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In praise of learning alphabets, not grueling study of characters
By Jacob von Bisterfeld |
April 22, 2009, Wednesday
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WHAT is in a word?
Quite a lot, actually.
A recent Shanghai Daily article (Simplified characters updated, April 10) revealed that the Ministry of Education will soon issue a revised Chinese character list.
It appeared that over-simplification in the past had actually made some Chinese characters even harder to understand.
So the Ministry deems it appropriate that a stroke be added here or a shu, a pie or a dian there, or a na in some other place to make every Chinese ideograph more better identifiable.
When complex Chinese characters (ie, half of those in common usage) were simplified in the 1950s, the door was effectively closed to the majority of Chinese who were educated after that date, as many simplified characters bear little relationship to the traditional ones and therefore most of China's literature and history, written in the vernacular, of 5,000 years and more, could be interpreted only by scholars and the elderly.
More is the pity!
Yet, as a distant observer, I continue to wonder "Why bother"?
There is no doubt that cramming the mandatory 5,000 to 7,000 unique characters into the wee brains of six-year-olds and beyond takes up an inordinate amount of time.
And new characters have to be designed afresh for newfangled concepts and words.
In short: a terribly complicated and inefficient writing system that, surprisingly, has survived into today, excessively burdening the young and bothering the less endowed with a lot of relatively useless calligraphic baggage.
The time spent trying to master this complicated system of strokes and twirls that has to result in a unique "one off" character, could be spent on, perish the thought, relaxation and play.
Look at the lucky young counterparts of Chinese students in most of the developed world: they learn 26 letters and compose and recognize any word under the sun.
Whenever I have plucked up enough courage to suggest to my local friends that Chinese be written in pinyin for simplicity, I get rebutted at every twist and turn; the argument being that many Chinese words sound the same and would be written identically in pinyin.
Only from the written character can the true meaning be determined. I then wonder aloud how they cope with speech as the written word does not, as far as I can recall, float out of mouths.
Yet, there seems to be no problem with a correct interpretation then.
Actually, the Chinese are not alone in not being able to see the grain for the chaff. The British, in the last century, were using an unwieldy currency system in which a Pound Sterling contained 20 shillings and a shilling could be subdivided into 12 pence, turning any calculation into a nightmare. Yet, few English people I spoke to then could see a benefit in changing to a decimal currency.
A pity
I hasten to say that, despite the apparent evidence to the contrary as described heretofore, I AM a great fan of Chinese calligraphy and I have been known to go absolutely bananas about certain Chinese calligraphic styles.
Indeed, my residence is adorned with several choice pieces of Chinese calligraphy.
Being a "died in the wool" efficiency guru, though, I just cannot bring myself to diligently sit down and learn to write those scholarly absolutely essential, albeit cumbersome 3,000 Chinese characters, even though I do speak the Chinese language passably well.
As for the Chinese populace at large?
Well, I fear that a change to pinyin is unlikely to be imminent, and mine will probably remain a lonely voice in the wilderness since a profound respect for the historic role of the Chinese ideograph and a fair dollop of sentiment continues to prevail.
I cry for the hundreds of millions of Chinese six-year olds who are on the threshold of having to painstakingly learn for six years or more, how to faultlessly place 30,000 or so complicated stroke combinations that make up the mandatory 5,000 Chinese characters.
Blessed are Western youngsters who can make do with 26 A-B-C type letters.
Quite a lot, actually.
A recent Shanghai Daily article (Simplified characters updated, April 10) revealed that the Ministry of Education will soon issue a revised Chinese character list.
It appeared that over-simplification in the past had actually made some Chinese characters even harder to understand.
So the Ministry deems it appropriate that a stroke be added here or a shu, a pie or a dian there, or a na in some other place to make every Chinese ideograph more better identifiable.
When complex Chinese characters (ie, half of those in common usage) were simplified in the 1950s, the door was effectively closed to the majority of Chinese who were educated after that date, as many simplified characters bear little relationship to the traditional ones and therefore most of China's literature and history, written in the vernacular, of 5,000 years and more, could be interpreted only by scholars and the elderly.
More is the pity!
Yet, as a distant observer, I continue to wonder "Why bother"?
There is no doubt that cramming the mandatory 5,000 to 7,000 unique characters into the wee brains of six-year-olds and beyond takes up an inordinate amount of time.
And new characters have to be designed afresh for newfangled concepts and words.
In short: a terribly complicated and inefficient writing system that, surprisingly, has survived into today, excessively burdening the young and bothering the less endowed with a lot of relatively useless calligraphic baggage.
The time spent trying to master this complicated system of strokes and twirls that has to result in a unique "one off" character, could be spent on, perish the thought, relaxation and play.
Look at the lucky young counterparts of Chinese students in most of the developed world: they learn 26 letters and compose and recognize any word under the sun.
Whenever I have plucked up enough courage to suggest to my local friends that Chinese be written in pinyin for simplicity, I get rebutted at every twist and turn; the argument being that many Chinese words sound the same and would be written identically in pinyin.
Only from the written character can the true meaning be determined. I then wonder aloud how they cope with speech as the written word does not, as far as I can recall, float out of mouths.
Yet, there seems to be no problem with a correct interpretation then.
Actually, the Chinese are not alone in not being able to see the grain for the chaff. The British, in the last century, were using an unwieldy currency system in which a Pound Sterling contained 20 shillings and a shilling could be subdivided into 12 pence, turning any calculation into a nightmare. Yet, few English people I spoke to then could see a benefit in changing to a decimal currency.
A pity
I hasten to say that, despite the apparent evidence to the contrary as described heretofore, I AM a great fan of Chinese calligraphy and I have been known to go absolutely bananas about certain Chinese calligraphic styles.
Indeed, my residence is adorned with several choice pieces of Chinese calligraphy.
Being a "died in the wool" efficiency guru, though, I just cannot bring myself to diligently sit down and learn to write those scholarly absolutely essential, albeit cumbersome 3,000 Chinese characters, even though I do speak the Chinese language passably well.
As for the Chinese populace at large?
Well, I fear that a change to pinyin is unlikely to be imminent, and mine will probably remain a lonely voice in the wilderness since a profound respect for the historic role of the Chinese ideograph and a fair dollop of sentiment continues to prevail.
I cry for the hundreds of millions of Chinese six-year olds who are on the threshold of having to painstakingly learn for six years or more, how to faultlessly place 30,000 or so complicated stroke combinations that make up the mandatory 5,000 Chinese characters.
Blessed are Western youngsters who can make do with 26 A-B-C type letters.
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