How Chinese Characters Almost Died

Personalized 1-on-1 language lessons with native teachers on italki! 🎉 Buy $10 and get $5 for free for your first lesson with code JULESY9. 👉 Book a lesson: https://go.italki.com/julesy2509 📱 Get the app: https://go.italki.com/julesy2509app Join ♣️ The Linguist List ♣️ to help decide the direction of the channel!    / @julesytooshoes   Ever wondered why China didn't ditch characters for a phonetic writing system? This video tells you the insane behind-the-scenes story they didn't teach you in Chinese class! [Timeline] [00:27] Introduction [01:43] Why Literacy Rates were Low in Late Qing [02:37] Chinese Phonology vs English Phonology 101 [03:34] "Reverse Cut" Pronunciation Method [06:50] A New Nation + National Language [09:02] Problem with Chinese Characters? [10:44] First Phonetic Alphabet for Chinese [12:42] Chairman Mao's 2 Literary Reform Goals [13:10] Simplified Characters' 1500 Yr History [15:40] Character Reformation (?) [19:04] Ending Thoughts [Further Reading] "Kingdom of Characters" by Jing Tsu (2022) [Resources] www.pixabay.com www.pexels.com SAY HI! Instagram:   / julesytooshoes