Photo: Nicolas 11mo

Earlier this year, an article appeared in the New York Times that heaped praise on the Chinese writing system, extolling its virtues and pinning it as the vehicle and guardian of the country’s rich culture. The article inspired scorn from some commentators, and re-ignited a debate that has run since well before the simplification of hanzi and the inauguration of the pinyin Romanization system during the 1950s. But have these changes set Chinese characters on the road to obsolescence, or are hanzi here to stay?

The Chinese writing system is thought to have begun with carvings on oracle bones (jiaguwen) during the Shang Dynasty. It started as a series of pictograms that grew in complexity and abstraction, moving through Bronzeware Script, Seal Script and Clerical Script before being standardized as the characters we recognize today. Chinese writing differs from Roman script in that each symbol represents a whole phoneme, not a single sound, or morpheme. So where Western writing systems utilize multiple alphabetical signs to engender a word, Chinese uses a single symbol.

The process which simplified the traditional characters to jian4 ti zi4 (简体字)was begun in the 1950s as part of Chairman Mao’s plan to rid China of a culture he deemed outdated and a hindrance to progress. However, there had been rumblings of change in the past; Lufei Kui proposed simplification in 1909, and the aftermath of the May 4th Movement in 1919 saw anti-imperialists calling for modernization of the writing system. Ju Sinian referred to traditional characters as “the writing of ox-demons and snake-gods” (牛鬼和蛇神的文字).Celebrated author Lu Xun went even further, declaring his belief that “if Chinese characters are not abolished, then China will die”. Although these proclamations are doubtless couched in a degree of revolutionary fervor, it is interesting to note the depth of feeling that hanzi inspired. Even modern scholars feel the need to dress up their sentiments using elaborate and often facile terms. David Moser from the University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies wrote that traditional characters are “sort of like bound feet - some fetishists may have liked the way they looked, but they weren't too practical for daily use.”

So the inexorable march of progress saw the final simplification formalized in 1986 in the Xiandai Hanyu Changyong Zibiao. Since the 1950s, the Mainland education system had phased out traditional characters, but the original system was still used in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The simplification process was complex and often irregular. Some characters reverted to their ancient, more basic forms, such as 杰 instead of the traditional 傑 for jié meaning heroic or illustrious. In others, components were simplified across the board, such as 问 from 問 , while some lost whole components i.e. 宁 from 寧. Simplification is widely believed to have improved literacy levels especially in rural areas, which has risen steadily since the 1950s. However, critics see it as causing a rift between the Mainland and Hong Kong and Taiwan, and blame it for bleaching the artistry and finesse from the written language.

Last year, a cadre named Pan Qinglu made a proposal at the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference that simple characters be switched back to traditional within the next 10 years. He cited the example of 爱 (aì) meaning ‘to love’, which contained 心 , the component for ‘heart’ in its traditional form (愛) claiming that the simple version went against Confucian values. He believes that reverting to traditional characters would help strengthen ties with non-Mainland territories, and bring back esthetic beauty to the Chinese writing system. Despite Pan’s fervor, it seems highly unlikely that jian ti zi will ever be “unsimplified”.

So is there any real chance that pinyin could ever replace hanzi? Pinyin was conceived in 1954 by the PRC’s Ministry of Education, and the first version was approved and passed at the 5th session of the 1st National Congress in 1958. It replaced the Wade Giles Romanization system that had been around since 1859, and was designed to be a truer representation of Mandarin’s sounds. Some people believe that switching to pinyin would make learning written language easier. It takes Chinese children between six and seven years to become literate (accruing at least 3,000 characters) while their counterparts in alphabet-using countries reach full literacy in around three. As linguist George Kennedy wrote in 1964, "The difficulty of memorizing a Chinese ideograph as compared with the difficulty of learning a new word in a European language, is such that a rigid economy of mental effort is imperative."

However, since Mandarin Chinese is not a phoneme-rich language, and compound words rarely contain more than two separate phonemes, the potential for ambiguity is high if pinyin is used at the expense of characters. Even with four tones, context (and written characters) are necessary in many cases to infer meaning. Anyone who has tried to learn Mandarin will attest that pinyin will only take you so far. The recent “Grass Mud Horse” internet sensation is case in point. A group of laptop rebels used Baidu to popularize the alpaca-like creature, whose Mandarin name, cao3 ní ma3 (草泥马)is almost identical to the mother-insulting curse cào ni3 ma1 (cao 你妈), as well as the “river crab” or 河蟹 or he2 xie4 which sounds almost identical to he2xie2 (和谐) which means to harmonize, i.e. to censor. The crab is often depicted with a wristwatch, since the term for wearing a watch - dai4biao3 (戴表) - is a homonym of dai4biao3 (代表) meaning “to represent”. This is a reaction to Jiang Zemin’s 2002 socio-political ideology known as Three Represents, in which the term “hamonization” was coined.

Another example of why pinyin cannot replace hanzi is this: 施氏食獅史
The pinyin reads shi1 shi4 shi2 shi1 shi3, making it almost impossible to understand and even contextualize.

Sinologist and hanzi scholar Bernhard Karlgren declared in 1929 that “the day [the] Chinese discard [characters], they will surrender the very foundation of their culture”. While it is unnecessarily blustering and over-dramatic, there is a grain of truth in his statement. However, it would not just be its culture that China loses if characters were abolished, but mutual understanding.
 

Related links
Radical Simplification: Should Chinese Characters Be Erased?
The Future of Chinese Characters
Top 10 Oddest Chinese Characters that Even Leave the Natives Bewildered

Warning：The use of any news and articles published on eChinacities.com without written permission from eChinacities.com constitutes copyright infringement, and legal action can be taken.

Keywords: future of Chinese characters ox demons and snake gods will Chinese characters die out Chinese charcters dying out