“Not really, if it was, we wouldn’t have the reading mess - after all, they do quite well learning their languages. No, the Asian languages are visual-based.”
No, the Chinese do not, on average, do well in learning to read and write their language. You would be surprised to discover how few Chinese out of 1.3 billion have the time and the memory to master more than a very basic grasp of the written language. In fact, the Chinese schools’ emphasis on memorization (driven by the language) is a major policy concern in China for various reasons.
No, “Asian” languages are not visually (ideographically) based. Mandarin and various dialects (e.g. Cantonese) used in China are (although pinyin is phonetic system that is used in China with children to help them learn characters - an admission that phonetic systems are easier to learn).
Vietnamese (a roman alphabetic system replaced Chinese characters as a result of the influence of French missionaries), Korean (Hangul), Thai (an indic system), Lao (an indic system), Cambodian (an indic system), Malay (always phonetic, but an indic system gave way to an arabic system which gave way to a roman system), and South Asian languages are not ideographic.
Japan uses a variety of systems jumbled together. The Kanji characters, borrowed from China in the 4th Century, are now combined with two syllabaries known as “Kana” ( Hirakana and Katakana). Romanji, which are phonetic characters, are also used.
By the way, If China ever went phonetic, the value of China’s human capital would soar. Until China changes politically and culturally, let’s hope that doesn’t happen. Given the Chinese people’s cultural attachment to the ideographs, the likelihood of a switch in the near to medium term future is remote.
Thanks for this scholarly comment. I want to add a more informal response to Melas, who argued that non-phonetic languages work, so what’s the big deal about phonics?
I hate to see these casual comparisons because they provide cover for the sight-word monster.
Here’s the deal. Chinese has a relatively small vocabulary. An educated person might know only 20,000 ideograms. These tend to have a pictorial basis which helps memory. They don’t change much—no upper case and lower case. Sentences are short and stripped to essentials—”No ticket, no laundry!” (That’s three ideograms.)
Now look at English. The same word has many forms (UPPER, lower, script, exotic fonts). Many words look alike. An educated person might know 200,000 words but can read a million. Sentences are often long. (”If you don’t have your ticket, you can’t have your laundry.”) To introduce Whole Word memorization into this visual chaos is not going to help anyone. Quite the opposite.