
On Chinese Writing: Evolution - Vigier
https://al3x.svbtle.com/on-chinese-writing-2
======
ar7hur
Author here, I just discovered this was posted on HN. Please note that it's
episode 2 of a "series", the first episode is [https://al3x.svbtle.com/on-
chinese-writing-1](https://al3x.svbtle.com/on-chinese-writing-1)

Thanks for your interesting comments!

~~~
huangc10
I think you misspelled Taipei in paragraph 2. "National Palace Museum in
Taipeh".

Or is it Taipeh in other languages? Though the blog is in English...

~~~
jasonjei
If we are going by Hanyu Pinyin (漢語拼音), it would be Taibei.

~~~
huangc10
I'm not sure where the author is from (although it looks like he studied in
Paris).

Taipeh is the German spelling of Taipei as far as I can tell.

------
jhedwards
This is a great article but it leaves out what in my opinion is the most
interesting part of this history. Li Si unified the script in the form of
"Lesser Seal", but this script wasn't used much except for, if I recall
correctly, official proclamations, engravings and whatnot.

At that time the first emperor purged the bureaucratic class, except for a
small school of philosophers, and delegated most clerical tasks down to
military officers and slaves. These people absolutely butchered the script and
replaced its refined artistic regularity with a more casual free-form style.
This is called Li Shu or "clerical script".

Fast forward a hundred years or so, the new emperor is kinder to Confucianists
and the academics are out of hiding. Now the scholars have a choice: use the
standard script of Li Si or adopt the messy free-form style of the officers
and slaves. The amazing thing is that they chose to use clerical script and
did a complete re-interpretation of the aesthetics of Chinese writing based on
the characteristics of that script. The "refined" artists of the later eras
appreciated how fluid and dynamic the writing of untrained scribes was and
incorporated those qualities into a completely new standard. There's an
absolutely mind-blowing history here in terms of the evolution of an art form.

------
gumby
> and another example of the extreme weirdness of Chinese: why does a single
> character mean three colors when you have 9353 characters available?

That's not an example of extreme weirdness; not only do different languages
countries have different colors (international traffic conventions require
that navigation signs be a pure green -- and define two, one use AFAIK only in
Japan), those colors change over time. Remember the "wine dark sea?" British
Prime Minister Gladstone, of all people, analyzed (before going into politics)
why this was not metaphorical but actually how color was perceived (best
reference I can find at this moment: [https://www.businessinsider.com.au/what-
is-blue-and-how-do-w...](https://www.businessinsider.com.au/what-is-blue-and-
how-do-we-see-color-2015-2))

Politics plays a role in color selection: we have 8 colors in the English
rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) because Newton
insisted there must be eight for mystical reasons, who really uses indigo?
Really most English speakers see six, the primaries taught in school.

And lets not get into the politics of language itself.

(My grandfather was named Gladstone, surely after the PM. He was born in the
bush in South Australia so I'm pretty certain that the PM's early work on
Greek had no influence on the choice)

~~~
georgecmu
_we have 8 colors in the English rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue,
indigo, violet) because Newton insisted there must be eight for mystical
reasons, who really uses indigo? Really most English speakers see six_

You mean 7, right? If your quip regarding Newton is true, I would have assumed
he was influenced by Latin. However, there's no evidence that Romans saw 7
rainbow colors either [1,2].

My next best theory is that the 7 rainbow colors are analogous to the 7 notes
on the major scale.

For what it's worth, to a Russian speaker, the 7 colors are quite distinct.
English blue maps to _light blue_ (голубой) and indigo to _blue_ (синий).

[1] [https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/2116/colors-of-
the...](https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/2116/colors-of-the-rainbow)

[2] [https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/275/what-
colours-d...](https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/275/what-colours-did-
different-colour-words-mean-exactly)

~~~
gumby
Yes, a typo I can't correct. Good thing I enumerated them!

------
jwmullally
The movable-type printing press was invented 400 years earlier in China than
Europe, but failed to take off due to the high number of characters (amoung
other complexities).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_type](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_type)

> The world's first movable type printing press technology for printing paper
> books was [...] invented in ancient China around AD 1040 by [...] Bi Sheng

> Around 1450 Johannes Gutenberg made another version of a metal movable-type
> printing press in Europe

> The printing press may be regarded as one of the key factors fostering the
> Renaissance and due to its effectiveness, its use spread around the globe.

> The more limited number of characters needed for European languages was an
> important factor.

~~~
sunwooz
Would've been interesting if China adopted or developed an alphabet system to
make it better suited for movable type printing earlier on.

~~~
kfihihc
That would be terrible.

There are[1] short story write with hanyu pinyin(a latin alphabet system)
which all words with the same pronunciation.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-
Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-
Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_Den)

------
peterburkimsher
I've lived in Taiwan for almost 3 years, and tried many ways to learn to read.
Studying characters is almost a distraction. Even if you can read half a
character, you can't guess the pronunciation or the meaning. (but with my
upcoming program, you will be able to find the combined character from the
parts).

Words are much more important. Chinese has words, there are just no spaces.
"如果" is a word. The meaning of the characters "如" (such as) "果" (fruit) is
totally different to the word (in case).

Soon I'll be releasing a program to do automatic word spacing, literal
translation of each word, bopomofo, and more. The code is finished, I'm just
writing the documentation now, and then put it onto my Facebook. When I get
simplified characters working, I'll release it here on Hacker News.

~~~
ttflee
> The meaning of the characters "如" (such as) "果" (fruit)...

You shall not take the 'fruit' meaning for "果", as it also means 'just as
expected' and 'effect' in 'cause and effect'.

~~~
peterburkimsher
The word spacing program is now uploaded here (but only works for traditional
characters; I'll submit it to the main page when I add simplified).

[https://pingtype.github.io](https://pingtype.github.io)

------
zcbenz
An interesting fact of Simplified Chinese not mentioned in the article is: the
discussion and conversion of using Simplified Chinese started before 1949,
during the time of ROC, while PRC just inherited the idea after the Chinese
Civil War.

The ultimate goal of Chinese simplification was to destroy Chinese characters
at all, and to use Latin characters instead, because people believed that
Chinese was the reason why China was behind the western world.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters#Before_1949)

~~~
qd6pwu4
To destroy Chinese characters is the ultimate goal of only a small part of
Chinese. Actually, if Chinese characters die, Chinese die.

------
brilliantcode
One crazy idea I had to make Chinese less complex is to use the Korean
alphabet while retaining some common Chinese characters that the Korean
alphabet cannot reproduce in terms of sound. You could even use accents to
indicate the specific tone.

我是韩国人。- wo shi hangguo ren can easily and concisely be written using Korean
alphabet phonetically.

The two are a perfect match. One system to easily construct sounds and the
other carrying deep compressed semantics with the minimal sound syntax.

It would be like like what Vietnamese language did using roman alphabets and
accents.

~~~
yeukhon
> How can China expect the rest of the world to use Chinese when even they
> themselves don't know it 100%?

And there goes Shakespeare. On average there's 15,000 words per play. I bet
most readers do not have the education to know every single word in that
15,000.

"The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains full
entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. To this
may be added around 9,500 derivative words included as subentries." [1]

[1]: [https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/how-many-words-
are...](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/how-many-words-are-there-in-
the-english-language)

~~~
timtadh
> And there goes Shakespeare. On average there's 15,000 words per play. I bet
> most readers do not have the education to know every single word in that
> 15,000.

In English (as I assume in Chinese) you can usually figure out what is being
said in Shakespeare even if you don't know the exact definition of the word.
You also can usually pronounce it correctly (at least for the modern
pronunciation).

~~~
yeukhon
Absolutely. Chinese too. There are patterns among words. Also if you know part
of the phrase not hard to figure out either. Once you know the language you
will whether it is Chinese or Korean.

------
emodendroket
If you are interested in this topic and want something more advanced there is
a lot of great stuff (although sometimes perhaps polemical and controversial)
from scholars on pinyin.info

------
vorg
The example ideophonogram should really include the tone of each sound, and
whether it can be used standalone or only with certain other characters in
words. As a foreigner living in China these are the characters I know how to
read, mainly from noticing the radical with one eye and the phonogram with the
other:

    
    
      青qing1 "blue/green"
      清qing1 "clear"
      晴qing2 "bright"
      情qing2 "feeling", mainly used in other words, e.g. 情况qing2kuang4 "circumstances"
      请qing3 "invite"
      睛jing1, used in 眼睛yan3jing "eye" where tone becomes neutral (don't confuse with 眼镜yan3jing4 "glasses")
    

Those 6, along with 精jing1 (in 精神jing1shen2 "spirit") and 静jing4 "calm", are
really the only 8 common ideophonograms of 青 I come across. These other two I
didn't know because they're used so infrequently:

    
    
      鲭 qing1, only used in 鲭鱼qing1yu2 "mackerel" (the 鱼 radical repeats)
      蜻 qing1, only used in 蜻蜓qing1ting2 "dragonfly" (and 蜻蛉qing1ling1 "damselfly") -- note the 虫 radical is used in each character

------
ganfortran
Sadly yet luckily, no one really do handwriting Chinese anymore these days,
with exception of their own signatures.

~~~
yeukhon
What constitutes handwriting Chinese?

With a pen/pencil? Every where. School? Memo? Sticky notes?

~~~
ganfortran
With a pen/pencil, yes.

~~~
yeukhon
Then don't worry, while there is a decline in handwriting, people still
handwrite.

------
DrScump
Note that there is a link to the rest of the story (1950-) at the bottom. A
worthy read.

~~~
vilhelm_s
Although I feel the introduction is a bit narrow by only focusing on Mao and
China. Japan adopted simplified characters at almost exactly the same time
(during the American occupation). I wonder if this ties in to some kind of
general modernist trend sweeping the world at the time.

~~~
micheljones
Japanese change was just a codification of simplified forms already widely
used in handwriting, and is rather limited in number (cca 370 characters).

Chinese switch was motivated by the desire to improve literacy in the country,
which was to be achieved by making the writing system more accessible/simple.
The changes were far wider than in Japanese, and total count of characters
that were simplified is cca 3500.

~~~
vilhelm_s
I guess the point of codifying existing handwritten forms is probably true for
the Chinese simplified characters also? Many of the simplifications were made
by taking a cursive form and declaring it the "official" version.

~~~
micheljones
Yes, the 'how' is similar between the two, but 'why' and 'to what extent' are
not.

Like I said, in China primary motivator was improving literacy rate.

The number of simplified characters (3500 out of 7000) closely matches the
number of characters necessary for almost-full literacy (most common 3500
characters cover about 99.5% of everyday written language).

~~~
gsklee
> I guess the point of codifying existing handwritten forms is probably true
> for the Chinese simplified characters also?

> Many of the simplifications were made by taking a cursive form and declaring
> it the "official" version.

Wrong. While many simplified characters were modeled after their cursive
forms, it's not simply taking these cursive forms and declared them
"official". Per se, the cursive form is cursive, and the simplified characters
are in regular script. The problem is, when you forcibly bend the curves into
straight lines, many lost their artistic aspects and became ugly abominations.

> Like I said, in China primary motivator was improving literacy rate.

The funny thing: Taiwan uses the traditional set and has a higher literacy
rate than China. People used to blame the traditional characters as too
complicated and a hinderance to literacy. Apparently what really matters at
all is the education itself.

~~~
echaozh
The point is, simplified characters are easier to write, say, when they're
leaving a note on the table before having to leave in seconds.

Why are the cursive forms invented in the first place? Are they only artistic?
They got their use in real life as well. People are lazy and always in a
hurry.

~~~
gsklee
Are you comfortable with the thought of being forced to abandon the
traditional Latin script and picking up a new script based on half-
straightened squiggly handwriting form of alphabets, in everyday reading, on
papers and screens? If yes, then I think you indeed made a point.

------
Kabie
Quick correction: it's `Kangxi Dictionary`, instead of `Kang Yi Zi
dictionary`.

And the comparison between `本` and `未`. It makes more sence with `本`(root,
origin) and `末`(tip, end).

In modern Chinese, `蚤` and `早` are distinguish well. Also, `蚤` is nine-stroke
and `早` is six-stroke.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_Dictionary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_Dictionary)

------
ginko
> A project manager called Li Si makes an exhaustive list of all the
> characters used in the six unified Kingdoms. Gathered, sorted, filtered,
> this set is the first official Chinese writing system.

How could a "list" of Chinese characters have worked? They're logograms. How
would anyone reading the list know what the meaning of the character is
without knowing the character in the first place?

~~~
wrwills
Characters can be grouped according to the stroke count of their radical and
phonetic components. This allows one to have a list of characters, and enables
one to look up characters that one hasn't encountered before (although
nowadays you can also use a Chinese ocr app for that purpose).

~~~
ginko
Yes, I know there's systems for looking up characters. But once you've found
your character in your dictionary, what can you do with it if you don't know
the meaning or pronounciation? Nowadays there's of course pronounciation
guides(through a phonetic script) but I would imagine in the 3rd century BC
this didn't exist?

~~~
monocasa
They had pronunciation guides back then.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie)

------
gurkendoktor
The number four (四) is a confusing example of a "symbol". It is not self-
explanatory at all, and it shares its history with the character that has
later become 呬.

[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/四#Glyph_origin](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/四#Glyph_origin)

------
jjcc
Fascinating. Maybe a little off topic but Chinese writing system has a big
impact on continuous revival of China as an ancient but united nation which
seems to be a super life lasted much longer than any individual lives. (2nd
answer)

[https://www.quora.com/Why-was-China-able-to-develop-a-
highly...](https://www.quora.com/Why-was-China-able-to-develop-a-highly-
centralized-bureaucracy-while-Europe-retained-feudal-government-for-more-
than-1-500-years-until-the-Renaissance/answer/Jay-Chen-1)

~~~
emodendroket
The only answer I see when I click that says this:

> Biologically Asians are quite different from Europeans which results in
> quite different cultures. However because of Political Correctness and lacks
> of good methodologies, most sociologists ignore the fact that the brains of
> Asians are naturally different from those of Europeans just like the brains
> of females are different from those of males.

Which seems like total nonsense.

~~~
ralusek
I mean Asians and Europeans are clearly biologically distinct in that there
are physiological distinctions between them. I don't think that the brain is
just magically immune from its linkage to your biology. It's entirely possible
that there is some variance in the brains of pockets of people evolving in
different places on Earth, in the same way that there is some variance in many
elements of our biology.

I just think from a practical perspective, making sweeping assumptions about
the way someone is based off of their appearance or race is going to lead to
many inaccurate and racist assumptions. I think it's abundantly clear that in
the end, we're all humans and share similar enough capabilities that the
distinctions lead nowhere meaningful.

~~~
emodendroket
I think there is very little evidence to support such a claim and certainly by
the time you're arguing that Asians are biologically disposed to favor certain
kinds of government you've veered into writing total nonsense.

