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I know both languages to a certain extent. By no means I am fluent; reading is still a challenge, especially in Chinese, thus I am not allowed to firmly stand by my opinion.

I often ponder on the big loss the Vietnamese Language incurred with the replacing the Chinese-based Chữ Nôm writing system with the latin based script (chữ Quốc ngữ) by missionaries and French colonizers.

I know that Vietnamese have no problems reading the latin-based script, and I raised a following questions many times to Chinese people I know:

Could Chinese characters be totally abandoned and could children be
taught to only use the pinyin(拼音) instead? Would they still be able to read efficiently?

A standard Chinese answer to this hypothetical question is something like:

no, it's absolutely impossible.

The only "proof" I got until now is this which underlines the abundance of homonyms in Chinese.

It's not much and I still think it's possible to switch to pinyin for Chinese. I'm basing my opinion on the similarity of Vietnamese/Chinese, but would love to hear some more down-to-earth proofs/references.

[edited] Note that I am not into economics of such a hypothetical enterprise. I am strictly interested in the possibility of Chinese people to read in pinyin without being excessively exposed to ambiguity due to homonyms (pinyin is the same for many characters. Examples: 是 and 士).

I know both languages to a certain extent. By no means I am fluent; reading is still a challenge, especially in Chinese, thus I am not allowed to firmly stand by my opinion.

I often ponder on the big loss the Vietnamese Language incurred with the replacement of the Chinese-based Chữ Nôm writing system with the latin based script (chữ Quốc ngữ) by missionaries and French colonizers.

I know that Vietnamese have no problems reading the latin-based script, and I raised a following questions many times to Chinese people I know:

Could Chinese characters be totally abandoned and could children be
taught to only use the pinyin(拼音) instead? Would they still be able to read efficiently?

A standard Chinese answer to this hypothetical question is something like:

no, it's absolutely impossible.

The only "proof" I got until now is this which underlines the abundance of homonyms in Chinese.

It's not much and I still think it's possible to switch to pinyin for Chinese. I'm basing my opinion on the similarity of Vietnamese/Chinese, but would love to hear some more down-to-earth proofs/references.

[edited] Note that I am not into economics of such a hypothetical enterprise. I am strictly interested in the possibility of Chinese people to read in pinyin without being excessively exposed to ambiguity due to homonyms (pinyin is the same for many characters. Examples: 是 and 士).

I know both languages to a certain extent. By no means I am fluent; reading is still a challenge, especially in Chinese, thus I am not allowed to firmly stand by my opinion.

I often ponder on the big loss the Vietnamese Language incurred with the replacing the Chinese-based Chữ Nôm writing system with the latin based script (chữ Quốc ngữ) by missionaries and French colonizers.

I know that Vietnamese have no problems reading the latin-based script, and I raised a following questions many times to Chinese people I know:

Could Chinese characters be totally abandoned and could children be
taught to use the pinyin(拼音) instead? Would they still be able to read efficiently?

A standard Chinese answer to this hypothetical question is something like:

no, it's absolutely impossible.

The only "proof" I got until now is this which underlines the abundance of homonyms in Chinese.

It's not much and I still think it's possible to switch to pinyin for Chinese. I'm basing my opinion on the similarity of Vietnamese/Chinese, but would love to hear some more down-to-earth proofs/references.

[edited] Note that I am not into economics of such a hypothetical enterprise. I am strictly interested in the possibility of Chinese people to read in pinyin without being excessively exposed to ambiguity due to homonyms (pinyin is the same for many characters. Examples: 是 and 士).

I know both languages to a certain extent. By no means I am fluent; reading is still a challenge, especially in Chinese, thus I am not allowed to firmly stand by my opinion.

I often ponder on the big loss the Vietnamese Language incurred with the replacing the Chinese-based Chữ Nôm writing system with the latin based script (chữ Quốc ngữ) by missionaries and French colonizers.

I know that Vietnamese have no problems reading the latin-based script, and I raised a following questions many times to Chinese people I know:

Could Chinese characters be totally abandoned and could children be
taught to only use the pinyin(拼音) instead? Would they still be able to read efficiently?

A standard Chinese answer to this hypothetical question is something like:

no, it's absolutely impossible.

The only "proof" I got until now is this which underlines the abundance of homonyms in Chinese.

It's not much and I still think it's possible to switch to pinyin for Chinese. I'm basing my opinion on the similarity of Vietnamese/Chinese, but would love to hear some more down-to-earth proofs/references.

[edited] Note that I am not into economics of such a hypothetical enterprise. I am strictly interested in the possibility of Chinese people to read in pinyin without being excessively exposed to ambiguity due to homonyms (pinyin is the same for many characters. Examples: 是 and 士).