An ‘obstacle to progress’?
Kengchi Goah’s (吳耿志) opinion piece claiming that Chinese was standing in the way of Chinese-speaking people “progressing” as they should, claims that the Chinese “failed to take advantage of a 1,000-year lead,” at least partly because of the “obstacle” of the Chinese language, “a representational language that few can master,” a description which, as a linguist, I feel I must take issue with (“Mandarin an obstacle to progress,” Sept. 13, page 8).
How few is “few”? Chinese is, and has been for a long time, one of the most-used languages in the world. If it is one “that few can master,” how, pray tell, can we account for the fact that more people use it than just about any other language?
Granted, not all the citizens of China, or Taiwan for that matter, are fluent in Mandarin, but the vast majority of them are. We are talking about well over 10 percent of the human race. Is that just “a few”?
What is meant by “a representational language”? Is this perhaps an allusion to the fact that written Chinese is, to some extent, “picture-writing,” so the characters are at least partly pictorial in origin?
So what? The Hanzi writing system works very well for Chinese. The fact that it does not work quite as well for any other language is beside the point; it is not meant to.
The Hanzi writing system enables educated readers to directly access literature written 1,000, even 3,000 years ago. It is a lot easier for an educated Chinese-speaker to read the Tao Te Ching or the Analects of Confucius than for an educated English-speaker to read Beowulf — which is a lot younger.
When Goah says that “few can master” the Chinese language, is he thinking perhaps primarily of foreigners?
Well, yes, Chinese is hard for foreigners to master. I have definitely found it difficult to master, but that’s true of every foreign language.
If you do not start learning a language before the age of 12 (I was 44 when I started learning Chinese), you are almost certain to find it difficult, no matter what the language is.
The Chinese language has been the vehicle of a great civilization for thousands of years and still is. It remains one of the most important languages of the world.
I would certainly agree with the views expressed in the opinion piece on the same page in Thursday’s paper, that a double-pronged approach — mastering English while keeping the cultural heritage of the Chinese and indigenous languages — would be by far the best for the Chinese-speaking people.
However, I fail to see any evidence that the Chinese language has been, or is now, an “obstacle to progress.”
Steven Schaufele
Taipei
Traitors among us
Al-Jazeera has aired a report revealing that the Concentric Patriotism Alliance and the Chinese Unity Promotion Party (CUPP) are Chinese minions. As disturbing and frightening as this documentary is, it is unfortunately something that the Taiwanese think is “the kind of secret that it is better not to talk about.”
As Taiwanese media do not dare stir up this hornet’s nest, it was a bit surprising that a foreign media outlet did.
This is not the first report to say that the Concentric Patriotism Alliance is paying its members to participate in its activities, and claims that the CUPP receives “Chinese funds” for working for China. Still, there have been no in-depth reports that would put an end to the practice. Only very recently has the government started to pay some attention to the issue.
Al-Jazeera’s brilliant report is a lesson to the Taiwanese media: In addition to having a nose for news, they must also have the guts to report the news. Most importantly, they must recognize Taiwan as an independent subject, and not just be here physically while their heart is in China.
With such brazen enemies here in Taiwan, one cannot help wondering if the government — at every level — is completely blind or if it has something to hide. It is beyond comprehension. Why are people who are collaborating directly with the enemy, people who should be charged with treason, allowed to freely walk the streets?
Hung Shih-tsai
Changhua County
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