WI: A Chinese Alphabet?

[Jasen777]

I've been reading about Marshall McLuhan and some of his ideas (the medium is the message, etc). He says that having an alphabet helps develop things like logic and individualism, and when the printing press came along this trend greatly accelerated and made possible/caused modernism in Europe and all that entails.

From a historical development standpoint I've always thought China was a bit of a disappointment (although to be fair my knowledge of Chinese history is weak). They invented a lot of things that they seldom seemed to have mad full use of. What if what they really needed was a decent alphabet system?

Suppose early on in China, say B.C., they adopt or develop a Phoenician derivative alphabet? Would the development of Chinese philosophy and religion by significantly different?

At the least, they ought to be able to make much better use of their movable type technology (a printing press is impractical when your language has thousands of characters) which they had 400 years before Gutenberg's printing press. Could this perhaps have led to a Chinese Scientific Revolution before Europe's?

 

[Ofaloaf]

Perhaps the PoD is a stronger contact with the Phoenicians and Romans during the Han Dynasty, resulting in the adaptation of a phonetical alphabet for the purposes of easier trade between peoples?

China seems fairly equal to Europe, perhaps even more advanced in areas than the West, all the way up to the Industrial Revolution. That just seems to have never caught on in China, for some reason.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

A Kana/Hangul-like syllabic script is more plausible, I say.


It would be easier to learn, though.

 

[Keenir]

I've been reading about Marshall McLuhan and some of his ideas (the medium is the message, etc). He says that having an alphabet helps develop things like logic and individualism, and when the printing press came along this trend greatly accelerated and made possible/caused modernism in Europe and all that entails.

Having an alphabet didn't help individualism for over two thousand years in Europe -- the tribe, the clan, the family was the predominant social force in Europe even after the founding of Carthage.

At the least, they ought to be able to make much better use of their movable type technology (a printing press is impractical when your language has thousands of characters)

well so is the English and the Romance languages -- better to do like some languages do, and just have 12 letters.

 

[Fire God]

A Kana/Hangul-like syllabic script is more plausible, I say.


It would be easier to learn, though.

I agree, I would also like to include that a descendant of the Brahmi script can also be more plausible, the writing system for Tibetan is one of them.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Somehow, this topic also remind me of the curious script Tetsuo Hara used in Fist of the North Star at some occasions... Like a mix of the Brahmin script (the one used for Sanskrit, Prakits and all), and Chinese....

Maybe something created by religious who are familiar and well-versed with those cultures, to facilitate the travel of the Buddha's words?

 

[Brandonazz]

Sorry for off-topicing but....

Guy Fawkes was the only man to go to Parliament with honest intentions. - british saying

I LUV THAT SIG! V for Vendetta is my favorite movie

Tho i'm not British, but we cant all be perfect

 

[Smaug]

If there was a thing that held back China, IMO, it wasn't the ability to write down its ideas, so much, as the fact that they felt like were self sufficient, and in fact superior to the foreigners, and didn't feel compelled to change the old ways.

I don't by any stretch of the imagination, claim to understand Asian civilisations, mostly due to the fact that I'm not Asian.

China didn't need Western Europe, but Europeans definitely needed the Asian Markets to pay for thier Industrial Revolution, and the cheap goods that England in particular sold them. England desparately needed the luxury goods that they took home. Chinese self-sufficiency (whether right or wrong), forced the English to cheat, and use Opium to change the means of exchange. If the Chinese hadn't been so set on a program of Gold for its Exports, it might have done better. Than again the same thing might have happened.

To say China was uncivilized is idiotic. That they didn't understand the rules of the game (European style) is apparent.

 

[Jasen777]

I agree, I would also like to include that a descendant of the Brahmi script can also be more plausible, the writing system for Tibetan is one of them.

Yes, one of the Indian alphabets would seem the most plausible. I didn't mean a real direct derivative, it's just that (with some debate) it's thought that most all alphabets were derived from the Phoenician one (which they didn't invite but seemed to be the first to make widespread use of).

However it happens, I'd more interested in the changes it could've made. Could something similar to Stoicism or Neoplatoism have developed in China and paved the way for a more rationalistic philosophy?

Of course there may have been something unique in Chinese culture to explain why they didn't adopt an alphabet when just about everyone else did when they were exposed to it. I mean it seems so much nicer than ideographs.

Having an alphabet didn't help individualism for over two thousand years in Europe -- the tribe, the clan, the family was the predominant social force in Europe even after the founding of Carthage.

The idea was that in gave individualism a nudge and rationalistic philosophy a larger one (and was hampered by the lack of cheap paper until introduced later), but it wasn't until the widespread use of the printing press that modern individualism began to surface.

 

[Fire God]

Of course there may have been something unique in Chinese culture to explain why they didn't adopt an alphabet when just about everyone else did when they were exposed to it. I mean it seems so much nicer than ideographs.

I was under the assumption that the ideographs united China since there were many languages and using an ideograph instead of a syllabic or alphabetic script would just complicate inter-lingual understanding. I think Cantonese and Mandarin speakers can mostly understand each other through writing. Correct me please if i'm wrong.

 

[Keenir]

However it happens, I'd more interested in the changes it could've made. Could something similar to Stoicism or Neoplatoism have developed in China and paved the way for a more rationalistic philosophy?

What could be more rational than "good rule is ultimately rewarded" and "bad rule is ultimately punished" ?

oh wait, that's Chinese philosophy.

Of course there may have been something unique in Chinese culture to explain why they didn't adopt an alphabet when just about everyone else did when they were exposed to it.

like the Greeks, who stole the alphabet from teh Phoenecians.

I mean it seems so much nicer than ideographs.

its so much messier than ideographs.

anyone who can read Chinese ideographs in one part of the Empire could also read - and understand it equally well - anywhere else in the Empire.

with the exception of Quranic Arabic, no other language has the same handy asset.

The idea was that in gave individualism a nudge and rationalistic philosophy a larger one (and was hampered by the lack of cheap paper until introduced later), but it wasn't until the widespread use of the printing press that modern individualism began to surface.

it wasn't until well over a century after widespread use of the printing press, that it started to surface.

 

[HelloLegend]

I've been reading about Marshall McLuhan and some of his ideas (the medium is the message, etc). He says that having an alphabet helps develop things like logic and individualism, and when the printing press came along this trend greatly accelerated and made possible/caused modernism in Europe and all that entails.

From a historical development standpoint I've always thought China was a bit of a disappointment (although to be fair my knowledge of Chinese history is weak). They invented a lot of things that they seldom seemed to have mad full use of. What if what they really needed was a decent alphabet system?

Suppose early on in China, say B.C., they adopt or develop a Phoenician derivative alphabet? Would the development of Chinese philosophy and religion by significantly different?

At the least, they ought to be able to make much better use of their movable type technology (a printing press is impractical when your language has thousands of characters) which they had 400 years before Gutenberg's printing press. Could this perhaps have led to a Chinese Scientific Revolution before Europe's?

My history professor said the early warring states of China had the writing language in common but not the pronounciations. If China had alphabet letters, then those early seperate cultures would have Balkanized as in Europe.

 

[mishery]

Just a point of information, the Chinese writing system is logographic, not ideographic. Big difference. The characters and combinations of characters stand for words not ideas. The words themselves might be different depending on dialect or language. Cantonese has some unique characters that do not exist in Mandarin as they encode unique Cantonese words.

For some languages, the writing system is ideal for the particular language. The isolating nature of Mandarin is ideally suited for a logographic orthography. It was not ideally suited to Japanese, hence the addition of kana to encode morphological structure.

 

[jolo]

The Chinese do have a phonetic alphabeth. It just never became popular - mostly because it was just used as a means for people who can't read and write Chinese to note down something.

I see no difference in logic or the likes due to the system of writing. The main problem for China appears to be extreme conservatism, like protecting the agricultural market from changes to avoid unrest. Despite that they led the world for most of the last 1500 years. Only the industrial revolution was missed by them - but countries which were only a few 100 km away from Britain did the same.

 

[Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy]

like the Greeks, who stole the alphabet from teh Phoenecians.

Really, so what? It doesn't matter who you get your writing system from, what matters is how it works and what cultures you share it with.

 

[xchen08]

My history professor said the early warring states of China had the writing language in common but not the pronounciations. If China had alphabet letters, then those early seperate cultures would have Balkanized as in Europe.

I don't think so. Scholarly Chinese before the Communist simplification was an incredibly complex and dense, with nuances that simply cannot be expressed in English. Due to its complexity, the only people truly literate were the scholar/bureaucrats and the gentry/nobility until relatively recently. The various cultures in China until modern times were as balkanized as in Europe, with mutually unintelligible tongues. The situation was little different than in the Roman empire, where the educated class throughout the empire spoke Latin (or Greek in the East), but latin/local polygots were used in the provinces. There is nothing special about the system of characters that unifies people.

It is true that the printing press facilitated the rise of vulgar languages in Europe, but that was a consequence of political division.

 

[HelloLegend]

Ancient Chinese writing was not complex.
If fact, the horse had legs and the turtle did look like one.
The complex Chinese writing pictographs came well after
Qin Shi Huang Di.