問題：為什么中文仍然是唯一一種帶有表意功能的語言？
美國網(wǎng)友約恩·托馬斯的回答
As others mentioned, Japanese also use Chinese characters. Unlike Koreans, the Japanese must continue to use them to avoid ambiguity.
正如其他人提到的，日本人也使用漢字。與韓國人不同，日本人必須繼續(xù)使用它們來避免歧義。
But why do Chinese still use square characters?
但為什么中國人仍然使用方塊字？
Because it's hard to change! Language is the foundation of culture. Just as Americans still use the Imperial System of Weights and Measures, even though it is cumbersome.
因?yàn)楹茈y改變！語言是文化的基礎(chǔ)。就像美國人仍然在使用大英帝國的度量衡制度，盡管它很笨重。
Some people have briefly considered the idea of replacing Chinese characters, claiming that Chinese is difficult to learn and write, and not very accurate. They have become obstacles to progress. This statement is not groundless. For similar reasons, Vietnamese and Koreans basically abandoned Chinese characters. Beijing TV programs once taught Esperanto. Of course, because it was difficult to implement and promote, the idea quickly disappeared.
一些人曾短暫考慮過替換漢字的想法，聲稱漢語很難學(xué)習(xí)和書寫，而且不太精確。他們已經(jīng)成為進(jìn)步的障礙。這一說法并非毫無根據(jù)。出于類似的原因，越南人和韓國人基本上放棄了漢字。北京的電視節(jié)目曾教人們世界語，當(dāng)然，由于很難執(zhí)行和推廣，這個(gè)想法很快就消失了。
In order to alleviate this concern, Chinese Mainland and Singapore simplified and further standardized Chinese characters in the late 1970s.
為了緩解這種擔(dān)憂，中國大陸和新加坡在20世紀(jì)70年代末對(duì)漢字進(jìn)行了簡(jiǎn)化和進(jìn)一步規(guī)范。
Now it is more difficult to change for four reasons:
現(xiàn)在就更難改變了，原因有四：
1. Chinese characters are deeply rooted in people's social life. People today are more educated than they were decades ago. The proportion of people graduating from high school is much higher, and they have learned everything with Chinese characters. In contrast, Koreans and Vietnamese gave up Chinese characters when the two countries were basically illiterate and agricultural populations.
1.漢字在人們的社會(huì)生活中根深蒂固。今天的人們比幾十年前受過更多的教育。高中畢業(yè)的人口比例高得多，他們都用漢字學(xué)會(huì)了一切。相比之下，韓國人和越南人在兩個(gè)國家基本上是文盲和農(nóng)業(yè)人口的情況下放棄了漢字。
2. As time goes by, people have created and used many new words and terms to reflect the growing maturity of society. They can even use some English words in private dialogues, which reflects the flexibility of Chinese characters.
2.隨著時(shí)間的推移，人們創(chuàng)造并使用了許多新詞和術(shù)語，以反映社會(huì)的日益成熟，甚至可以在私人對(duì)話中使用一些英語單詞，這反映了漢字的靈活性。
3. This is not conducive to the maintenance of culture. Now people are proud of China's history and culture. In contrast, some Koreans and Vietnamese regret that they have completely abandoned Chinese characters in the current writing system because it is difficult for them to read their historical texts.
3.這將不利于文化的維持?，F(xiàn)在人們?yōu)橹袊臍v史和文化感到自豪，相比之下，一些韓國人和越南人對(duì)在目前的書寫系統(tǒng)中完全放棄漢字感到遺憾，因?yàn)樗麄兒茈y閱讀他們的歷史文本。
4. The computer makes it easier to type Chinese characters. This is especially true for those who write traditional characters - their typing is more complicated than the simplified characters used in Chinese Mainland.
4.計(jì)算機(jī)使鍵入漢語字符變得更加容易。對(duì)于那些書寫繁體字的人來說尤其如此——他們打字比中國大陸使用的簡(jiǎn)體字更復(fù)雜。
Because of these factors, I think Chinese people will always use Chinese characters.
由于這些因素，我想中國人將永遠(yuǎn)使用漢字。
日本語言學(xué)者布魯斯·托馬遜的回答
Japanese is composed of a large number of 'Chinese characters'. As Gary Westergren pointed out in his post, 'ideogram' is very effective.
日語是用大量的“漢字”組成的，正如加里·韋斯特格倫（Gary Westergren）在其帖子中所指出的，“表意文字”非常有效。
As a Japanese historian, when I found that the texts and lists were mainly Chinese characters, it was much easier to scan the lists and texts to find technical terms.
作為一名日本的歷史學(xué)家，當(dāng)我發(fā)現(xiàn)那些文本和列表主要是漢字時(shí)，掃描列表和文本以查找專業(yè)術(shù)語要容易得多。
There are also some Japanese specific problems. Japanese has many words with the same pronunciation but different meanings. Without Chinese characters, the text becomes extremely difficult to read.
還有一些日本人特有的問題，日語有許多發(fā)音相同但含義不同的單詞。去掉漢字，文本就會(huì)變得極其難以閱讀。
Another issue concerns history. The abolition of Chinese characters and the cessation of teaching of Chinese characters meant that only experts could conduct historical research. In my opinion, this is not a good thing.
另外一個(gè)問題涉及歷史。取消漢字并停止教授漢字意味著只有專家才能進(jìn)行歷史研究。在我看來這不是一件好事。
Of course, the Japanese have the above reasons, while the Chinese have other deeper roots: control, pragmatism and tradition/inertia.
當(dāng)然，對(duì)日本人來說有以上幾點(diǎn)原因，對(duì)中國人來說有其他更深層次的根源：控制、實(shí)用主義和傳統(tǒng)/慣性。
Unity: There were many languages in ancient China. There are Cantonese, Minnan, Shanghainese and many other Chinese dialects that are now called dialects. As in India, they used to speak only the local language in some regions/provinces. Therefore, a Chinese from one region cannot understand what people from another region say. By choosing a writing system that does not rely on sound, emperors can ensure that everyone understands his decrees. This flexibility is why many other languages, such as Korean and Japanese, use or still use Chinese characters.
大一統(tǒng)：古代中國有多種語言。有廣東話、閩南語、上海話和其他許多現(xiàn)在被稱為方言的漢語。像在印度一樣，過去在某些地區(qū)/省，他們只說當(dāng)?shù)卣Z言。因此，一個(gè)來自一個(gè)地區(qū)的中國人無法理解另一個(gè)地區(qū)人們說的話。通過選擇一種不依賴聲音的書寫系統(tǒng)，皇帝們可以確保所有人都能理解他的法令。這種靈活性是為什么許多其他語言，如韓語和日語，都使用或仍然使用漢字的原因。
Pragmatism: When New China was founded, the problem of communication difficulties caused by dialects still existed. Therefore, for practical reasons, they retained these characters and invented Putonghua. For practical reasons, they simplified writing and popularized vernacular, thus promoting literacy and education.
實(shí)用主義：新中國成立時(shí)時(shí)，方言導(dǎo)致溝通困難問題仍然存在，因此，出于實(shí)用的原因，他們保留了這些字符，發(fā)明了普通話。出于實(shí)用的原因，他們簡(jiǎn)化了文字，普及了白話，從而促進(jìn)了識(shí)字和教育。
南加州大學(xué)學(xué)者Zhou Y.的回答
When considering this question, we must ask why the phonographic characters will rise and why Chinese characters can retain their ideographic advantages.
在考慮這個(gè)問題時(shí)，我們必須問，為什么表音文字會(huì)崛起，以及為什么漢字可以保留其表意優(yōu)勢(shì)。
Almost every phonetic letter in the world can be traced back to the 22 symbols of the Phoenician letter (also known as the original Sina letter or the original Canaanite letter).
世界上幾乎每一個(gè)語音字母都可以追溯到腓尼基字母的22個(gè)符號(hào)（也被稱為原始錫納字母或原始迦南字母）。
This innovation makes reading and writing much simpler than the early writing system. To promote its widespread promotion, the Phoenicians were very successful businessmen who had the means to spread their writing system through the Mediterranean and Middle East trade networks. The revolution of phonetics and characters has developed in two directions. The first letter is Greek, followed by Latin, Cyrillic and other letters. The second branch is Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic.
這種創(chuàng)新使閱讀和寫作比早期的寫作系統(tǒng)簡(jiǎn)單得多。促進(jìn)其大范圍推廣的是，腓尼基人是非常成功的商人，他們有辦法通過地中海和中東的貿(mào)易網(wǎng)絡(luò)傳播他們的書寫系統(tǒng)。語音文字革命朝著兩個(gè)方向發(fā)展。第一個(gè)字母是希臘字母，隨后是拉丁字母、西里爾字母和其他字母。第二個(gè)分支是阿拉姆語、希伯來語、阿拉伯語。
With the rise of the Pinyin alphabet, the non pinyin writing system gradually disappeared. Egyptian and Mayan hieroglyphs and all cuneiform writing systems have long since disappeared. Phonetic writing systems are very meaningful. They require much fewer symbols and are easier to learn and write. The alphabet can be modified or created to meet the phonetic requirements of any language.
隨著拼音字母的興起，非拼音書寫系統(tǒng)逐漸消亡。埃及象形文字和瑪雅象形文字以及所有楔形文字書寫系統(tǒng)早已消失。語音書寫系統(tǒng)很有意義，它們需要的符號(hào)要少得多，更容易學(xué)習(xí)和書寫，字母表可以修改或創(chuàng)建新的字母表，以符合任何語言的語音要求。
Phoenician innovation was almost immediately regarded as a practical innovation, but each language system created its own alphabet. Along the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts, the alphabet became Greek, Latin, and Cyrillic. To the east, it became Aramaic (the standard Hebrew alphabet).
腓尼基的創(chuàng)新幾乎立即被認(rèn)為是一種實(shí)用的創(chuàng)新，但每個(gè)語言系統(tǒng)都自創(chuàng)了自己使用的字母表。在地中海和愛琴海沿岸，字母表變成了希臘語、拉丁語和西里爾語。往東，它變成了阿拉姆語（標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的希伯來語字母）。
The Indian branch appeared in the form of Brahmi language and became the precursor of South Asian, Tibetan and Thai. It is worth noting that all these regions are in contact with each other in the contiguous areas of trade and interconnectedness between empires and countries extending from the Mediterranean to the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and Persia, and reach South and Southeast Asia through monsoon driven land routes and trade routes.
而印度支系以婆羅米語的形式出現(xiàn)，成為南亞語、藏語和泰語的前身。值得注意的是，所有這些地區(qū)都在從地中海延伸到非洲之角、中東和波斯的帝國和國家之間的貿(mào)易和相互聯(lián)系的毗連區(qū)內(nèi)相互接觸，并通過季風(fēng)驅(qū)動(dòng)的陸路和貿(mào)易路線到達(dá)南亞和東南亞。
Although China has never been completely isolated as the legend suggests, the trade route to the east is always daunting. Scholars have debated whether the Chinese writing system was influenced by Mesopotamians, but philologists believe that it may be an independent invention. Even if it was not developed by the Chinese completely independently, it must have followed its own development path from the very beginning.
雖然中國從未像傳說中的那樣完全孤立，但往東方的貿(mào)易路線總是令人生畏，與西方的聯(lián)系也并不熱絡(luò)。學(xué)者們?cè)?jīng)爭(zhēng)論中國的書寫系統(tǒng)是否是由美索不達(dá)米亞人影響的，但文字學(xué)家認(rèn)為它很可能是一項(xiàng)獨(dú)立的發(fā)明。即使它不是中國人完全獨(dú)立發(fā)展而來的，它肯定從一開始就遵循自己的發(fā)展道路。
Although the Chinese writing system is not as old as the ancient Middle East/North Africa scripts, more than 1 billion people are still fully using it. At the beginning, Chinese was operating in a field without other writing systems, so its more complex relationship with the West was different. In addition, the reason for the persistence of Chinese characters is different from that of other languages.
中文書寫系統(tǒng)雖然不像古代中東/北非文字那么古老，但仍有超過10億人在充分使用。一開始，漢語是在一個(gè)沒有其他書寫系統(tǒng)的領(lǐng)域中運(yùn)作的，因此它與西方彼此更復(fù)雜的聯(lián)系有所不同。此外，中國文字持續(xù)存在的原因也與其他語言的情況不同。
Reasons for the successful continuation of Chinese characters:
漢字成功延續(xù)下來的原因：
1. Accumulation of cultural history: With the passage of time, each word has gained layers of meaning. As the most important symbols, these characters preserve a large number of cultural memories. Every Chinese can get a little resonance in a character. In addition, writing in the form of calligraphy is one of the highest art forms in East Asian culture.
1.文化史的積淀：隨著時(shí)間的推移，每個(gè)字詞都獲得了層層意義。作為最重要的符號(hào)，這些文字保存著大量的文化記憶。每個(gè)中國人都可以在一個(gè)字符中獲得一絲哪怕是很小的共鳴感，此外，以書法形式書寫文字是東亞文化中最高的藝術(shù)形式之一。
2. Homonyms: There are many Chinese words with the same pronunciation, even considering the tone. The speech writing system cannot distinguish all these words, and the characters can immediately distinguish and recognize the quoted words.
2.同音異義詞：漢語有很多、很多發(fā)音完全相同的單詞，即使考慮到音調(diào)，也是如此。語音書寫系統(tǒng)無法區(qū)分所有這些單詞，而字符可以立即區(qū)分識(shí)別所引用的單詞。
3. Political unity: China has a vast territory and a large number of language varieties. The 'dialects' of Chinese may be far more distant than various European 'languages', and they are difficult to understand each other. A non phonetic writing system, which can be read and understood by people who speak any dialect, is the main contribution of political unity. Any phonetic writing system, such as Pinyin, must be written in a specific language form. Under the unified rule of the Qin Dynasty (221 – 206 BC), the standardization of Chinese characters was one of the many political acts formulated by the Qin rulers to implement stable political control. China's diversity and the need for a unified empire or central government control over a large area were only amplified in the next few thousand years.
3.政治團(tuán)結(jié)：中國幅員遼闊，語言變體數(shù)量巨大。漢語的“方言”可能比各種歐洲“語言”的距離遠(yuǎn)得多，而且彼此都難以理解。一種非語音書寫系統(tǒng)，可以被說任何方言的人閱讀和理解，是政治團(tuán)結(jié)的主要貢獻(xiàn)。任何語音書寫系統(tǒng)，如拼音，都必須以特定的語言形式書寫。在秦統(tǒng)治下（公元前221–206年），漢字的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)化是秦統(tǒng)治者為實(shí)施穩(wěn)固的政治控制而制定的眾多政治行為之一。中國的多樣性，以及對(duì)一大片地區(qū)實(shí)行統(tǒng)一的帝國或中央政府控制的必要性，在此后的幾千年中才得以放大。
4. If the writing system has been changed, for example, when Arabic characters were abandoned and changed to romanized letters, the writing system in Türkiye has been changed, and Turks still cannot understand the content of ancient characters. It is almost inconceivable that all the inscriptions and books in Chinese history, not to mention the treasures of Chinese calligraphy, will be separated from most Chinese people.
4.如果書寫系統(tǒng)被改變了，例如，當(dāng)阿拉伯文字被放棄而改為羅馬化字母時(shí)，土耳其的書寫系統(tǒng)就被改變了，土耳其人現(xiàn)在還看不懂古代遺留的文字內(nèi)容。中國歷史上所有的大量碑刻和書籍，更不用說中國書法藝術(shù)的瑰寶，都將與大多數(shù)中國人分離，這幾乎是不可想象的。
5. Japanese uses two kanas, Latin letters and 1000 to 3000 Chinese characters, but Japan has nearly 100% literacy rate. China has made great progress in improving the literacy rate. The current literacy rate is 96% (China: adult literacy rate in 2015 | statistics). Almost all of these people can communicate with Chinese characters using the Romanization system of Pinyin. Therefore, using a complex writing system is not an obstacle to success! In fact, the latest progress of AI (Artificial Intelligence) algorithm and the mobile phone as the contact way of Pinyin and character system are unimaginable before. Hundreds of millions of people are now used to using Pinyin to input speech and reading Chinese characters to output.
5.日語使用兩種假名，拉丁字母和1000到3000個(gè)漢字，但日本擁有近100%的識(shí)字率。中國在提高識(shí)字率方面取得了巨大進(jìn)步，目前的識(shí)字率為96%（中國：2015年成人識(shí)字率|統(tǒng)計(jì)）。幾乎所有這些人都可以用拼音羅馬化系統(tǒng)和漢字進(jìn)行交流。因此，使用復(fù)雜的書寫系統(tǒng)并不是成功的障礙！事實(shí)上，AI（人工智能）算法的最新進(jìn)展，以及手機(jī)作為拼音和字符系統(tǒng)的聯(lián)系方式，是以前無法想象的。數(shù)以億計(jì)的人現(xiàn)在習(xí)慣于使用拼音語音輸入和閱讀漢字輸出。
To sum up, there are specific reasons why Chinese characters are fully used in China and Chinese, but partially used in Japan and Japanese. This is largely related to early successful applications. There is no real competition for Chinese characters. When other minority characters want to replace Chinese, the Chinese character writing system has firmly established its position in culture, administration and language.
總結(jié)一下：漢字在中國和漢語中被充分使用，而在日本和日語中被部分使用，這是有具體原因的。這在很大程度上與早期的成功應(yīng)用有關(guān)。漢字沒有真正的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)。當(dāng)其他少數(shù)民族文字想要代替漢語時(shí)，漢字書寫系統(tǒng)在文化、行政和語言上已經(jīng)牢固建立其地位。
In contrast, in Western countries, in order to effectively conduct trade and management, competing political empires choose from a series of evolving writing systems. The Persian Empire wanted to popularize Persian, but the Iranian people were not keen on using their 'home' language, but they used Aramaic, which was the common language acceptable to most citizens. The empire was also not keen on forcing a certain language to be used as a specific writing system for decrees or administration, but took turns to use Iran characters, cuneiform characters in different forms, and Aramaic language written in Pahlavi characters.
相比之下，在西方國家，為了有效地進(jìn)行貿(mào)易和管理，相互競(jìng)爭(zhēng)的政治帝國從一系列不斷演變的書寫系統(tǒng)中進(jìn)行選擇。波斯帝國要普及波斯語，但是，伊朗人民并不熱衷于使用他們的“家鄉(xiāng)”語言，而是使用亞拉姆語，作為大多數(shù)公民可以接受的通用語。帝國也不熱衷于強(qiáng)制用某種語言作為法令或行政管理的特定書寫系統(tǒng)，而是輪流使用伊蘭文字、不同形式的楔形文字和用巴列維文字書寫的阿拉姆語。
The Indian subcontinent is another place that tries to enforce the ruling language, perhaps out of the same political unity motive as China. However, here, it does not maintain an alphabet, but splits into many kinds. The existence of the caste system makes it seem that each language needs to express its different hierarchical identity in the form of slightly different variants of the same original system, thus producing Sinhala, Kannada, Tamil, Tibetan, Kormushi, Tiancheng Documents and many other related alphabets.
印度次大陸是另一個(gè)試圖強(qiáng)制執(zhí)行統(tǒng)治文字的地方，也許是出于與中國相同的政治統(tǒng)一動(dòng)機(jī)。然而，在這里，它并沒有保持一個(gè)字母表，而是分裂成許多種，種姓制度的存在，導(dǎo)致每種語言似乎都需要以同一原始系統(tǒng)的稍微不同的變體的形式來表達(dá)自己不同的等級(jí)身份，從而產(chǎn)生了僧伽羅語、卡納達(dá)語、泰米爾語、藏語、廓爾木希語、天成文書和許多其他相關(guān)的字母表。
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