3 ms·

As someone intimately familiar with this topic, the article here is mostly correct but gets a lot of the small details wrong. Probably the most important missi

As someone intimately familiar with this topic, the article here is mostly correct but gets a lot of the small details wrong. Probably the most important missing part here is the reason non-Hepburn systems like Kunrei stuck around for so long: they were designed to replace the Japanese script completely. This sounds outlandish today, but they were invented during the early Meiji years when Japan was adopting Western innovations and abandoning ancient traditions at breakneck speed. And because their target was thus Japanese people, not foreigners, they didn't need to worry about English phonology. Incidentally, the Chinese pinyin system was also designed to replace Chinese writing, and Mao came quite close to abolishing Chinese characters entirely during the Cultural Revolution. Which also explains why it uses letters like x, c and q in ways that English readers find wildly unintuitive.

canjobear 22d ago
> Mao came quite close to abolishing Chinese characters entirely during the Cultural Revolution This was indeed the Communists’ original plan, but the real story is more interesting. Before taking over the country the plan was to replace characters with a pinyin-like system Latinxua Sin Wenz[1] and a whole generation in the north was taught to read this. After 1949, Mao was talked out of Romanization by none other than Stalin, who told him the Chinese language deserves its own script. Pinyin was designed after that, officially as a teaching tool, but probably by people who secretly still believed in more radical writing reform. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinxua_Sin_Wenz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinxua_Sin_Wenz
- quuxplusone 22d ago
  Highly recommend on this subject John DeFrancis' "The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy" (1984)! https://archive.org/details/chineselanguagef0000defr/ https://archive.org/details/chineselanguagef0000defr/
Thrymr 22d ago
It is remarkable that some countries actually have switched writing systems in modern times. Turkey did it in the 1920s after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, for example (replaces an Arabic alphabet with a Roman one).
- jhbadger 22d ago
  Not to mention numerous ex-Soviet countries have replaced their Cyrillic system for Latin ones to demonstrate their independence from Russian colonialism.
  - motionlessveloc 22d ago
    And many of those Cyrillic systems had in turn replaced previous Arabic/Persian-based writing systems.
  - Lumich 22d ago
    I'm wondering what script the North American Indians† would have replaced the one given to them by their English-speaking colonizers with had they been given any in the first place and not been all but exterminated instead. Well, anyway … “evil Russians colonialists”. † I know the PC term in North America is “first nations” or some such but for those outside NA using the old term is perfectly fine.
    - gucci-on-fleek 21d ago
      > I'm wondering what script the North American Indians The Cherokee syllabary [0] and the Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics [1] are both scripts designed for use with North American indigenous languages, and both are still widely used (relative to the usage of indigenous languages in general). > the one given to them by their English-speaking colonizers with had they been given any in the first place Well, history is complicated: it's certainly true that the vast majority of the colonizers were trying to ban the indigenous languages, but there have always been a few people working with the local groups to understand and develop their languages, even hundreds of years ago. And over the last 50 years or so, there's been lots of support for language preservation and education. > and not been all but exterminated instead I'm not sure if you're talking about the languages or the people here, but there are some 6 million Indigenous people [2] and 700k speakers of indigenous languages [3] [4] [5] in North America today, so I wouldn't quite call either "all but exterminated". [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_syllabary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_syllabary [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Aboriginal_syllabics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Aboriginal_syllabics [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Amer... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_languages_of_the_Americas#Northern_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_languages_of_the_Am... [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Canada#/media/File:Indigenous_language_speakers_in_Canada-3.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Canada#/media/Fil... [5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States#List_of_Native_American_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States...

canjobear 22d ago

> Mao came quite close to abolishing Chinese characters entirely during the Cultural Revolution This was indeed the Communists’ original plan, but the real story is more interesting. Before taking over the country the plan was to replace characters with a pinyin-like system Latinxua Sin Wenz[1] and a whole generation in the north was taught to read this. After 1949, Mao was talked out of Romanization by none other than Stalin, who told him the Chinese language deserves its own script. Pinyin was designed after that, officially as a teaching tool, but probably by people who secretly still believed in more radical writing reform. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinxua_Sin_Wenz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinxua_Sin_Wenz

quuxplusone 22d ago
Highly recommend on this subject John DeFrancis' "The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy" (1984)! https://archive.org/details/chineselanguagef0000defr/ https://archive.org/details/chineselanguagef0000defr/

Thrymr 22d ago

It is remarkable that some countries actually have switched writing systems in modern times. Turkey did it in the 1920s after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, for example (replaces an Arabic alphabet with a Roman one).

jhbadger 22d ago
Not to mention numerous ex-Soviet countries have replaced their Cyrillic system for Latin ones to demonstrate their independence from Russian colonialism.
- motionlessveloc 22d ago
  And many of those Cyrillic systems had in turn replaced previous Arabic/Persian-based writing systems.
- Lumich 22d ago
  I'm wondering what script the North American Indians† would have replaced the one given to them by their English-speaking colonizers with had they been given any in the first place and not been all but exterminated instead. Well, anyway … “evil Russians colonialists”. † I know the PC term in North America is “first nations” or some such but for those outside NA using the old term is perfectly fine.
  - gucci-on-fleek 21d ago
    > I'm wondering what script the North American Indians The Cherokee syllabary [0] and the Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics [1] are both scripts designed for use with North American indigenous languages, and both are still widely used (relative to the usage of indigenous languages in general). > the one given to them by their English-speaking colonizers with had they been given any in the first place Well, history is complicated: it's certainly true that the vast majority of the colonizers were trying to ban the indigenous languages, but there have always been a few people working with the local groups to understand and develop their languages, even hundreds of years ago. And over the last 50 years or so, there's been lots of support for language preservation and education. > and not been all but exterminated instead I'm not sure if you're talking about the languages or the people here, but there are some 6 million Indigenous people [2] and 700k speakers of indigenous languages [3] [4] [5] in North America today, so I wouldn't quite call either "all but exterminated". [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_syllabary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_syllabary [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Aboriginal_syllabics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Aboriginal_syllabics [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Amer... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_languages_of_the_Americas#Northern_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_languages_of_the_Am... [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Canada#/media/File:Indigenous_language_speakers_in_Canada-3.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Canada#/media/Fil... [5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States#List_of_Native_American_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States...