Don't look at the fact that we have been speaking Chinese since we were young, but in fact, we have not learned systematic grammar and other specialized knowledge. If you study it in depth, you will find that there is a lot of knowledge in it. As we enter the upper grades, we are exposed to the languages and scripts of other countries.
But after comparison, we can keenly perceive the breadth and depth of Chinese characters and the beauty that other countries do not have. However, this language, which our people love and are extremely proud of, has been pointed out to have three great flaws. Who is this man? What are the shortcomings of Chinese characters?
How attractive are Chinese characters? It is big enough to turn a genius writer into its under-the-skirt courtier, to become its complete little fan. And this genius writer is Russell. Born in England, Russell won the Nobel Prize in Literature, but judging by his achievements, he was more than just a literary artist. He is almost a full-field talent, and he has left a footprint in various fields.
And he believed in Hegel in the early days, Plato in the later period, and when he came into contact with Chinese characters, he became a believer in Han culture. At that time, China was in the midst of a period of change between the old and the new, and in order to infuse the people with new ideas, he not only introduced Russell in a large number of newspapers, but also invited Russell to China.
Russell also happened to be full of curiosity about the ancient country of China, so he gladly went to China. After a year-long observation, he proposed three major defects of Chinese characters, what are the defects?
First point: The strokes are complex. The Chinese characters we are learning now are all simplified versions, and the Chinese characters we learned at that time were almost all traditional characters. Don't say that in the past, when there was no universal education, even if education is popularized today, traditional characters still have great difficulties for us.
Because there are too many strokes in traditional characters, it takes quite a lot of time to write each word. Why has English been popularized? One of the important reasons is that it is very simple to write and very easy to promote. So that's why the illiteracy rate in ancient times was very high, unlike now, even people who have not been to school can write a lot of words.
Second point: disorder. Many modern people cannot understand why Chinese characters have disorder. Nowadays, the first lesson we learn in school is Pinyin, so before the advent of Pinyin, what should we rely on to sort Chinese characters? So before the advent of pinyin, it was difficult for you to quickly find the word in the dictionary. Moreover, there is no order or law in the arrangement of Chinese characters.
Judging from the technology of the time, it was quite difficult to type and engrave. In fact, in a way, this also restricts the development of science and technology to a certain extent.
Third point: falling behind. I believe in the third point, it is easy for everyone to understand. Russell's arrival in China was a period of change between the old and the new in China, when the Qing government's rule had not yet ended completely.
Previously, the Qing Dynasty implemented a policy of closing the country to the outside world during its rule, which made our country lag far behind other countries in all fields. The Qing government was not only unaware of this, but was proud of itself, believing that it was a great power of the Heavenly Dynasty, far superior to any other country.
However, the artillery of the invaders ruthlessly shattered their arrogant dreams. Therefore, the degree of development of Chinese characters in China at that time could not correspond graphically and accurately to many professional terms in the fields of science and technology, economy, and politics.
Although from Russell's analysis, the three flaws he proposed do have some truth. But these three flaws do not apply to today's Chinese characters.
Want to know what era Russell lived in? He lived in the modern period, when our country was in a period of extreme backwardness because of the corruption and incompetence of the Qing government. But after the founding of the country, the first thing to do was to reform the script, and then the literacy campaign was in full swing.
As for the problem of disorderly Chinese characters, with the development of science and technology, laser illumination technology has emerged, which has solved the problem of typography in one fell swoop. Later, the birth of Pinyin made this problem a perfect solution. As for the fact that Chinese characters cannot express proper nouns, how can it be rare to be Chinese full of wisdom?
We combine the translation and understanding of foreign nouns, using various ways to use Chinese characters to express foreign words, and even after translating into Chinese characters, it becomes more beautiful and more graphic.
It can be seen that the wisdom of our Chinese is endless, and the Chinese character culture of our country has been accumulated for thousands of years, so is such a deep cultural precipitation worthy of our pride and self-confidence?
Although the other party is a Nobel Prize winner and has a certain authority, but our thousands of years of cultural precipitation, how many ancient wisdom accumulated in it, is this not a certain degree of authority?