“The belief that the imperial system is worse than metric is not unreasonable”
Is the belief that the logographic system is worse than alphabets (and abugidas, for that matter) unreasonable? You seem to suggest that, arbitrarily, for this case it’s not just unreasonable, but also bigotry…
“It’s time for the Japanese to drop their system” - racism.
“It’s time for the Americans to drop their system” - not racism.
Ok, whatever makes you feel better about yourself. I will still say logograms and imperial units are awful.
Is the belief that the logographic system is worse than alphabets (and abugidas, for that matter) unreasonable?
Lol yes. Both systems have benefits and drawbacks, it’s unreasonable to say either is “worse” than the other. It’s certainly not as clear-cut as the comparison between the imperial and metric systems.
In alphabets you learn a small set of letters. Using those letters you form syllables. With those syllables you can write and read every single word in that language (yeah, through historical processes most languages fucked up the connection between syllables and phonemes, but that’s a different matter).
Meanwhile logographic systems have no logical way to form words, as lots of words are their own symbol. In current logogram languages you are expected to learn from 2000 to 4000 different characters (compared to an average of 20-something letters in alphabets) just to read most publications - and odds are that if you try to read something from an area you have no expertise in, you are going to stumble upon several words you can’t even read (difference between ability to read and knowing the meaning. One may stumble upon a word they don’t know the meaning of while using an alphabet, but they can still read the word. While if you don’t know the right logogram for a word, even if you know the meaning of it, you can neither write nor read it).
I find the distinction even more clear-cut than imperial vs metrics, as imperial just uses very confusing conversions. Logograms are way more unnecessarily complicated.
Unfortunately I could never find again this cartoon strip I saw once. A kid showing his mom “Look, I drew a butterfly” and the mom saying “Great, I’m going to add it to the dictionary” lol
“The belief that the imperial system is worse than metric is not unreasonable”
Is the belief that the logographic system is worse than alphabets (and abugidas, for that matter) unreasonable? You seem to suggest that, arbitrarily, for this case it’s not just unreasonable, but also bigotry…
“It’s time for the Japanese to drop their system” - racism.
“It’s time for the Americans to drop their system” - not racism.
Ok, whatever makes you feel better about yourself. I will still say logograms and imperial units are awful.
Lol yes. Both systems have benefits and drawbacks, it’s unreasonable to say either is “worse” than the other. It’s certainly not as clear-cut as the comparison between the imperial and metric systems.
In alphabets you learn a small set of letters. Using those letters you form syllables. With those syllables you can write and read every single word in that language (yeah, through historical processes most languages fucked up the connection between syllables and phonemes, but that’s a different matter).
Meanwhile logographic systems have no logical way to form words, as lots of words are their own symbol. In current logogram languages you are expected to learn from 2000 to 4000 different characters (compared to an average of 20-something letters in alphabets) just to read most publications - and odds are that if you try to read something from an area you have no expertise in, you are going to stumble upon several words you can’t even read (difference between ability to read and knowing the meaning. One may stumble upon a word they don’t know the meaning of while using an alphabet, but they can still read the word. While if you don’t know the right logogram for a word, even if you know the meaning of it, you can neither write nor read it).
I find the distinction even more clear-cut than imperial vs metrics, as imperial just uses very confusing conversions. Logograms are way more unnecessarily complicated.
Unfortunately I could never find again this cartoon strip I saw once. A kid showing his mom “Look, I drew a butterfly” and the mom saying “Great, I’m going to add it to the dictionary” lol