JULIE OYANG
| BANZA
What a ( bad ) poem can teach you about the Chinese language ?
-On modern language reforms and censorship 誓食十獅
JULIE OYANG
Most people don ’ t realize that the Chinese writing system is the most significant reason why China is a continuous civilization for almost 5000 years .
Although this is a statement an educated Chinese would like to make ; it ’ s a lie with good though uneducated intention .
What has been continuous is not civilization – Chinese civilizations ( plural ) have been diverse enough to be successful on diversity ground alone – but rather it is a single writing system – hanzi 汉字 :
| BANZA
Chinese characters – that has sustained for more than 2000 years , lasting from 3rd century BC until this very day . First Emperor of Qin , the founder of the Qin dynasty , introduced several reforms : currency , weights and measures were standardized , and a uniform system of writing Chinese characters was established . Ever since then , Qin ’ s writing system had functioned as the culture ’ s superglue that held and holds together the vastly different people speaking very different languages . ( Qin emperor was also the initiator of the famed defense project known to us as the Great Wall .)
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