Re:If English was written like Chinese (1999)
by DiogenesKynikos on Tuesday June 04, 2024 @05:33AM
(#40572434)
> How would two people living extremely far apart in China even know how each other would pronounce a particular character?
China had an imperial bureaucracy for over 2000 years, which sent officials from one end of the country to the next. In fact, a predecessor of Standard Chinese (a.k.a. "Mandarin") was called "the language of officials" (官話).
China had an imperial bureaucracy for over 2000 years, which sent officials from one end of the country to the next. In fact, a predecessor of Standard Chinese (a.k.a. "Mandarin") was called "the language of officials" (官話).