I disagree. I doubt you read any alphabet letter by letter. You read words or you don’t read fluently. So the reality is: alphabets aren’t inherently better, and I think the continued existence of Chinese as a viable writing system shows this to be the case.
The one advantage alphabets have is they have a more gentle ramp up, but I don’t think they are inherently better. In fact your example of Roman vs Arabic numerals is a preference for logogram over atomistic writing system.
If your written language isn’t messy you actually read syllables.
There is this guy called Paulo Freire that developed a literacy method for adults that is really impressive and it was tested in several parts of the world. It has a whole part about making it relatable to the person learning and using its environment and social reality, but the reading/writing part is based on phonetics, so in two months his method can get adults from poor regions that have never went to school reading and writing - but as it’s based on phonetics, and language is messy, at start they mix syllables that have same sound, like stuff with c and k, or ch and sh, or ks and x, but if they know how it sounds they can read it, and regardless of grammatical mistakes when writing, what they write is understandable and “right” when it comes to phonetics, so even though it’s “wrong” you can still read and understand it, and that’s possible because the written language is based on syllables… now imagine having to teach 3000 to 4000 different symbols and if you make one stroke to the wrong side or miss one stroke it’s a completely different word?
The continued existence of written Chinese means as much as the continued existence of Christianity and how it spread through other continents, it has nothing to do with how good it is, but with historical power relations - and if Chinese becomes the next Lingua Franca, as it will probably be, it will because China won at capitalism and conquered the world’s markets, and not because its language is good - I actually can’t say if the language is good or not, but the writing system, it’s beyond bad.
ps: this has nothing to do with some Eurocentric view of language, because I actually find the Korean writing system pretty awesome.
I agree that alphabets are easier to learn. However, I don’t think that is the ultimate standard in what makes for a good writing system. I would like to learn Chinese. Someday. But I do like the logo-syllabic writing systems I do know
I disagree. I doubt you read any alphabet letter by letter. You read words or you don’t read fluently. So the reality is: alphabets aren’t inherently better, and I think the continued existence of Chinese as a viable writing system shows this to be the case.
The one advantage alphabets have is they have a more gentle ramp up, but I don’t think they are inherently better. In fact your example of Roman vs Arabic numerals is a preference for logogram over atomistic writing system.
If your written language isn’t messy you actually read syllables.
There is this guy called Paulo Freire that developed a literacy method for adults that is really impressive and it was tested in several parts of the world. It has a whole part about making it relatable to the person learning and using its environment and social reality, but the reading/writing part is based on phonetics, so in two months his method can get adults from poor regions that have never went to school reading and writing - but as it’s based on phonetics, and language is messy, at start they mix syllables that have same sound, like stuff with c and k, or ch and sh, or ks and x, but if they know how it sounds they can read it, and regardless of grammatical mistakes when writing, what they write is understandable and “right” when it comes to phonetics, so even though it’s “wrong” you can still read and understand it, and that’s possible because the written language is based on syllables… now imagine having to teach 3000 to 4000 different symbols and if you make one stroke to the wrong side or miss one stroke it’s a completely different word?
The continued existence of written Chinese means as much as the continued existence of Christianity and how it spread through other continents, it has nothing to do with how good it is, but with historical power relations - and if Chinese becomes the next Lingua Franca, as it will probably be, it will because China won at capitalism and conquered the world’s markets, and not because its language is good - I actually can’t say if the language is good or not, but the writing system, it’s beyond bad.
ps: this has nothing to do with some Eurocentric view of language, because I actually find the Korean writing system pretty awesome.
I agree that alphabets are easier to learn. However, I don’t think that is the ultimate standard in what makes for a good writing system. I would like to learn Chinese. Someday. But I do like the logo-syllabic writing systems I do know