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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Pinyin
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References: <7fk9pwxgsu.fsf@phoenix.cs.hku.hk> <19970103031900.WAA02854@ladder01.news.aol.com> <5al0iq$pgp@malasada.lava.net> <7fzpypurwf.fsf@phoenix.cs.hku.hk>
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 1997 05:00:59 GMT
Lines: 36

In article <7fzpypurwf.fsf@phoenix.cs.hku.hk>,
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} <sdlee@cs.hku.hk> wrote:
>>>>>> "Wing" == Wing C Ng <wing@lava.net> writes:
>
>
>    Wing> Actually, back then Mao said: "writing must be reformed, we
>    Wing> have follow the path of the world in using alphabet".
>
>    Wing> It is good that THAT did not get implemented.
>
>That  indeed got    implemented.    Pinyin was   a   implementation of
>alphabetically writing Chinese (Mandarin).  However, it was a failure.
>Nobody  bought  the books published  entirely  in Pinyin, since nobody
>could read them readily.
>
>It's good that it failed.  If Pinyin  were successful, people speaking
>Southern  dialects would   follow suit and  invent  alphabetic writing
>systems for   writing    their own vernaculars.     Then,  the written
>communciation within China would  break down.  Intra-national cultural
>interflow would be hindered.  China would  be partitioned into several
>small countries in a century.

	Well, thanks largely (though not entirely) to Western
missionaries, there *are* alphabetic systems for most Chinese vernaculars.
So either a) indigenous vernacular orthographies would succeed where
Western ones have not or b) this doomsday scenario couldn't happen
based on a change in writing systems alone.  Was it the existence of
numerous local written vernaculars that tore apart the USSR?  Or did it
break apart for reasons quite unrelated to communication difficulties.
(This would help explain why, although most Soviet languages had
independent orthographies by 1920, the country didn't fall apart until
1991.)
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
