tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post499828304011017890..comments2023-05-26T10:44:37.150-04:00Comments on The Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake: On OrthographyBi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-89692932938038042992009-04-28T06:04:00.000-04:002009-04-28T06:04:00.000-04:00I liken the political push for simplified Chinese ...I liken the political push for simplified Chinese as similar to some sort of political push for Comic Sans as the font of choice in newspapers. Yes, it looks closer to handwritten language (think about the lowercase 'a' or 'g'), but we seem to work just fine without thinking about the differences. Besides, Times Roman works well for printed text for other reasons. And we will continue to hand write as we do.<br /><br />I agree that Chinese printed text should be standardized. Unfortunately, the original standard, which is functionally adequate, is no longer recognized as the default by the majority of Chinese speakers. Nor will the people of Taiwan or Hong Kong look kindly upon being forced to switch over to something originating from Mao's government.<br /><br />However, it's not necessarily the case that written Chinese works equally as well for the other dialects. The alphabetization of Chinese would disadvantage native speakers of less standard dialects of Chinese, but realistically speaking they would only intensify the inequality of opportunity within the Chinese-speaking world. It's really more of a historical accident that many non-Chinese speakers even realize that there are vastly different dialects of Chinese - Hong Kong residents seem to speak Mandarin slightly better than about how well Texans speak Spanish, but Hong Kong has enjoyed far greater influence and prestige abroad than the rest of China throughout the past 50 years. If it weren't for them, Beijing policymakers probably wouldn't have a problem pushing for policies that are totally blind to other regions' groups. Last time I was in China, I met the mayor of a 6 million person city who couldn't even speak the primary dialect of his city. Basically, non-Mandarin speakers get the shaft all the time.<br /><br />As much as it pains me to say it, the way forward is to slowly consolidate the dialects so that Mandarin Chinese is the native language of at least the Han ethnicity living in China, and the minority ethnicities should be able to retain their native languages (and writing systems where applicable). Then we can talk about alphabetization, which would be a nice end-state for Chinese.Shanehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17023519482024334644noreply@blogger.com