China has an extremely high literacy rate, so the difficulty in learning the system is, at least, provably surmountable.
The strength of being able to unite communication historically across East Asia and potentially around the world is a pretty big plus. Offering such a strength impossible in other systems, ideograms are hardly equivalent to imperial units.
I disagree. I doubt you read any alphabet letter by letter. You read words or you don’t read fluently. So the reality is: alphabets aren’t inherently better, and I think the continued existence of Chinese as a viable writing system shows this to be the case.
The one advantage alphabets have is they have a more gentle ramp up, but I don’t think they are inherently better. In fact your example of Roman vs Arabic numerals is a preference for logogram over atomistic writing system.
I agree that alphabets are easier to learn. However, I don’t think that is the ultimate standard in what makes for a good writing system. I would like to learn Chinese. Someday. But I do like the logo-syllabic writing systems I do know
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China has an extremely high literacy rate, so the difficulty in learning the system is, at least, provably surmountable.
The strength of being able to unite communication historically across East Asia and potentially around the world is a pretty big plus. Offering such a strength impossible in other systems, ideograms are hardly equivalent to imperial units.
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I disagree. I doubt you read any alphabet letter by letter. You read words or you don’t read fluently. So the reality is: alphabets aren’t inherently better, and I think the continued existence of Chinese as a viable writing system shows this to be the case.
The one advantage alphabets have is they have a more gentle ramp up, but I don’t think they are inherently better. In fact your example of Roman vs Arabic numerals is a preference for logogram over atomistic writing system.
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I agree that alphabets are easier to learn. However, I don’t think that is the ultimate standard in what makes for a good writing system. I would like to learn Chinese. Someday. But I do like the logo-syllabic writing systems I do know