From: cshi@cs.ulowell.edu (Chunde Shi)
Subject: Re: pinyin reform
Organization: University of Massachusetts at Lowell Computer Science
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 23:30:28 GMT

In article <BzMC1C.CAI@wilber.rich.nt.com> zing@wilber.rich.nt.com (Leon Z. Lee) writes:
>In article <BzLFnM.B36@ulowell.ulowell.edu> cshi@cs.ulowell.edu (Chunde Shi) writes:
>
>I vehemently disagree.  Your assumption is based on the fact that a latin-
>alphabet keyboard will be accepted as the sole means for entering commands
>and text into all computer systems.  It is obvious that latin-based keyboards
>are not compatible with the present Chinese character system...but is that
>the fault intrinsic to the Chinese language...or it may be the fact that
>one has yet to design a keyboard customized to the Chinese language and
>train of thought !
KeyBoard just carry minor weight here. The problem with HanZi is that it did
not serve efficiently it's central purpose: simple, easy to use, and 
power of representation.
By romanizing it. the infomation will be coded in most simpliest fashion 
without jerpadizing the meaning.
By accident, I found the english was invented just before books became common
people's accessable.( Do not suspect I advocate PinYin because of this).
Before Latin, was the written language for British people which was only the 
luxury toy for clergyman and upper class.
The statuse of a group of people depends the level of and quality of 
coordinatoin and interaction among the members of the group. The media of 
those interaction are mostly language. And Written language is the one can
carry to communication beyong time and space barrior. So the efficiency of 
that media, from long run, directly influence the level of civlization of
the group of people. 
given the Japanese Romaji failure example is not sufficient for the opposite
argument, You need to study the detail of it. and I can give you several 
counter examples: Vietname, indonesia, Turkey,etc
The argument that Chinese people has strong attachment to HanZi, and have been
the one of the strong glue hold Chinese together, is valid.
But Should we compromise progress in order to satisfy our luxury of 
keeping the expensive defect of our written language?
And HanZi is only the written part of Chinese language, pronoucation will
still
be the same. Except some southen dialect may have hard time to accept pinyin
on wider basis. But school students no matter which part of China, all knows
pinyin. Certain this problem needs to be addressed in implementing pinyin, but
it should not become the reason for not accepting pinyin.
>
>The Japanese in the 1880s examined the prospects of abandoning Kanji and
>adopt Romaji (latin-alphabets) and they dropped it for it was too
>foreign a concept to swallow.
>
>We all know that the Chinese language is a ideomatic character system.  With
>the pronucation of the character separate from the written part...it will
>suffice to state that this language has preserved our culture as one unit.
>Can one say the same for latin-based alphabets ?
>
>The Chinese character system may be "technological junk"...but who is
>to say that today's technology will remain constant throughtout the mellium
>of time ?  Let's not abandon one's native language for the sake expidency.
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Leon Z. Lee                        |  Only able to post to USENET for now.
> Global Meridian-1 Patch Project    |  Opinions posted are solely mine.
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