Why hasn’t China abandoned Hanzi?
為什麼中國沒有放棄漢字？
本文是翻譯Quora中一個外國友人的回答。
Benjamin Kowarsch, mechanical/electrical/software engineer and project manager
Updated Feb 1
Why would the Chinese want to replace their writing system? Just for you? Do you think that’s a reasonable expectation?
為什麼中國人想替換他們的書寫系統？僅僅是為了你？你認為這是合理的需求嗎？
From the perspective of the Chinese and their languages their writing system works just fine.
以中國人的觀點和他們的語言來看他們的書寫系統運作良好。
And then, what would the Chinese replace it with? A phonetic writing system?
接下來，中國人將用什麼來替換它？用一個基於發音的書寫系統嗎？
What makes you think that a phonetic writing system would suit the Chinese languages?
是什麼讓你認為基於發音的書寫系統適合這些中文？
Note, that I wrote languages in the plural above. That’s not a typo. There is no single Chinese language. There are many Chinese languages and most of them are not mutually intelligible.
請注意，我在上面寫的是語言的複數形式。這不是一個錯字。因為中國語言不是一種。有許多中國語言，其中大部分都不是可以互相理解的。
The further geographically apart any two Chinese live from one another the less likely they will be able to understand each other. However, they can communicate through writing Hanzi with their fingers into their hands. The stroke order is fixed so if you watch somebody writing into the air you can make out what character they are writing.
如果兩個中國人生活的地理位置距離越遠，他們就越不可能相互理解。然而，他們可以通過用手指將漢字寫入他們的手心中進行交流。筆畫順序是固定的，所以如果你看到有人寫到空中，你可以看出他們寫的是什麼字。
This works even if the language isn’t a Chinese language. Japan, Korea and Vietnam also use Chinese characters to write in their own languages.
這種方式不但對中文有效，日本，韓國和越南在他們自己的語言中也使用中國文字。
At one time in Hong Kong, I jumped into a taxi and said “New World Center in Kowloon, please” in English. The driver didn’t tell me that he didn’t speak English. He understood “Kowloon”, so he drove me to Kowloon and then asked me “Kowloon Where?” in a heavy accent. That was about all the English he could muster. The phrase “New World Center” was completely foreign to him.
有一次在香港的時候，我跳上了一輛出租車，用英語說“去九龍新世界中心”。司機沒告訴我他不會說英語。他聽懂了“九龍”，所以他開車送我到九龍，然後帶著很重的口音問我“在九龍的什麼地方？”。這些是他能說所有英語單詞了。“新世界中心”一詞對他來說完全是陌生的。
Since I live in Japan and know Japanese, I wrote the Japanese for New World Center on a piece of paper:
由於我住在日本並且懂日語，我在一張紙上用日語寫了新世界中心：
新世界中心
New = 新
World = 世界
Center = 中心
In Japanese this is pronounced “shin sekai chūshin”.
在日語中，這發音為“shin sekai chūshin”.
So I said “shin sekai chūshin” in the hope that the Cantonese pronunciation might be close enough for the driver to recognise it and showed him the piece of paper.
所以我說“shin sekai chūshin” 希望這個發音可以足夠接近粵語發音，以便讓司機聽出來，並且也向他展示那張紙。
In Putonghua (aka Mandarin) it is pronounced “xīn shìjiè zhōngxīn”.
用普通話發音是：“xīn shìjiè zhōngxīn”.
In Cantonese (spoken in Hong Kong) it is pronounced “san sai gaai zung sam”.
用粵語發音（粵語在香港用的較多）發音是“san sai gaai zung sam”.
But in Minnan (spoken in large parts of Southern China) it is pronounced “sin sè kài tong sim” which sounds very close to the Japanese. The driver possibly thought I spoke Minnan and he repeated “sin sè kài tong sim” to me. To my Japanese trained ears it sounded almost like the Japanese “shin sekai chūshin”, so I said “Yes, shin sekai chūshin”. The driver then said something I didn’t understand but from his facial expression, gesturing and lament alike melody in his speech I figured it probably meant something like “Why didn’t you say so right away?”.
但是用閩南話（在中國南方的大部分地區使用），它發音為“sin sè kài tong sim”，聽起來非常接近日語。司機可能以為我對他說閩南話，他向我重複了一句““sin sè kài tong sim”。對於我日本人訓練的耳朵，它聽起來幾乎像日語的“shin sekai chūshin”，所以我說“是的，“shin sekai chūshin”。司機然後說了一些我不理解的東西，但是從他的面部表情，打手勢和嘆息聲，我認為它可能意味著“你為什麼不早這麼說？”。
I had assumed the driver had repeated it in Cantonese but when I later researched this I found that the Cantonese is nowhere close enough to the Japanese for me to have been able to recognise it.
我曾經假設司機用粵語重複的，但是當我後來研究它時，我發現廣東話與日語相距甚遠，因為我無法聽懂它。
Despite not speaking any common language, we were able to communicate thanks to an ideographic writing system. If the Chinese were to abandon their Hanzi writing system, not only would this no longer work between Japanese and Chinese, but it would also no longer work between the many Chinese languages.
儘管沒有說任何共同語言，但我們能夠通過表意文字系統進行交流。如果中國人放棄他們的漢字書寫系統，不僅日語和漢語之間不再互相溝通，而且許多漢語方言之間也難以溝通。
The Chinese languages are only mutually legible thanks to their common ideographic writing system. They are mutually not intelligible and thus if they changed to a phonetic writing system then they would also become mutually illegible.
要感謝其共同的表意書寫系統，中文方言之間可以互相理解。它們是相互可以理解的，因此如果它們改為語音書寫系統，那麼它們也將變得相互難以辨認。
Moreover, 3000 years of Chinese literature would be lost as newer generations would no longer be able to read the literature created before the change. It would all have to be translated and much would then get lost in translation.
而且，隨著新一代人再也無法閱讀前人創作的文學作品，3000年的中國文學將會失傳。因為發音系統到表意系統都必須依靠翻譯，很多內容將會在翻譯中丟失。
Very likely China would over time disintegrate and break up into separate countries with less and less shared culture as time passes. The Chinese writing system and through it a sense of a common literature and history is the very fabric that held China together for millennia.
隨著時間的推移，中國文化很可能會隨著時間的推移而分裂，並且互相之間的共享的文化風俗會越來越少。中文的書寫體系和它的共同文學和歷史是幾千年來一直把中國聯繫在一起的紐帶。
As for computerisation, this is a non-issue. The Unicode character set includes all the characters of the world’s written languages, even for languages that are no longer in use like Egyptian hieroglyphs. There are several input methods for writing Chinese characters using a Western style keyboard with Latin character keys. Writing and encoding Chinese characters on a computer is not a problem.
至於計算機化，這不是問題。Unicode字符集包括世界書面語言的所有字符，甚至包括像埃及象形文字那樣不再使用的語言。使用具有拉丁字符鍵的西式鍵盤來編寫中文字符有多種輸入方法。在計算機上書寫和編碼中文字符不是問題。