Exactly what it says on the tin. Why did China never evolve a full-up syllabary or alphabet rather than its logosyllabic system? You'd think with all the scholars and such, someone would invent one, if only as a teaching aid or private shorthand...
Why no Chinese alphabet/syllabary?
- Thread starter Workable Goblin
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*Much* too late (there's a reason I put this in pre-1900...) Also, primarily a type of Romanization system; what I was thinking of would be something totally native Chinese, or at the very most inspired by foreign systems if and when they encountered them.
Probably the result of orthography not being developed by a commoner class, but a scribe class?
Because Chinese is not a single language. Their is Cantonese and Mandarin and a few other languages thrown in. If they were using a alphabet or syllabary you would have to translate something written in one Chinese language into the other. With Chinese Characters can be read by by most people in china, no matter what language they speak; so something published in one part of the country were one language is spoken can be read in places that other languages are spoken.
A better question would be why the Japanese haven't ever created an alphabet or syllabary, as they all speak the same language.
A better question would be why the Japanese haven't ever created an alphabet or syllabary, as they all speak the same language.
First off - the Chinese writing system represents morphemes, not words (as implied by using λόγος), so the proper terminology would be something like "morphosyllabic".
Second off - the Chinese writing system did start off as a syllabary, albeit a pretty large one. Over time, as the language changed, a lot of the grapheme-to-phoneme cues broke down, but the phonetic cues are still there, however imperfect. In that case, it's basically the syllabic inverse to English's alphabetic script, which is also highly imperfect since a lot of the grapheme-to-phoneme cues also broke down (the vowels are a good case in point, as is the "ough" combination).
Bopomofo was invented much earlier than Hanyu Pinyin, and it's basically a semi-syllabary that could fit the bill here. It is still used in Taiwan to teach Mandarin.
I don't speak the language, but my understanding is that Chinese has a number of characteristics that make it well-suited to that sort of writing system- monosyllabic words, a large number of homophones, etc.
Also, China was dominated by rather conservative empires for much of the pre-1900 period, who would not have had much reason to support a major change in the writing system, when ancient texts and traditional calligraphy were held in high regard.
Also, China was dominated by rather conservative empires for much of the pre-1900 period, who would not have had much reason to support a major change in the writing system, when ancient texts and traditional calligraphy were held in high regard.
They did. Two, in fact... And they decided to keep the Chinese characters at the same time... The Japanese writing system ends up looking to me like it was designed specifically to be as confusing as possible
Because they have? Two of them, in fact
If you mean 'why don't they use kana instead of kanji?', it's partly because of the huge number of homonyms in Japanese. I am told that Japanese in conversation will draw (on napkins, in the air) kanji, so the other person knows WHICH word (represented by that sound) is meant.
Hmm, like the differences between the Romance languages, perhaps?
That's actually somewhat false. Within the Mandarin-speaking community, yes, provided one is educated in the standard language, which is a pretty big if. If you were to present a native Cantonese speaker something written in Mandarin, for example, not only would the Cantonese speaker find it highly difficult to read, but also he'd find it grammatically incorrect in multiple areas.
To fit the OP, one would have to have the Chinese syllabary change with the times, which makes more sense. In that case, the amount of characters needed for the syllabary would be quite low and thus could be used to represent only sounds. If one wants to go further and transform the syllabary into an abugida, that would be even better.
That's pretty much exactly what I was looking for--it seems like something like that could be invented a lot earlier, and get popular as a substitute
Ah, well, I'm not a linguist, so.
Well, a smaller syllabary, then. The point of the exercise is to inquire why Chinese is written in the way it is rather than with something akin to the Roman alphabet or Hangul (for a more East Asian flavor).
Easier to learn and (much, much later) easier to input to computers or type with (you need only represent a few dozen characters, at most, rather than thousands). The learning part is hearsay, though, considering that you still need to learn how to spell words in English or other alphabetical languages. It's perhaps telling that both Taiwan and Mainland China seem to use semi-alphabetical systems to teach the language to children.
*Smacks head* Duh, I forgot about that. It doesn't really change what I'm asking for, though; the difference would be that it would need to be introduced earlier (probably prior to the formation of any universal states) and that it would be harder to ignore or forget that Chinese is a language family, not a language. It might make it harder to maintain a united Chinese state though, which would be a rather big butterfly.
Oh, and about Japanese: This and this aren't syllabaries?
I don't speak the language as well, Imajin, but I have read about it. To put it briefly, the evidence has been that the Chinese script is as ill-suited to the language as English orthography is for the English language since a lot of the same problems the Chinese script has are also very similar to the problems of English orthography (of which English too has lots of monosyllabic words and a large number of homophones
).In my post, by "that sort of writing system" I meant the sort that it currently has... (logographic)I don't speak the language as well, Imajin, but I have read about it. To put it briefly, the evidence has been that the Chinese script is as ill-suited to the language as English orthography is for the English language since a lot of the same problems the Chinese script has are also very similar to the problems of English orthography (of which English too has lots of monosyllabic words and a large number of homophones
In Classical Chinese (my understanding is that this has shifted somewhat in the modern era), essentially all words are monosyllabic... English may have a lot of monosyllabic words, but it's certainly not at that sort of degree. And in any case the English writing system was primarily chosen because it was the writing system of Latin (or, well, the Franks technically because of the miniscule, but whatever) rather than being designed specifically for the language
Whereas the Chinese writing system evolved around the Chinese language for the most part with some exceptions.Well, like I said, if the syllabary kept up with the times and the breakup of Chinese, that could help.
I suppose you could try, if it's reached the abugida/semi-syllabary stage (if the syllabary's that simplified enough). There are a few problems - for a syllabary of Mandarin would be pretty large, if tone is not included (which is usually the case). Hence why I suggest an abugida/semi-syllabary as the end result.
Morphosyllabic.
Essentially the syllabary's counterpart to morphophonemic orthographies.Due to the sound changes that occured between Old Chinese and the modern regionalects. Putonghua or Guoyu (basically the PRC's and ROC's, respectively, variants of Standard Mandarin) nowadays has tons of polysyllabic words and a grammar that is similar to English, Esperanto, Bulgarian/Macedonian, and the like.
Which actually makes Mandarin easy to learn.As far as I know, Chinese has gained more polysyllabic words, but has remained mostly analytic in terms of grammar- no verb conjugations or declining nouns, unlike Esperanto, Latin, or English (to a certain degree, since English has lost a lot of that)... but as I said, I don't speak the language. (I also don't speak Esperanto or Bulgarian/Macedonian... but I've heard that Esperanto at least has similar grammar to the Romance languages and Latin, some of which I have studied)Due to the sound changes that occured between Old Chinese and the modern regionalects. Putonghua or Guoyu (basically the PRC's and ROC's, respectively, variants of Standard Mandarin) nowadays has tons of polysyllabic words and a grammar that is similar to English, Esperanto, Bulgarian/Macedonian, and the like.
But really the prestige of Classical Chinese is part of the issue here... I mean, is a Confucian Chinese Empire going to promote a different script over the one that was used to write the Confucian classics?
True, but research has suggested that Old Chinese was as complex as Latin, as well as having consonants that are not used anymore. That being said, although Mandarin has remained more or less analytic, it does have some verb conjugations. I bring up Esperanto and Bulgarian/Macedonian because the Mandarin verbal system is similar to Esperanto and to Slavic languages like Bulgarian/Macedonian.
Esperanto's grammar is actually very similar to Turkish, and Bulgarian/Macedonian is basically a pluricentric Slavic language with an analytic grammar similar to English, in several ways.
Not unless the script evolved over time to the point where it not only has evolved with the times, but it can still remain easy to learn for both scholars and the masses.
I thought the Slavic languages had tons of declensions and conjugations- or so my friends who are studying Russian tell me. That's not particularly analytic...
Hm- but the scholars want to read the ancient documents. That's what's on the civil service examination, after all... So the scholars and scribes have a large interest in keeping the writing system in a state that makes it more convenient for older documents, rather than newer ones.
I wonder if Confucianism is part of the problem here- my understanding is it has a major focus on past golden ages and looking to lessons in the past to help the present, so continuity with past documents is naturally key. If some sort of anti-Confucian dynasty came to power, they might attempt a writing system reform.
Yeah, I think the reactionary influence of Confucianism is partly to blame here, so that instead of developing a script useful for more practical examinations, the ancient script in which the classics were written in were used...
Just imagine if we insisted on using Linear B...
Just imagine if we insisted on using Linear B...