The written Chinese language is one that celebrates [see this video] beautifully sculpted characters to express words and ideas. Unlike English, which has letters that are combined to form the words in our everyday language, Chinese uses a specific symbol to represent words like man, bridge, and airplane. It’s a given that young Chinese school children spend a significant amount of their time trying to remember their ancient language and how to write the characters that have been passed down from generation from generation.
Unfortunately mobile phones screw this process up. Advances in software have made it so that Chinese people simply type out the phonetic tone that a word has and then the correct character representing the word they’re trying to transcribe shows up on screen. Give the same Chinese person a pen and paper, and they wouldn’t even know where to begin.
This recent phenomena has been dubbed “character amnesia” and it has some people concerned. A survey by the Chinese news property Dayang Net found that 80% of respondents forgot how to write some characters, but 43% said they used handwritten characters only for signatures and forms. Other people say that this isn’t a problem at all and it’s what happens when advances in technology allow you to use your mind for other tasks.
“The idea that China is a country full of people who write beautiful, fluid literature in characters without a second thought is a romantic fantasy,” wrote the blogger and translator C. Custer from Chinageeks.
This problem is also facing the Japanese population with many saying that they’ve stopped writing by hand all together. What about you guys? Ever sit down and write someone a letter anymore? Is that considered too time consuming and a task that may cause a potential injury since you’ve all but forgotten how to hold a pen? I do my best to write at least a page or two a week. It’s relaxing in today’s age of tapping keys on a keyboard and the glass screen in my pocket.
[Via: AFP]
[For more information check out this New York Times article from 2001 that sums it up this issue best with the following quote: “When culture and speed come into conflict, speed wins.”]