“Some people say that less is more. But I think more is more.” – Dolly Parton.
The Chinese language has been a passion of mine since I started learning it in seventh grade. It is a fascinating language and I want to look at one of its linguistic facets in particular: the Chinese writing system.
Chinese is a logographic language, meaning it uses drawings, called characters, and every character is a morpheme, a unit of meaning.
Reading any Old English literature, such as Beowulf, certainly makes us grateful that Modern English has become less complex over the years. Old English had more complicated grammar, verb forms, and even word order, which often had the subject coming after the verb unlike today. In contrast, the Chinese language has become way more elaborate.
In the pursuit of becoming more “effective” for communication, many languages have made their writing system plainer, but Chinese has actually become more complex. With simplified Chinese taking over in 1956, many people believe Chinese has become more basic. A recent paper studying half a million images of Chinese characters from the past 3,000 years was able to disprove that myth.
The researchers used computer analysis to compile the differences and found no significant decrease in the complexity of Chinese characters. They attribute this to the need for distinctiveness among characters. There has to be a fine balance between simplifying a character and keeping it intricate enough that you can distinguish it from others.
I love the Chinese writing system and even though it can be difficult to remember many characters, it is truly beautiful to read.
感谢您的阅读！Thank you for reading!
Read More:
Simon J. Han, Piers Kelly, James Winters, Charles Kemp; Simplification Is Not Dominant in the Evolution of Chinese Characters. Open Mind 2022; 6 264–279. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/opmi_a_00064.
Kelly, Piers, Kemp, Charles, and Winters, James. Most assume writing systems get simpler. But 3,600 years of Chinese writing show it’s getting increasingly complex. The Conversation. December 14, 2022. https://theconversation.com/most-assume-writing-systems-get-simpler-but-3-600-years-of-chinese-writing-show-its-getting-increasingly-complex-194732