> When MacArthur tried to get rid of the use of Chinese characters in Japanese writing during the post-WW2 occupation, he backed off when it was embarrassingly pointed out that Japan had a higher literacy rate than the US, despite having less of an investment in state schools at the time.
I’m not sure this can be solely attributed to the difference between character sets.
> The reason for this is that nobody except little children actually read by sounding out individual letters of words. That would be too much for the human mind to process in real time.
This sounds a lot like the theory that justified getting rid of phonics in schools, which has been an unmitigated disaster. It’s also not true when you consider how adult readers approach new words; English in particular isn’t great at this but there’s at least a hope that you’ll know how to pronounce a word you see written down, which approaches certainty in other alphabetic languages. This is useful for cross-referencing between spoken and written language.
> (Did you read that OK?)
Most English readers can mentally correct transposed letters, which is yet more evidence of the resiliency of alphabetic writing.
> But given that in this age most of our communication is through text which may never even be read aloud, it does make one wonder if the Chinese had the right idea all along.
I very much doubt that this is true. It might be true (or seem true) in the weird bubble you and I live in, but it’s not true for the majority of people.
I’m not sure this can be solely attributed to the difference between character sets.
> The reason for this is that nobody except little children actually read by sounding out individual letters of words. That would be too much for the human mind to process in real time.
This sounds a lot like the theory that justified getting rid of phonics in schools, which has been an unmitigated disaster. It’s also not true when you consider how adult readers approach new words; English in particular isn’t great at this but there’s at least a hope that you’ll know how to pronounce a word you see written down, which approaches certainty in other alphabetic languages. This is useful for cross-referencing between spoken and written language.
> (Did you read that OK?)
Most English readers can mentally correct transposed letters, which is yet more evidence of the resiliency of alphabetic writing.
> But given that in this age most of our communication is through text which may never even be read aloud, it does make one wonder if the Chinese had the right idea all along.
I very much doubt that this is true. It might be true (or seem true) in the weird bubble you and I live in, but it’s not true for the majority of people.