Re^2: What to learn in current times?

As soon as they adopt an alphabet with a sane number of graphemes I might. If I were born in China even basic school kid's comics magazines would be out of my reach. IMNSHO the chinese alphabet was one of the main reasons of Chinese stagnation in comparison to Europe. It efectively prevented the invention and spread of book printing. There's simply way too many graphemes for this to be feasible.

Jenda
Enoch was right!
Enjoy the last years of Rome.

Comment on Re^2: What to learn in current times?

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Re^3: What to learn in current times? by Your Mother (Archbishop) on Feb 17, 2010 at 19:33 UTC
Korea is a good example of this problem. They had no writing system of their own 600 years ago. They used Chinese idiograms. Their illiteracy rate was enormous. In the middle of the 1400s court scholars at the direction of the king developed a simple, purely phonetic alphabet for Korean. Today it contains, 24 letters, IIRC, and can be learned by a non-native in a day or two, making phonetic reading fairly simple. The CIA says China's literacy rate is 90% and Korea's is 98%. And frankly I think the definition of literacy here gives China tremendous benefit of doubt. A Korean who can read, can read all Korean words, even if they are unfamiliar. A Chinese person who can read at a basic literacy level would probably find most of the uncommon/scholarly idiograms unintelligible. Sidenote: I find Chinese writing incredibly beautiful.	[reply]
Re^4: What to learn in current times? by Jenda (Abbot) on Feb 17, 2010 at 22:55 UTC
Agreed. As an art form, it's great. As a means of communication ... it's too complicated for the likes of me. i.e for the (even slightly) dysgraphic. Jenda Enoch was right! Enjoy the last years of Rome.	[reply]