Preface
Chinese characters are the only kind of writing in the world with symbols as the basic unit, and it is an important part of Chinese civilization and carries rich cultural connotations.
For thousands of years, Chinese characters have accompanied the survival and development of the Chinese nation, and are not only the carrier of domestic humanities and history, but also a banner of Chinese civilization to the world.
However, with the acceleration of globalization, Chinese characters, as one of the most spoken languages in the world, have received extensive attention for their adaptability and development space.
English philosopher Russell
As early as the beginning of the 20th century, the British philosopher Russell conducted in-depth research and thought about Chinese characters, and put forward some controversial views. He believes that there are many problems with Chinese characters, which not only bring many difficulties to Chinese language users, but also hinder the development of Chinese characters in international communication.
This assertion has had an important impact on the linguistic community, and has also led to in-depth discussions on the characteristics and existing problems of Chinese characters.
Why, then, did Russell come up with such a surprising view of Chinese characters, and what did he think were the major flaws in Chinese characters?
This article will explore this topic and aim to introduce readers to Russell's views and provide an objective evaluation of his views.
1. Why was Russell accused of having major flaws in Chinese characters?
Kanji are ancient writing symbols whose origins can be traced back to tortoiseshell bone inscriptions about 4,000-5,000 years ago.
In the long process of development, Chinese characters have undergone many changes, which have also affected their structure and function.
Although the development of Chinese characters has a long history, as early as the beginning of the 20th century, the famous British philosopher Russell became interested in Chinese characters and put forward a series of ideas about Chinese characters in his famous book "West and East".
It is worth noting that Russell's views do not represent everyone's views on Chinese characters, and these views only represent Russell's personal understanding and evaluation of Chinese characters.
At that time, Russell conducted in-depth research on the history and culture of the East, and also dabbled in ancient Chinese philosophy, religion, literature, and other works.
In the process, Russell became very interested in Chinese characters, and he not only learned some simple Chinese characters, but also tried to study the composition and development of Chinese characters.
By comparing the structural differences between Chinese characters and the Latin alphabet, Russell argues that Chinese characters have many limitations, and thus raises a series of questions about Chinese characters.
Although Russell's views have sparked extensive discussion and controversy, there are some places worth reflecting on these views in terms of the characteristics and instrumental attributes of Chinese characters themselves.
1. Russell believed that the structure of Chinese characters was complex.
In his book The West and the East, Russell presents his unique view of Chinese characters, arguing that "the structure of Chinese characters is quite complex, and this complexity will be a great challenge for Chinese characters".
In Russell's view, the unique structure of Chinese characters makes it much more difficult to learn, and it has also become a major obstacle to the internationalization of Chinese characters.
He made such a point by comparing the structural differences between Chinese characters and the Latin alphabet.
In fact, there are many Chinese characters, and their forms and structures vary depending on the era, region, and use.
In everyday life, people usually use thousands of Chinese characters.
In ancient texts, there are more than 50,000 types of Chinese characters, which means that the time and effort required to master all of them is enormous.
The construction of Chinese characters may seem simple, but in fact they are quite complex.
First of all, Chinese characters are symbolic characters, which can not only express sounds or syllables, but also have independent meanings of the symbols themselves.
In the Chinese character system, hieroglyphs account for a considerable proportion, which is based on the utensils, animals and plants and natural phenomena in people's lives, and creates a kind of character symbol through generalization and simplification.
Because their words have some intuitive similarity with the representation of things, it is necessary to have a deep understanding and observation of life, nature, etc.
Secondly, the way in which Chinese characters are written is also varied.
In the vast land of the motherland, not only many different calligraphy styles have been formed, but also many different methods of character detection such as stroke checking and radical checking have also been produced.
This makes it more complicated for people to learn, write, and find Chinese characters, and it also makes it more difficult for people to read and communicate with each other.
In addition, Russell believed that the construction of Chinese characters made it impossible to escape the clutches of internationalization.
He believes that the structure of Chinese characters is too complex, which makes it unable to adapt to the rapid dissemination and translation needs of characters in the era of globalization, which also brings certain obstacles to the internationalization process of Chinese characters.
2. Russell believed that the order of Chinese characters was irregular.
In the book West and East, Russell also pointed out the irregularity of the way Chinese characters are ordered.
He argues that the ordering of Chinese characters is unusually confusing compared to the alphabetical order in the Latin alphabet.
Traditional Chinese Exclusion Edition
This situation not only makes it more difficult for people to learn Chinese characters, but also makes people face many difficulties in typesetting and retrieving Chinese characters.
At this point, Russell's point is not unreasonable, that the smallest basic units of Chinese characters are the side and the stroke, which are so varied that it is difficult to simply arrange them in the order of megagrams.
In addition, the development and collation of Chinese characters gave rise to a variety of character detection methods, such as radical detection and stroke inspection.
These methods are not as intuitive and easy as alphabetical sorting, but they still help people classify, index, and learn Chinese characters.
Although there are many inconveniences in the way Chinese characters are ordered, this does not mean that it is a disordered and irregular script. In daily life and literature, people can check and check characters according to the radicals, strokes and other characteristics of words.
With the development of computer technology, people have also designed some more intuitive and simple ways to sort Chinese characters. Through the use of these methods, people can learn and use Chinese characters more conveniently.
3. Russell believed that Chinese characters were poorly adapted to foreign words.
In the book "West and East", Russell also raised the problem of the inadaptability of Chinese characters to foreign words.
In the process of globalization, people will continue to be exposed to a variety of foreign words.
As a result, these foreign words also put forward higher requirements for the absorption and transcription of local characters, and Chinese characters have been subject to some restrictions and adverse effects in the process.
First of all, the syllabic structure of Chinese characters is fixed, which means that it can only express a fixed and limited number of syllables, and it will be unable to cope with some of the more complex foreign words.
For example, for food names such as steamed buns and rice, which are common in daily life, Chinese characters can convey the shape, use, and ingredients of the food well, but they cannot accurately convey the original pronunciation of the food, "mantou" and "mifan", that is, his pinyin pronunciation cannot be directly displayed.
In addition, the ideographic nature of Chinese characters also brings limitations to the expression of foreign words.
In the process of transcribing, people still need to consider the many information contained in the name, such as the geographical location, customs and historical traditions of the place name, the surname, identity and personal history of the name. Although these syllables do not have much influence on the ideographic meaning of the text, they make it more difficult for people to recognize and write, and they also pose certain challenges for people to communicate in writing in various places and to preserve and organize ancient documents.
Chinese characters have many shortcomings, but they also have a unique charm and expressiveness that cannot be matched by other characters.
Because the structure and writing of Chinese characters are different from other scripts, they have unique advantages in expressing ideas, history, culture, and emotions that cannot be replaced by other scripts. This makes it have an exclusive position in the world, and has become an important carrier and accumulation of life, literature, art and history.
In any respect, Russell's view of Chinese characters reminds us that we should look at them from multiple perspectives, which also makes us more aware of the unique charm and problems of Chinese characters.
With the help of the development of contemporary science and technology, it is also a direction that we need to pay attention to to strengthen international Chinese language education and exchanges and enhance the international influence of Chinese characters through a variety of information dissemination methods and learning methods.