My roommate brought up an interesting point, one that I've wrestled with a few times, "Why doesn't China just use an alphabet, like pinyin, to write everything." This idea has been tinkered around with since the Song and maybe before (site).
Having Chinese keep it's clumsy characters as it's mode of writing is like English keeping its clumsy mode of spelling. If people are gunning for efficiency why are we using English. The spelling is not phonetic, stresses are sporadic, plurals of nouns can be irregular and in general the grammar is very difficult. The spelling is still the same because the last time English went through a spelling reform was when Webster simplified English for a dictionary for America. Not having another spelling reform for American English to replace diphthongs and vowels that make the same sound seems irrational.
Maybe it is just easier to keep using the characters along with pinyin for a pronunciation guide. Sort of like what Japan has, except they use full blown alphabets and use those letters to help them pronounce the more complicated kangi. I know that learning many characters and a pronunciation guide is very clumsy, and maybe there will be a day when the Chinese government (whether PRC or somebody else) lets a full blown alphabet be the exclusive medium of writing for the Chinese language (perhaps when almost everybody in China knows Mandarin). As of now there are two systems, characters and a guide. It might seem backwards to do this, but there are two possible outcomes. 1) The pinyin takes over as the medium of writing after this two system thing has been in use for a long time, or 2) There will always be a two system policy and the use of pinyin/any Romanization system truly was to make the Chinese writing system available to the masses and to allow Chinese to be used in the modern world.
I have to admit Chinese characters are the spelling system is a broken system. The way things are spelled is easily forgotten and a spell checker isn't available. The phonetic parts are hit or miss. And they are keeping the common people from telling their stories (site). And from what I've been reading it makes sense that people spend more time learning characters and could be devoting their time to something else worth studying. After all language is a medium right? I do support the continued use of characters because...
The use of a Romanization system would require the reader and writer to think about their words.
Sometimes I wonder what would it be like if ancient China made the leap from characters to the use of an alphabet. What kinds of scientific innovations, works of literature and amount of power over the world China might have had if they made that leap. It might have been the workings of a handful of people, the educated, the nobility, that might have kept the status quo of characters instead of using an alphabet. Allowing only the well to do to write, and leaving the peasants the way they were. The Chinese did have contact with peoples that used alphabets, the Central Asian Turks, the Indians, SE Asians (based off of Indian scripts). Korea eventually created an alphabet, along with the Japanese. And the Japanese have many homophones, like the Chinese language.
So the answer to the initial question my roommate posed is, it is doable but would people want to. People don't always act in the theoretical "least action", most efficient, etc. way. We're human, and theory is often times way different from real life, especially when dealing with human behavior. Things like love, preservation of culture, preservation of the weak, why do we act in such ways? Shouldn't the weak die off, cultures will fade, and love is a whole other bucket of worms. For some reason some people say no. And I guess that's how it is for now of the Chinese writing system
, and for non-Roman basted alphabets too. There is a history behind it. There are cultural connections. And until the day comes when the people of China decide it's ok, it is time to stop the two systems we have now and choose one, which will invariably be the alphabet system. The same can be said about non-Roman based alphabets, why keep them? If we all switch to the same alphabet it should be easier to learn a new language. But again, culture, pride, being human and acting irrational don't allow us to do that. And in my mind that is mostly a good thing. We need difference in our world, not difference that breeds hate and contempt towards other cultures, but color and different views of our world and of other humans.
This doesn't mean we all have to learn all the languages of the world to communicate, we need a lingua franca that can span the globe, something that has not been done fully yet. English right now seems to be the language of science and business. Having road signs in China and Malaysia have English is a sign of that language as being the lingua franca. But again, it is a language with complicated rules, so it has a steep learning curve (depending on your native tongue it can be steeper or flatter). So isn't it in our best interest as a world to learn... Esperanto as the lingua franca. Boy would Brandon (the roommate) be happy at that comment. Nope. Because we have to adopt the language of the super power, the dominating country's tongue. In the real world this makes total sense. Now days though, are we looking for super powers or just getting along with each other to create a better world? This is the part where you vomit from this picture of a perfect world. Hopefully many people have learned their lessons from colonialism, racism, and learned to respect each other as humans.
