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> China then invented pinyin, which is a relatively well conceived and elegant system, but refused to support the replacement of characters and instead advocate

> China then invented pinyin, which is a relatively well conceived and elegant system, but refused to support the replacement of characters and instead advocated for "simplified" characters (which are approximately as hard as the originals, but provide a convenient cultural gap). This is only because the plan for simplified characters died midway through. There was a second round of simplifications that would have gone even further with talks of full phoneticization if that succeeded. However, the second round of simplification was simply too unpopular. > While Lu Xun is now taught in all mainland Chinese schools, they conveniently leave out the part where he advocated for leaving characters in the past. They definitely don't. His arguments and polemics about this are pretty well known in China. There are a variety of secondary and undergraduate courses that cover his collected works, with that specific quote showing up all the time. This is also a hot topic that repeatedly shows up in all sorts of Chinese online forums. Lu Xun, like the other scholars of his time, was extreme in the other direction. He believed that it was fundamentally impossible for China to advance without a phonetic script and that China was doomed and it was impossible for the Chinese citizenry to achieve literacy. His arguments are generally discarded today because he said things that have been soundly disproved. It is worth noting that many early 20th century scholars had a fanatical devotion to anything Western. They contorted Chinese to make it as close to Western languages, especially English, as much as possible, adding new pronouns, following Western grammar patterns, etc. Indeed, some early 20th century Chinese articles are quite awkward to read without an English background. Leaving aside whether characters are "good" or "bad," there is an oft-raised, but mistaken, view that using a phonetic script for Chinese would not change the language. After all it is but a different medium for the same information. But that's not true. There remains a level of diglossia in modern Mandarin that makes some modern works difficult to decipher when read out loud (yes this is true even if we leave out Classical Chinese). Using a phonetic script to write Chinese would necessarily involve a change to the language, not just its transmission. Whether that's worth it is a separate question, but it is a change.

contingencies 4y ago
They definitely don't. OK, {{citation-needed}}. FWIW, my source is two decades talking to locals. I am yet to meet anyone aware of these aspects of his position save academics, therefore I am genuinely interested in why you claim this is "definitely" false. I agree with the rest of your points.
- dwohnitmok 4y ago
  Dunno how you've been phrasing it to people. Maybe most of the people you've been talking too didn't do the literature track in school (China splits tracks very early on)? Most people I know know about it (or at least that there were a variety of 20th century Chinese intellectuals interested in doing away with Chinese characters). Also people forget things they learned in school. But as for sources... It shows up on high school tests. E.g. a 2022 high school test from Dalian https://www.51jiaoxi.com/doc-13250120.html https://www.51jiaoxi.com/doc-13250120.html (there's a paywall but it's client-side you can remove it with your browser's DOM inspection tools) > “胡适提出的文学革命其实是一剂泻药。而陈独秀、钱玄同、鲁迅等人还嫌它不够猛烈，又以更激烈的态度提出新的口号，于是‘废除汉字”‘将线装书统统丢进茅厕里”“不读中国书”等种种骇人听闻的说法便一个接一个地出来了，而且到现在还有人为之猛拍巴掌。”该评论指新文化运动（） > "The literature revolution championed by Hu Shih in reality was a laxative. Yet Chen Duxiu, Qian Xuantong, Lu Xun and others thought it was still not extreme enough. As a result, "Get rid of chinese characters," "Throw thread-bound books [the usual book binding for classical texts] into the toilet," "Don't read Chinese books," and other shocking sayings came out one after the other, and even now there are people who applaud such sayings." This comment points out that the New Culture Movement ([a series of multiple choice answers follows]) There are literally dozens if not hundreds of threads about this on Zhihu, Baidu Zhidao, etc. (https://www.zhihu.com/question/36621372 https://www.zhihu.com/question/36621372, https://www.zhihu.com/question/525670306 https://www.zhihu.com/question/525670306, https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/2201546777143697068.html https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/2201546777143697068.html, etc.) This is a pretty far cry from "conveniently leaving out."
  - contingencies 4y ago
    Fair enough, if a bit political-lens charged and tangential to his position.
davidjohnstone 4y ago
> This is only because the plan for simplified characters died midway through. There was a second round of simplifications that would have gone even further with talks of full phoneticization if that succeeded. I was under the impression that most of the debates about moving from Chinese characters to alphabetic writing happened in the pre-PRC period. For example, Lu Xun supported Latinxua Sin Wenz[1] in the 30s. These proposals failed for a variety of reasons. Simplified characters were introduced in the 50s. Pinyin was also introduced in the 50s, but unlike previous latinisations meant to replace the Chinese characters, it was only ever intended as a teaching tool. I think there was still a thought to replace Chinese characters with alphabetic writing at a later stage, but, in practice, it pretty much died in the 40s. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinxua_Sin_Wenz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinxua_Sin_Wenz
- dwohnitmok 4y ago
  In 1957 Mao specifically called out that > 漢字必須改革，漢字改革要走世界文字共同的拼音方向 > Chinese characters must be reformed, and that reform of Chinese characters must follow the global trend of phonetic spelling (pinyin) This was swiftly followed up by 1958 by a pronouncement from the head of the government committee on character reform (http://www.gov.cn/test/2008-03/07/content_912608.htm http://www.gov.cn/test/2008-03/07/content_912608.htm) > 我们认为：汉字总是要变的，拿汉字过去的变化就可以证明，将来总是要走世界共同的拼音方向。 > We believe: Chinese characters inevitably must change. We can use the changes in Chinese characters of the past to prove that in the future, this must follow the global trend of phonetic spelling [this is almost a carbon copy of Mao's words] This sentiment continued through the second round of simplification. The People's Daily (the usual mouthpiece of the PRC) wrote an article in 1977 (https://www.laoziliao.net/rmrb/1977-12-20-1 https://www.laoziliao.net/rmrb/1977-12-20-1) in concert with the beginning of the second round of simplification explicitly describing character simplification as setting the stage for phonetic spelling. > 毛主席指出，汉字的拼音化需要做许多准备工作；在实现拼音化以前，必须简化汉字 > Chairman Mao has stated: the pinyin-ification of Chinese characters requires a great deal of preparation. Before we can achieve pinyin-ficiation, we must first simply characters. But by that time literacy rates were sufficiently high that there was considerable backlash against the second round of simplification and it was withdrawn, first informally and later formally. Had it succeeded, no doubt a fully phonetic script would've been at least on the table for discussion.

contingencies 4y ago

They definitely don't. OK, {{citation-needed}}. FWIW, my source is two decades talking to locals. I am yet to meet anyone aware of these aspects of his position save academics, therefore I am genuinely interested in why you claim this is "definitely" false. I agree with the rest of your points.

dwohnitmok 4y ago
Dunno how you've been phrasing it to people. Maybe most of the people you've been talking too didn't do the literature track in school (China splits tracks very early on)? Most people I know know about it (or at least that there were a variety of 20th century Chinese intellectuals interested in doing away with Chinese characters). Also people forget things they learned in school. But as for sources... It shows up on high school tests. E.g. a 2022 high school test from Dalian https://www.51jiaoxi.com/doc-13250120.html https://www.51jiaoxi.com/doc-13250120.html (there's a paywall but it's client-side you can remove it with your browser's DOM inspection tools) > “胡适提出的文学革命其实是一剂泻药。而陈独秀、钱玄同、鲁迅等人还嫌它不够猛烈，又以更激烈的态度提出新的口号，于是‘废除汉字”‘将线装书统统丢进茅厕里”“不读中国书”等种种骇人听闻的说法便一个接一个地出来了，而且到现在还有人为之猛拍巴掌。”该评论指新文化运动（） > "The literature revolution championed by Hu Shih in reality was a laxative. Yet Chen Duxiu, Qian Xuantong, Lu Xun and others thought it was still not extreme enough. As a result, "Get rid of chinese characters," "Throw thread-bound books [the usual book binding for classical texts] into the toilet," "Don't read Chinese books," and other shocking sayings came out one after the other, and even now there are people who applaud such sayings." This comment points out that the New Culture Movement ([a series of multiple choice answers follows]) There are literally dozens if not hundreds of threads about this on Zhihu, Baidu Zhidao, etc. (https://www.zhihu.com/question/36621372 https://www.zhihu.com/question/36621372, https://www.zhihu.com/question/525670306 https://www.zhihu.com/question/525670306, https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/2201546777143697068.html https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/2201546777143697068.html, etc.) This is a pretty far cry from "conveniently leaving out."
- contingencies 4y ago
  Fair enough, if a bit political-lens charged and tangential to his position.

davidjohnstone 4y ago

> This is only because the plan for simplified characters died midway through. There was a second round of simplifications that would have gone even further with talks of full phoneticization if that succeeded. I was under the impression that most of the debates about moving from Chinese characters to alphabetic writing happened in the pre-PRC period. For example, Lu Xun supported Latinxua Sin Wenz[1] in the 30s. These proposals failed for a variety of reasons. Simplified characters were introduced in the 50s. Pinyin was also introduced in the 50s, but unlike previous latinisations meant to replace the Chinese characters, it was only ever intended as a teaching tool. I think there was still a thought to replace Chinese characters with alphabetic writing at a later stage, but, in practice, it pretty much died in the 40s. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinxua_Sin_Wenz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinxua_Sin_Wenz

dwohnitmok 4y ago
In 1957 Mao specifically called out that > 漢字必須改革，漢字改革要走世界文字共同的拼音方向 > Chinese characters must be reformed, and that reform of Chinese characters must follow the global trend of phonetic spelling (pinyin) This was swiftly followed up by 1958 by a pronouncement from the head of the government committee on character reform (http://www.gov.cn/test/2008-03/07/content_912608.htm http://www.gov.cn/test/2008-03/07/content_912608.htm) > 我们认为：汉字总是要变的，拿汉字过去的变化就可以证明，将来总是要走世界共同的拼音方向。 > We believe: Chinese characters inevitably must change. We can use the changes in Chinese characters of the past to prove that in the future, this must follow the global trend of phonetic spelling [this is almost a carbon copy of Mao's words] This sentiment continued through the second round of simplification. The People's Daily (the usual mouthpiece of the PRC) wrote an article in 1977 (https://www.laoziliao.net/rmrb/1977-12-20-1 https://www.laoziliao.net/rmrb/1977-12-20-1) in concert with the beginning of the second round of simplification explicitly describing character simplification as setting the stage for phonetic spelling. > 毛主席指出，汉字的拼音化需要做许多准备工作；在实现拼音化以前，必须简化汉字 > Chairman Mao has stated: the pinyin-ification of Chinese characters requires a great deal of preparation. Before we can achieve pinyin-ficiation, we must first simply characters. But by that time literacy rates were sufficiently high that there was considerable backlash against the second round of simplification and it was withdrawn, first informally and later formally. Had it succeeded, no doubt a fully phonetic script would've been at least on the table for discussion.