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Linguistics

Timeline for Replacing Chinese characters with pinyin forever as Vietnamese did

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Aug 18, 2019 at 11:46 comment added vectory Japanese changed to a phonetic writing system and still uses traditional characters to various extent. Arguably this is a compromise that proves your point.
Feb 19, 2018 at 4:43 history edited michau CC BY-SA 3.0
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Dec 10, 2016 at 19:08 comment added michau As I wrote in my answer, there is no problem with homophony if you write in an informal way, that is, the way you speak. But this is not the way Chinese write formal texts, so it would require a substantial change of their writing habits, and it's hard to say how the effect would look like. And I don't understand how is precision of technical terms a non-issue. Ambiguity of a technical report is obviously a bigger issue than ambiguity of somebody's blog entry. Anyway, I also gave examples of non-technical terms with identical pronunciation, such as 巨變/劇變.
Dec 10, 2016 at 18:29 comment added Eleshar So the homophony affects only technical terms? I was under the impression it was more of a thing pervading the entire language... If this is not the case, then this is a non-issue in the first place.
Dec 10, 2016 at 18:01 comment added michau @Eleshar I doubt that there are any illiterate Chinese people who can effectively communicate the distinction between selenium and tin. That's certainly not obvious, so if you think that's the case, the burden of proof is on you.
Dec 10, 2016 at 17:46 comment added Eleshar My point is that the form of writing is always secondary to the language and speech, thus while many cultural artifacts and experiences (like humour, poetry etc.) may be based on the way of writing, the fact that people are able to communicate with these homophones without having any knowledge of writing supports that conversion to pinyin should not impair communication either.
Dec 10, 2016 at 17:01 comment added michau Anyway, when writers of a technical report know about ambiguities, they can try use symbols and formulas to disambiguate. But it's not the case with texts aimed at a wider audience. For example, this Baike article says that the city of Enshi is called Xīdū because it has deposits of xī. The meaning is clear when you use Chinese characters, but I'm pretty sure that a radio report about Enshi wouldn't go on to clarify if it's selenium or tin, and information would be lost.
Dec 10, 2016 at 16:47 comment added michau @Eleshar I'm not a chemist, but I guess that there are very few situations where adding sulphur and lutetium would be likely, so most of such ambiguities are probably resolved by context. But in a conversation you can clarify any doubts right away. But if you e.g. write a report, your readers won't be able to ask clarifying questions, and it's harder to predict if it's obvious to them which substance was used.
Dec 10, 2016 at 16:00 comment added Eleshar I suspect that when chemists talk to each other, they need to have some means to distinguish between "let's add some sulphur into it" and "let's add some lutetium into it". The same way when you hear in the radio about the procuratorial organ and censorship organ, I suspect you do know what they are talking about despite the apparent homophony? With humour, I understand the point but I am sure new ways would arise with the new way of writing.
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Dec 9, 2016 at 11:56 history answered michau CC BY-SA 3.0
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