Chinese verses English Languages: I sent this out because the Quora author described a key difference between the Chinese language and the English language. Since each of the Chinese characters has meaning(s), a new invention can be named by existing Chinese characters, instead of having to invent a new term. That means one can get by with knowing only 2500 Chinese characters, instead of many more English words to get by. The term “computer” picked by the author is perhaps not the best example to use in this sense.
There are other advantages to the Chinese language that the author did not discuss. One example: since many Chinese characters are made up of parts, one part of which can be a root that has a meaning. Hence even though one does not know the character, one can guess its meaning by its root.
Professor Ling-chi Wang of UC Berkeley on Feb 1 2024: I completely agree with Aya Shawn’s answer to the question: “Does this expose the inadequacy of Chinese characters is found in inventing modern scientific terminology?” His answer reveals not just the adequacy of the Chinese writing system, but also the genius behind the invention of the Chinese writing system.
The Chinese system of writing is the oldest in the world today and it is still in use. The earliest documented Chinese system of writing inscribed in some 150,000 pieces of the oracle bones (甲骨文) in the Shang Dynasty, around the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C. in Anyang, Henan (河南安阳). Some were inscribed on tortoise shells and others on animal bones. The texts, for the purposes of this discussion, show the writing system to be fully developed. Similar inscriptions on Bronze vessels and bronze-wares, based also on the same system of writing but in different writing style, appeared later during the Zhou Dynasty. These inscriptions show that the Chinese system of writing, appearing some three millennial years ago, were already a fully developed system and had persisted in many styles of writing Chinese to this date. Indeed, its calligraphy had become a high art unparalleled in the history writing! In other words, there has been no change in the structure and function of Chinese writing since then, thus enabling Chinese archeologists and scholars to read these ancient texts without having to decipher. In fact, Chinese is the only ancient system of writing to persist from the time it first appeared to the present day. (Besides the Chinese, the other known ancient original systems of writing are: Sumerian in Mesopotamia, Proto-Elamite in Elam, Proto-Indic in the Indus Valley, Egyptian hieroglyphic in Egypt, Cretan in Crete and Greece, and Hittite in Anatolia (today’s Turkey) and Syria, according to Prof. I. J. Gelb of the University of Chicago). Of these seven, the only one still in use today is the Chinese system. It is also the youngest of all seven ancient systems. All other writing systems of the world today are derived or copied from other writing systems, the most widely imitated and used are the alphabets.
In other words, we really do not have archeological evidence showing the evolution of the Chinese system before the oracle inscriptions. It remains a mystery. When it first appeared in history, the writing system was already fully developed, showing no signs of prior evolution. Some isolated, scattered Neolithic signs, symbols, and pictures unearthed in different parts of China by Chinese archeologists since the dawn of Chinese archeology in early 20th century are not writings, even less a system of writing. Did some Chinese invent the cure;ent system now in use? Or, did they learn about “the concept of writing” from other systems of writing, say West Asia and Northern Africa and decided to create one for themselves? These are questions remain unanswered.
The fact that Chinese writing persists to this date is a tribute to the genius of the system. Some, including some Chinese scholars, have contended that alphabetization of Chinese is the inevitable next step of the evolution of Chinese writing system, especially, of late, with the advent of computer data entry and work-processing because alphabetic system is widely considered the most economic,superior, efficient, and precise system of writing. In spite of the invention of the pinyin system, (Romanized Chine for data entry and word-processing), the outcome is still Chinese characters in print and it can be entered as fast, if not faster than English or any alphabet-based languages of the world. The inevitability turns out to be wrong! In fact, Chinese characters have turned out to be just as efficient, adaptable, and economic as the English alphabets, now widely used throughout the world. English alphabets are borrowed from Greek and Latin alphabets, which in turn, had come from the 22-letter Phoenician alphabets, the most widely used of which are Aramaic texts, Old Testament Hebrew, and modern Israeli Hebrew. The earliest example of ancient Phoenician came from inscriptions fin the 11th century B.C. and through trade, it was spread throughout the Mediterranean. Phoenician alphabets were derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs, one of the seven original system of writing..
In my opinion, Chinese language and writing have a bright future in our shrinking world
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