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As others have mentioned, in a writing system that uses an alphabet, the difficulty of a word is not defined by the number of letters, or strokes, like it is in hieroglyphic (logographic) systems such as traditional Chinese, Egyptian, Sumerian Cuneiform, or Mayan.
As has already been mentioned the difficultly of traditional Chinese characters is also not determined by number of strokes. Just as English words are composed of letters, patterns, roots, suffixes, prefixes, component words, etc. which are individually recognizable; so are traditional Chinese characters composed of radicals and other recognizable ideograms. Complexity comes more from irregularity, and of course number of unique components and characters/words, not number of strokes or number of letters.
As has already been mentioned the difficultly of traditional Chinese characters is also not determined by number of strokes. Just as English words are composed of letters, patterns, roots, suffixes, prefixes, component words, etc. which are individually recognizable; so are traditional Chinese characters composed of radicals and other recognizable ideograms. Complexity comes more from irregularity, and of course number of unique components and characters/words, not number of strokes or number of letters.
If what you say is true, simplified Chinese wouldn't exist. One of the major points of simplified Chinese is the reduction of the number of strokes. And contrary to your own personal belief, the number of strokes does add complexity, and it is much easier to teach characters with fewer strokes to an illiterate person. This is not just the whims of the PRC communist party, the Japanese and others came to the same conclusion independently, and it is verified in empirical studies. The ultimate simplification of the hieroglyphic writing system (where you keep reducing the number of unique components and strokes until you throw out absolutely everything and keep the bare minimum) results in something like Korean Hangul, or western alphabets.
One thing I don't like about the simplified characters is that they combined a lot of characters originally with different meanings.
For example, 干 乾 幹 were different characters with different meanings in the traditional set, but now they all become 干 in simplified Chinese. I think it is a stupid idea.
However, I think it is not a bad idea to reduce some strokes, such as 龜->龟. I'm not opposing this change.
A system based on alphabet is simply superior to hieroglyphs.
I don't agree.
If you really speak Chinese, you will understand why pure alphabets do not fit Chinese.
Even Japanese keeps using some Chinese characters for a good reason.
I don't agree.
If you really speak Chinese, you will understand why pure alphabets do not fit Chinese.
Even Japanese keeps using some Chinese characters for a good reason.
Languages evolve over time. Pretty much every culture started out with hieroglyphic writing system, dating back to cavemen. It is very easy and "common sense"; see a bird - draw a bird - draw a symbol of a bird. The most recent example of a culture evolving from a hieroglyphic to alphabetic system is Korea in the 15th century. And even all alphabetic systems evolve and simplify, for example during the beginning of the 20th century Russian script got rid of 1 letter in their alphabet.
I understand you know modern English, here is the page of the Beowulf poem in English as it was originally written:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bettafish
Even Japanese keeps using some Chinese characters for a good reason.
This is mostly due to the fact that Japanese culture is very traditional and averse to change. The changes in Japanese language are slower. It would probably take hundreds of years still until the Japanese replace all traditional Chinese characters organically. Korean is much further along in this process. Within the next few generations Korean will be at full replacement. I'd say within the next 100 years all traditional Chinese characters would be replaced in Korean.
I don't agree.
If you really speak Chinese, you will understand why pure alphabets do not fit Chinese.
Even Japanese keeps using some Chinese characters for a good reason.
Languages evolve over time. Pretty much every culture started out with hieroglyphic writing system, dating back to cavemen. It is very easy and "common sense"; see a bird - draw a bird - draw a symbol of a bird. The most recent example of a culture evolving from a hieroglyphic to alphabetic system is Korea in the 15th century. And even all alphabetic systems evolve and simplify, for example during the beginning of the 20th century Russian script got rid of 1 letter in their alphabet.
I understand you know modern English, here is the page of the Beowulf poem in English as it was originally written:
This is mostly due to the fact that Japanese culture is very traditional and averse to change. The changes in Japanese language are slower. It would probably take hundreds of years still until the Japanese replace all traditional Chinese characters organically. Korean is much further along in this process. Within the next few generations Korean will be at full replacement. I'd say within the next 100 years all traditional Chinese characters would be replaced in Korean.
I'm sure you don't speak Chinese, or even Japanese, so you cannot see the point.
I'm sure you don't speak Chinese, or even Japanese, so you cannot see the point.
There is no point. Korea has demonstrated that Chinese characters are not needed at all. Even Vietnamese, a tonal language like Chinese, has managed to retain all meaning of their words with the complete and total abolition of Chinese characters. Some old texts in Japanese are written in 100% kana
One reason is Chinese loan words in Japanese have thousands of homophones. If there is no Chinese character, it would be much more difficult to read.
Imagine English uses the same script to write "too", "to" and "two". Don't you think it makes things more confusing? And in Chinese and Japanese, there are thousands of such examples. In Chinese and Chinese loanwords of Japanese, every syllable has a meaning. This is not the case in European languages.
e.g. In Mandarin Chinese, quite a few commonly used morphemes are pronounced as "yi". So "yi" in Mandarin can mean: one(一), clothes(衣), medicine(醫), rely(依)... Isn't it confusing enough? Imagine an article full of "yi...yi...yi...yi.."
Few Chinese children suffer dyslexia, also because their cognitive system is trained to rely on both sound and form, unlike children in the west.
There is no point. Korea has demonstrated that Chinese characters are not needed at all. Even Vietnamese, a tonal language like Chinese, has managed to retain all meaning of their words with the complete and total abolition of Chinese characters. Some old texts in Japanese are written in 100% kana
Korean has about 30% Chinese words in their language, but Chinese has 100% Chinese words. The phonology of Korean is much more complicated than that of Japanese, so there are much fewer homophones.
Also, how do you know Koreans and Vietnamese do not have problems when they need to read and write Chinese loanwords?
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