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Chinese is one of the oldest still-spoken languages in the world. But when technologies arrived like telegraphy and computing, designed with the Roman alphabet in mind, if Chinese wanted to be able to participate then it had to choose between adapting, or paying a heavy price. And sometimes both were inevitable.
Jing Tsu, author of Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution that Made China Modern, recounts how Chinese contended with obstacles like alphabetisation, Romanisation and standardisation.
EXTRA MATERIALS:
All about alphabetisation, from the Encyclopedia of Knowledge Organization.
The etymology of ‘character’ was a surprise to me - from a pointed stake!
The roots of the Stone Lion story.
Otherlusionist: the SOS episode goes into how Morse code works.
Sign up to be a patron at patreon.com/allusionist and not only are you supporting independent podcast, you get fortnightly patron-exclusive video livestreams and a Discord community full of language chat, craft pics and word game camaraderie!
ALSO!
ALSO!
On Sunday 1 May 2022 at youtube.com/allusionistshow, I’ll be livestreaming a presentation about how the Allusionist works: what things like the inwhiches and the randomly selected words are for, how the show has changed during its nearly 7.5 years of existence, how a topic goes from a little germ to an idea in full bloom (or at least partial bloom). I can even go into how a specific episode came about if there are ones you’re interested in. So if you’re curious about this show, or about making podcasts yourself, join me for behindsceneslusionist.
To cover the various timezones, there’ll be two showings:
10.30am UK time to catch the awake hours of people east of the Atlantic - here’s the link
and 7pm UK time for those more westerly - link for that one.
The videos will also be available afterwards, but if you’re there live, you get to participate in the chat and ask questions in real time, which is more fun.
YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
rale
rale, noun (usually rales), medicine: an abnormal rattling sound heard when examining unhealthy lungs with a stethoscope. Origin 19th century: from French râle, from râler ‘to rattle’.
CREDITS:
Jing Tsu is professor of modern China studies at Yale University, and the author of the new book Kingdom of Characters, the Language Revolution that Made China. Read it to learn a load more about simplifying Chinese, typography, telegraphy, Romanization, computerization, political squabbles, and many plucky individuals trying to get things done against long odds.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. The original Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com, listen to his podcasts Song By Song and Neutrino Watch, and hear more of his composition on the science podcast for kids Maddie’s Sound Explorers.
Find the show at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/helenzaltzman and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
