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The Chinese Language, Ever Evolving
- tokenadult 18y agoSubmission upvoted because it is an interesting issue, particularly to me as a second-language user of Chinese. But I'm appalled at the choice of commentators by the New York Times. I wish they had asked someone with some real expertise on the subject, like William Boltz http://depts.washington.edu/asianll/people/faculty/boltzwm.html http://depts.washington.edu/asianll/people/faculty/boltzwm.h... or James Unger https://pro.osu.edu/profiles/unger.26/ https://pro.osu.edu/profiles/unger.26/ or some still living student of the late John DeFrancis. A linguist would quibble, of course, that strictly speaking the writing system is not "the Chinese language" at all, because people use language whether or not they are literate, and indeed whether or not the language they speak has a writing system. What is desirable in a writing system is mostly efficiency, but what is usually preserved in a writing system is precisely it's most arbitrary and least efficient features, as it is passed culturally from generation to generation.
- 0_o 18y agoSimplified Chinese characters are ugly and ridiculous, I am in China and I prefer to read and write in traditional Chinese.
- vicaya 18y agoUpvoted for Prof. Eugene Wang's perspectives. As a fan of Chinese calligraphy, I'm proficient in both Simplified and traditional Chinese characters.