Should we all write in Chinese? | BBC Ideas

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中国经历几千年的发展,文化、风俗等都有了很大的衍生与变化,同样的事物,在不同的地方有着不同的名称,不同的发音。文字是唯一将他们联系统一在一起的工具。无论是粤语,赣语,闽南语,还是客家话,四川话,湖南话,用的都是同一套书面语言。在国外看来,这是相当神奇的一件事。

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Most of us know what these emojis mean. . . and these numbers.

But what if everyone in the world always used the same writing system, while still speaking completely different languages?

It is actually not a myth to say that writing unified the Chinese cultures.

There are many many small groups of dialects in China, but we all use this one written system which are the characters.

That makes things easier for people speaking different languages.

How do they understand each other?

By written language, which is great!

Like emojis and hieroglyphs in ancient Egypt, Chinese doesn't use an alphabet based on sounds, but symbols denoting meaning.

So how does Chinese work?

Each character represents a word or a concept, and you stack them together like Lego bricks to build more words.

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