Van Norden, Introducing the Chinese and Japanese Writing Systems

In this talk, Professor Van Norden explains what is distinctive about Chinese characters, and how they are used in a distinctive way in Japan. This talk was hosted by the Renwen Society of the China Institute. Many people in the audience wanted to learn more about the Chinese typewriter featured in one slide. Here is a video of it in use: • Curators on Camera: An...
The full version of Prof Van Norden's talk, including brief introductions by others and a Q&A session, may be found here: • Introducing Chinese an...

[@georgwilliamfriedrichhegel5744]

Great lecture! I think my big question is why didn't the Chinese use/develop an alphabet system? Obviously I'm kinda biased here, as my native language is English and every language I've had classes in uses an alphabet, but it seems that alphabets are really efficient in that they are flexible, easy and quick to write, and can be learned very quickly. I was thinking that maybe the Chinese language is just uniquely suited for its characters, or that they allow for what would be larger paragraphs of text to be written in a smaller space.

[@BryanVanNordenPhilosophy]

The alphabet has been developed only once or twice in history (by the Phoenicians and possibly independently by the Koreans). By the time China encountered alphabets, there was already a long tradition of writing in Chinese and a huge literature written in it, so there was no felt need to adopt an alphabetic system and replace their own literature. A push to alphabetization did develop with the May Fourth Movement of the 20th century, though.

[@thomasshoener2154]

This is so interesting for those interested in Chinese and Japanese history!

[@BryanVanNordenPhilosophy]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[@jeffinous]

This is the best explanation that I had ever come across!

[@BryanVanNordenPhilosophy]

Thank you for your kind words!

[@catholicpog7183]

Ni hao