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> I feel that this writing system is best used to facilitate inter-cultural communication This happens in China When I used to spend time with a Mandarin spea
by gwbas1c 6y ago
> I feel that this writing system is best used to facilitate inter-cultural communication
This happens in China
When I used to spend time with a Mandarin speaker, he explained to me that written Chinese is the same throughout the country, but the dialects are often so different that they can't understand each other.
It would be as if all romance languages were written the same way, so that written Italian, Spanish, French, ect, were the same.
- InfiniteRand 6y agoFor much of European history, Latin acted as a common written language, and Italian, Spanish, French were vulgar Latin with different influences (this is probably a simplification)
- narag 6y agoI'm a native Spanish speaker. I can understand written French, Portuguese and Italian with a little effort. Speech is a different story. Italian is the closest phonetically.
- louai 6y agoThis is exactly how Arabic works today. It's a huge impediment, not a benefit.
- niels_bom 6y agoCan you please elaborate on why it’s an impediment?
- oska 6y agoBecause this way no-one has written forms of their mother tongue. They have to learn a second language and its written form. As others are pointing out, the situation is pretty much equivalent to Europe 1000 years ago when Latin had evolved into separate languages but all writing was still done in Latin. What would you prefer: being able to speak and write in French or speak in French but have to learn Latin to be able to write?