“Pinyin Was Plan A” tiandi.info Post Substantially Rewritten

The tiandi.info post “Pinyin Was Plan A” has been substantially rewritten. As it says in the recently posted update:

Since this post was originally posted back in January, I have been continuing to research and analyze this subject, since it is of such primary importance in the Chinese field. As one result of this ongoing research and analysis, this post has been substantially rewritten and updated, and a significant amount of material has been added to it. I highly recommend reading it in its current form even if you have already read the original post.

Especially noteworthy is the inclusion of examples cited by Zhou Youguang, who led the team that created pinyin, of Mandarin homophones that have had their pronunciations changed, thus resolving the potential confusion that could be caused by their previously identical pronunciations. This is some of the material added that shows that it is not correct to think that the number of homophones currently in Mandarin is a good reason not to use pinyin.

Also added is information about digraphia, such as the following:

Modern-day pinyin advocates generally see [pinyin totally replacing characters] as unrealistic, or at least very far off, and many of them, such as Victor H. Mair, do not call for that. However, many of them do call for pinyin to be accepted, not just as a pronunciation aid for the characters, but as the full-fledged script (writing system) for Mandarin in its own right that it linguistically qualifies as, and they call for pinyin to be taught, learned, and used as such a full-fledged script (writing system) in parallel with and with more or less the same status as the characters in a scenario known as digraphia (双文制 (shuāngwénzhì, “two-script system”).

The subject of pinyin and the Chinese characters may be one of the most important subjects I will ever write about on tiandi.info, since it deals with facing the most difficult fundamental aspect of the Chinese language, the language that is the reason the Chinese field exists. This rewritten post contains much of the fruitage of months of research and analysis regarding this subject, and I highly recommend that anyone in or interested in the Chinese field read it. Please feel free to pass on the information about this post to any Witness you know who fits that description.

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