted, the transition took a while and was not just a matter of habit. Having said that, why could one not publish important classic texts in a phonetic vernacular version, and leave the study of the originals to those with the inclination (just as most people in the West do not learn Hebrew, ancient Greek, and Latin; yet can find versions of the Bible, Euclid, Seneca, and Newton that they can read if they so desire.)
  - PavlikPaja 8y ago
    Chinese characters are syllabic.

knolax 8y ago

The anger isn't towards Pinyin specifically, but towards attempts to switch the writing system to phonetic writing. Pinyin is still taught in schools today starting from preschool. Most of the current generation of Chinese people are familiar with both and the common sentiment is that truly phonetic writing systems aren't practical, and that CCP attempts to use Pinyin as a "real" writing system were misguided and yet another example of the government trying to destroy Chinese culture.

digianarchist 8y ago
> "If you actually talk to any Chinese people you'll realize that most are very opposed to the Latinization of the writing system." Bopomofo isn't Latin characters...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- knolax 8y ago
  But it's still phonetic.
Koshkin 8y ago
I wonder if there's something about Chinese language that makes phonetic writing somehow less suitable for it. What about a possibility of a syllabic system?
- intopieces 8y ago
  Yes, that something is homophony. Mandarin has 1522 syllables when you include tone (413 syllables without). [0] English has 15,831. [1] [0] https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/14596/how-many-syllables-does-chinese-have https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/14596/how-many-s... [1] http://semarch.linguistics.fas.nyu.edu/barker/Syllables/index.txt http://semarch.linguistics.fas.nyu.edu/barker/Syllables/inde... [via wayback: https://web.archive.org/web/20091115065840/http://semarch.linguistics.fas.nyu.edu/barker/Syllables/index.txt https://web.archive.org/web/20091115065840/http://semarch.li...]
- yorwba 8y ago
  The problem isn't Chinese in general, but the written register of Chinese specifically, and all the texts already using it. If you've ever looked at a verbatim transcript of a spontaneous conversation, you'll probably have noticed how much of an incoherent mess spoken language can be. Written speech is much tidier, because people have the opportunity to be very deliberate in what they write down. For Chinese in particular, that means that people can be much more succinct in writing than orally, because the characters provide additional disambiguation beyond just indicating the pronunciation. Any purely phonetic writing system would require everyone to readjust their standard of what kind of sentences are comprehensible.
- FabHK 8y ago
  DeFrancis book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy is excellent on that and many related questions [1]. First, Mandarin has no inflection (love/loves), which allows for writing in characters in the first place. Then, Mandarin has a fairly impoverished phonetic system, allowing for only about 400 different syllables ignoring tones, or 1200 or so when distinguishing tones (while English for example has some 7000 or so, without tones). This leads to many homophones, which can be distinguished by being written with different characters. Or so the traditional justification goes (I don't think much of that argument, because clearly people can speak to each other just fine, without having to clarify which word they mean - disambiguation happens by longer words (two or more syllables), which you could just write down. What happens is that in writing, you only need to write parts of a word: spoken out loud it would be ambiguous, but the chosen character disambiguates it, and thus people conclude that writing wouldn't work without the characters.) However, arguably it's just a matter of habit (and resistance on the part of those that have already put in the time and effort to learn the characters). There are, in fact, Sinitic languages written alphabetically, eg Dungan [2]. The whole issue is very politicised, as you can see with the animated discussion here and the vigorous resistance to the initial comment (which was a bit unfortunately phrased, in my view, but fundamentally sound: Chinese is a very hard language to learn, mostly by virtue of its archaic writing system, and that is arguably somewhat deliberate.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chinese_Language:_Fact_and_Fantasy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chinese_Language:_Fact_and... [2] see the articles linked from here: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=40417 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=40417
  - knolax 8y ago
    >just a matter of habit That's a vast understatement. Adopting a writing system that would render everything written in the formal register incomprehensible isn't exactly a tenable position.
    - FabHK 8y ago
      Europeans used to write in Latin, which is now incomprehensible to most, and yet, it has all worked out. But granted, the transition took a while and was not just a matter of habit. Having said that, why could one not publish important classic texts in a phonetic vernacular version, and leave the study of the originals to those with the inclination (just as most people in the West do not learn Hebrew, ancient Greek, and Latin; yet can find versions of the Bible, Euclid, Seneca, and Newton that they can read if they so desire.)
- PavlikPaja 8y ago
  Chinese characters are syllabic.