Chapter 37 Chapter 10 The Merits and Demerits of Chinese Characters in History

To read all the words in this story, even if they are marked with tones, because they all belong to the same syllable, it can be said that it is almost completely incomprehensible.But written in Chinese characters, it seems clear.This is of course an extreme example made by Mr. Zhao in a joke.However, there are indeed too many monosyllable homophones in Chinese. According to preliminary statistics, there are 177 homophones in modern Chinese with syllable yi, 163 with syllable ji, 139 with syllable yu, 133 with syllable li, and syllable xi. There are 130 syllables, 128 syllables, 119 syllables and so on.If so many homonyms are not differentiated in terms of word form, that is, words, it will quite affect communication.Interesting examples like "Hungry Chicken Ji Ji Ji" are enough to make us realize the role of Chinese characters in distinguishing Chinese homophones.

In most cases, a Chinese character represents a word in Chinese, and its shape, pronunciation, and meaning are combined together for easy independent use.Mastering a word is often equal to mastering a word.In Chinese, a monosyllabic word as the "root" and a disyllabic or polysyllabic word composed of other components can be represented by the same Chinese character plus other Chinese characters, such as: car→cart, train, car, bus , tricycle, bicycle, etc., no matter the combination of word forms and the understanding of word meaning, it is very convenient.In Indo-European languages ​​such as English, these should be said respectively: vehi-cle, cart, train, automobile, regular bus, tricy-cle, bike (bicycle), which is obviously neither easy to remember nor easy to write .

Due to the above-mentioned advantages that Chinese characters are highly compatible with Chinese, Chinese characters have made great achievements in the history of our country. Our country's thousands of years of civilized history and thousands of years of splendid national culture are recorded in Chinese characters.The four great inventions of ancient China, as well as countless scientific and technological achievements ahead of the world, are also known to future generations by relying on the records of Chinese characters. , "Chu Ci", "Historical Records", "Hanshu", Yuefu of the Six Dynasties, Tang Poetry, Song Ci, Yuan Qu, "Water Margin", etc. Countless world famous works in literature, history and philosophy , whether it is written in classical Chinese or vernacular, it is inseparable from the use of Chinese characters.They have become the common spiritual wealth of all mankind.

What's even more rare is that as long as we have a certain knowledge of ancient Chinese, we can directly read, appreciate and learn from this extremely rich cultural heritage left to us by our ancestors.This is due to the fact that Chinese characters have the expressive function of super time.Among all the currently known characters in the world, Chinese characters are the best at this point. Our country has a vast territory and a vast territory. Except for ethnic minorities, most of them speak Chinese.Chinese has different dialects in different places, and some places are very close to each other, but due to the obstacles of dialects, it is impossible to communicate with each other, but using Chinese characters overcomes this obstacle.As long as they can recognize and write, everyone can use Chinese characters to communicate.This shows that Chinese characters have the expressive function of hyperspace.For thousands of years, although internal turmoil and disputes have occurred from time to time in China, as the opening said "the general trend of the world, long-term division must unite, long-term unity must divide", but because of the maintenance of Chinese characters and the unity of culture represented by Chinese characters, it has never been divided. This can be said to be another major achievement of Chinese characters.

We also specifically introduced the situation that Chinese characters were borrowed and used by ethnic minorities in my country and neighboring countries in history.Therefore, Chinese characters have played a major positive role in promoting the communication and integration between the Han nationality and other ethnic minorities, and in the emergence and development of the entire Chinese nation.Chinese characters have also made certain contributions to the cultural exchanges and friendly exchanges between our country and neighboring countries, as well as the preservation of the cultural heritage of these countries.

Chinese characters have also produced some unique arts in our country, such as "couplets", commonly known as "pairs and pairs", such as "sky against earth, rain against wind, mountain flowers against sea trees, continents against sky" and so on. It is a language form formed by the characteristics of each independent, distinct syllable, well-proportioned tone, and relatively neat arrangement.Another example is the rich and colorful fonts and shapes of Chinese characters, coupled with unique writing tools and materials. After long-term creation and hard work of our ancestors, its writing has become a special art in the world-calligraphy.Calligraphy has a long history and tradition in our country. The artistic treasures of calligraphers in the past dynasties not only enrich our national culture, but also become the dazzling pearl in the treasure house of human art.

These great achievements of Chinese characters in history are worthy of our pride and praise.For a long time, the Chinese people have deep feelings for Chinese characters. Even if we measure Chinese characters today, it still has many advantages.For example, according to the research of modern psychology and information science, Chinese characters are easy to recognize and receive because of their different shapes and strong images, so the reading speed of Chinese characters can far exceed that of other pinyin characters.After mastering Chinese characters, it is not easy to forget them.Some people have done experiments, the same brain auditory impairment, Chinese patients can still understand and write Chinese characters, while the written language of patients using pinyin is significantly affected.

Furthermore, compared with other characters, Chinese characters are far ahead in the amount of information they can carry due to the unity of shape, sound, and meaning.That is to say, in a certain amount of information, Chinese characters can be loaded with only a small number of words.According to people who have worked in the United Nations, among all the documents in various languages, the Chinese version is always thinner than other versions.There is a similar situation in China. Some newspapers published in minority languages ​​have content on six pages, but the Chinese version is published in less than four pages.

Of course, Chinese characters also have some disadvantages. First of all, it is precisely because each Chinese character has its own shape, sound, and meaning, and most of them are different from each other, and some have more than one type (such as polyphonic polysemy characters), which must be memorized one by one, and the number of Chinese characters is huge. It is necessary to master six or seven thousand characters, and the most commonly used ones are more than 3,000. Therefore, when you first start learning Chinese characters, you often feel that Chinese characters are difficult to recognize and remember.

Secondly, Chinese characters have many strokes, usually about 10 strokes, and more than thirty or forty strokes. Therefore, Chinese characters are also difficult to write. In this way, it is relatively difficult to learn Chinese characters at the beginning, and a teacher must teach them one by one, which is not convenient for self-study.This requires a certain amount of financial resources and time. In the old days, it was difficult for most working people who had difficulty making ends meet.Therefore, there have always been many illiterates in our country. There are many reasons for this, but the difficulty of recognizing, writing, remembering and learning Chinese characters is one of the factors.

The expressive function of Chinese characters beyond time and space makes Chinese characters a kind of text that can be "eye-controlled" (that is, read only with eyes), which is separated from spoken language to a certain extent, so some of us (especially middle and primary school students) Instead of writing articles according to the words, I like to write half-literate and half-literate articles, which affects the purity and standardization of Chinese.What's more serious is that the pronunciation of Chinese characters can vary from place to place, so it cannot be directly used as a tool to promote Mandarin.And for a country like ours with a vast territory and a large population, if a common language (Mandarin) cannot be used, it will also affect the development of the economy and the improvement of people's lives to a certain extent.