When will traditional chinese characters disappear?

[Tee Kay]

But those that really matter? I mean, in English, we have dialects too, and so much of our spelling is unrelated to actual pronunciations. Yet we still understand written english. Why would Mandarin be different?

Chinese dialects aren't really "dialects". Mandarin and Cantonese are as different as English and German, perhaps more so.

 

[Bill3000]

The Chinese "language" is at least as diverse as the romance language family.

 

[civ_king]

But those that really matter? I mean, in English, we have dialects too, and so much of our spelling is unrelated to actual pronunciations. Yet we still understand written english. Why would Mandarin be different?

Chinese is more of Spanish, English, French, German, Polish, and Slovakian with the same written language

 

[gangleri2001]

Traditional characters will never be gone. They will continued to be used in Taiwan & Hong Kong for the forseeable future.

Calligraphers will keep tradition up. Just like they have been keeping such ancient calligraphic styles like zhuanshu or lishu alive until these days. But then again, only calligraphers or scholars of chinese will actually use them.

If they want to keep tradition of some sort, create an alphabet from said characters, a chinese pinyin. Failing that, kill it with fire; it's a fundamentally inferior writing system.

Ok people, stop saying stupid things and learn what are we talking about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_characters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_characters

But those that really matter? I mean, in English, we have dialects too, and so much of our spelling is unrelated to actual pronunciations. Yet we still understand written english. Why would Mandarin be different?

Because in chinese there're two kind of dialects: those that may be compared to our dialects (northern china) and those that actually are OTHER LANGUAGES (southern china). So using pinyin for all dialects is like saying that to write something in Italian or German you've to write it in French. As you can see, it's completely nonsensical.

When people stop using them.

This won't happen until the government tells them so.

The Chinese "language" is at least as diverse as the romance language family.

A dialect continuum between chinese languages? You've got to be kidding me.

 

[Winner]

That's is impossible for two reasons: limited syllabes of mandarin chinese and linguistic union between dialects.

Mandarin has about 400 syllabes. When we add the tones to them we have about 1000 sounds. That's an extremely reduced set of syllabes that would make the adoption of an alphabetic system legaly unpractical: laws would be full of homophones, which would be the largest legal mess ever.
Besides, characters allow people of many other "dialects" (actually most of sino-tibetan languages) to understand each other without sharing the same language since they all are written the same. Do something against characters would be perceived by many chinese people as "going against national union". We cannot separate characters (in fact, the whole writing system) with their political menaing. In fact, as new dynasties reached the power, they usually changed the writing system as a sign of the "new order". As you can see, the writing system has always had an extremely high political meaning throughout chinese history.

Makes sense. But I still don't get how a modern country can exist with a bronze-age writing system (I am so Eurocentric, I know).

 

[gangleri2001]

Makes sense. But I still don't get how a modern country can exist with a bronze-age writing system (I am so Eurocentric, I know).

Yes, it makes total sense. It doesn't matter if it's a bronze age thing (that's wrong, but then again you've no idea what are you talking about) or whatever, what really matters is if it works. And yes, it does.
BTW, as I'm getting used to them, I see that they're actually very practical. Seeing them as a wirting system that makes daily life almost impossible is a thing that only people that have never had a contact with this writing system think (including me before starting studying Chinese and during my first two years of studying it too).

Edit: The latin alphabet was created and unified in the 4th century BC, while chinese characters were unified in the 3th century BC. So the writing system you use it's actually older than theirs.

 

[Winner]

Well, what I meant is that it is basically a pictographic script. You need to know thousands of symbols to properly represent what you want to say, whereas alphabetic writing systems are more flexible, or at least that's what logic tells me. I only need to learn few dozen symbols and I can write anything.

 

[vesley1987]

I only need to learn few dozen symbols and I can write anything.

To write anything in Chinese, you only need to learn half a dozen strokes.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Well, what I meant is that it is basically a pictographic script. You need to know thousands of symbols to properly represent what you want to say, whereas alphabetic writing systems are more flexible, or at least that's what logic tells me. I only need to learn few dozen symbols and I can write anything.

You also need to learn spelling and inflections to write with an alphabet, and "thousands of characers" really isn't as bad as it sounds because they are composed of smaller parts that sometimes indicate their meaning.
For example the character 椅 means chair and 骑 means to ride.
木 ist tree/wood and 马 is horse.
When I started to learn chinese a year ago it was a lot of work to learn new characters, but now there are many new words I just need to see once in order to remember them. It's not harder than french orthography.

 

[dido]

Makes sense. But I still don't get how a modern country can exist with a bronze-age writing system (I am so Eurocentric, I know).

because China had been kicking the butts of ALL other countries with the supposedly superior writing system for some thousand years, and will likely do it again in a few decades?

Back to OP: not until the simplifies system can shed its communist roots, but then the traditional characters are close enough to simplified ones in most cases, they will never die out

 

[Winner]

Meh, it looks awfully complicated. Writing this by hand must be a pain.

Inflections etc. aren't a problem when you speak the language. We're talking about writing it. If I had to know a unique symbol for every noun, I'd probably have to shoot myself.

From purely objective, logical point of view, it seems to me that alphabetic writing systems are inherently easier than the pictographic ones. Which might be the reason why most of the world uses them.

Of course the Chinese language may be well-adapted to it (I heard it is pretty sound-poor), I can't tell.

 

[dido]

Meh, it looks awfully complicated. Writing this by hand must be a pain.

Inflections etc. aren't a problem when you speak the language. We're talking about writing it. If I had to know a unique symbol for every noun, I'd probably have to shoot myself.

From purely objective, logical point of view, it seems to me that alphabetic writing systems are inherently easier than the pictographic ones. Which might be the reason why most of the world uses them.

Of course the Chinese language may be well-adapted to it (I heard it is pretty sound-poor), I can't tell.

from what I know there are only about three thousand or so commonly used characters, most words/phrases are built upon these characters. so there arent that many to remember, considering how many vocabularies we have in each of the European languages

and Chinese isn't even pictogram to begin with

 

[gangleri2001]

Well, what I meant is that it is basically a pictographic script (WRONG!). You need to know thousands of symbols to properly represent what you want to say, whereas alphabetic writing systems are more flexible, or at least that's what logic tells me. I only need to learn few dozen symbols and I can write anything.

Meh, it looks awfully complicated. Writing this by hand must be a pain ----> (it's not).

Inflections etc. aren't a problem when you speak the language. We're talking about writing it. If I had to know a unique symbol for every noun (that's not how it works. For futher reference, see GoodSarmatian's post^), I'd probably have to shoot myself.

From purely objective, logical point of view, it seems to me that alphabetic writing systems are inherently easier than the pictographic (IT'S NOT PICTOGRAPHIC!!!!) ones. Which might be the reason why most of the world uses them.

Of course the Chinese language may be well-adapted to it (I heard it is pretty sound-poor), I can't tell.

Uhum...

 

[azzaman333]

This won't happen until the government tells them so.

So traditional chinese characters will disappear when the government tells people to stop using them. Simple. Question answered, we can all go home and <snip>

 

[bob bobato]

When people stop using them.

from what I know there are only about three thousand or so commonly used characters, most words/phrases are built upon these characters. so there arent that many to remember, considering how many vocabularies we have in each of the European languages

and Chinese isn't even pictogram to begin with

'Only' 3000 characters to remember? Oh, that's nothing

 

[dido]

'Only' 3000 characters to remember? Oh, that's nothing

I am pretty sure 3000 vocabularies is a lot for you to remember in English/French

 

[bob bobato]

I am pretty sure 3000 vocabularies is a lot for you to remember in English/French

It is a lot, but I don't have to remember 3000 characters as well.

 

[Winner]

Uhum...

Please, spare your vocal cords, I can't hear you

Let's not argue about precise terminology. Words in Chinese are represented by picture-like symbols, which is what I meant and you know that. I appreciate that the symbols are constructed according to certain logic as GoodSarmatian explained, but that doesn't change much - you still have different symbols for different words. I simply think that alphabetic systems are inherently easier to learn and that they are more flexible.

 

[gangleri2001]

Please, spare your vocal cords, I can't hear you

Let's not argue about precise terminology. Words in Chinese are represented by picture-like symbols, which is what I meant and you know that.

So the latin alphabet is not a picture-like writing system? Uhum...

you still have different symbols for different words.

That's not true. A same character may be applied for numerous words. And sometimes even in words completely unrelated.

I simply think that alphabetic systems are inherently easier to learn and that they are more flexible.

Yes, they are way easier to learn. As for flexibility, it really depends on how you see it: is it more flexible a writing system that must be adapted to other languages and that cannot be read by speakers of other languages even though they share the same writing system or a unique writing system that allows written intellegibility between languages?

So traditional chinese characters will disappear when the government tells people to stop using them. Simple. Question answered, we can all go home and <snip>

Yes, well the question is when will the governtment tell them so.

'Only' 3000 characters to remember? Oh, that's nothing

3000 are only the elementary characters. The average chinese knows between 4000 and 5000 characters. Those with higher education know about 6000 or 7000. Intellectuals know over 8000. And calligraphers... well, calligraphers are not from this planet.

 

[civ_king]

You also need to learn spelling and inflections to write with an alphabet, and "thousands of characers" really isn't as bad as it sounds because they are composed of smaller parts that sometimes indicate their meaning.
For example the character &#26885; means chair and &#39569; means to ride.
&#26408; ist tree/wood and &#39532; is horse.
When I started to learn chinese a year ago it was a lot of work to learn new characters, but now there are many new words I just need to see once in order to remember them. It's not harder than french orthography.

Those signifiers are like latin, if you know the roots of the word chances are you can understand the character...