Re: Chinese writing systems

>>It would get china closer to some part of the world, but again, more
>>distant with some other asian nations which have had strong relations
>>with china for hundreds (thousands?) of years.
>
>In what ways, and what Nations?
>
>Japan has it's own system that uses 1,946 Kanji and Hiragana and Katakana.
This is a common mistake. Japan does not only use 1946 kanji. School program
include this number, but japanese people usualy know more. University students,
and teacher usualy know as much a 4 to 6 thousands, which is almost as much as
chinese people.

>North Korea doesnt use Hanzi at all.
In the official script. Yet the north korean students in my class(chinese
language class) do have a certain knoledge of hanzi, as most educated people in
north korea do.
>South Korea uses a mixed system, but
>still uses quite a bit of Hangul.
Yes, they mainly use hangul. but also use quite a lot of hanzi, (called hanja, if i ma corect).

>Vietnam gave up Hanzi ages ago and uses.
>a modified Roman system.
sure
> Tibet has it's own writing system.
tibet is not a country. China claims, and it is internationaly admited that it is
part of china. I don't want to enter the debate of knowing if tibetan people
are happy this way, but there is no other governement in tibet than the chinese
one. And though tibetan language has (now) are freedom of existance, mandarin
is still the official language there.

Taiwan is not part of china (though china would like things to be so), but speeks
mandarin, and write hanzi. I beleive(but i am not sure for this one) that
chinese is still one of the official languages in singapore.
And the chinese diaspora, rather present in most countries in the world, and often
having a strong position in many asian countries, write hanzi when they need to
write their language, since up to now, there is no other way to write it.


I think china makes more efforts for international (western) understanding than
you seem to think. At least more than... let's say france. Here (in shanghai),
all subways, buses and taxi have anouncement in english. It is reasonably
possible to order your menu in english in fast foods. Some supermarkets have
subtitles on the products labels. All street names are subtitle in a mix of
pinyin and english (West Zhong shan road, People square, nanjing road, yan'an
highway...) Though you obviously miss something, it is possible to live here
without speaking chinese, as many expatriates do.
On the other hand, not only efforts are made to let foreigners survive around,
but also to help themThere are several chinese news papers printed in english.
All universities have chinese teaching classes for foreigners willing to learn.

China is willing to improove international communication, but not by altering its language.

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