為什麼外國人要求中國人和日本人放棄漢字？

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Why do people around the world keep asking the Chinese and Japanese to abandon their logographic system for an alphabet?

本文是翻譯Quora中一個外國友人的回答，等孩子下課的時候在車內隨手翻譯，可能存在諸多不準確的地方，請見諒。（並不代表我同意或者反對原作者觀點） 標題意譯，因為知乎對字數有限制

Kazuho Umie (海江一帆), Non-Japanese| Live in Japan| Major in Economics| UTokyo

Answered Nov 6, 2017

I would say it』s a kind of ignorance, maybe with a bit arrogance.

我會說這是一種無知，可能有點傲慢。

About a century ago, there were even Japanese and Chinese people thought they should abandon Kanji mainly for two reasons. First, for Japanese people that times, Kanji was a foreign elements from an old undeveloped country, it was a shame for them. For Chinese people that times, similar with Japanese, a part of Chinese intellectuals showed negative attitude toward traditional culture. They blamed Kanji for preventing ordinary people from knowledge. I conclude this reason as 「historical reason」.

大概一個世紀以前，甚至有日本人和中國人認為他們應該放棄漢字，主要因為兩個原因：首先，對於那個時代的日本人來說，漢字是一種來自於古老的沒有開發的外國（中國）的元素，對他們來說這是一種恥辱。對於那個時代的中國人來說，類似於日本人，一部分中國知識分子對傳統文化表現出消極的態度。他們指責漢字阻礙了普通人學習知識。我將這個理由歸結為「歷史原因」。

Then Kanji was indeed difficult to learn and write. However Kanji had made a compromise with it. Both Japan and China simplified their Kanji. I will show you some examples.

國家→國家、改竄→改ざん、舊字體→舊字體

然後漢字確實是難於書寫和學習，然而，漢字已經為了解決這個問題而改進。包括日本和中國都簡化了他們的漢字。我將展示給你一些例子

國家→國家、改竄→改ざん、舊字體→舊字體

Also, with the help of modern technology, writing speed and printing issues are not problems anymore. So, nowadays there are almost no such voices in mainstream anymore in Japan and China.

此外，藉助現代技術，寫作速度和列印問題都不再是問題了。所以現在日本和中國的主流都沒有這樣的聲音。

On the other hand, there are always western people ask or even forced us to abandon Kanji.

另一方面，總有西方的人要求甚至強迫我們放棄漢字。

After WWII, GHQ wanted to force Japan abandon Kanji. They claimed that 85% of Japanese will not be able to read newspaper which was delaying the democratization of Japan. Under the order of GHQ, reading and writing tests were held around the whole nation in 1948. The result of survey showed that the literacy rate was 98% which far higher than GHQ』s expectation. In the end, they couldn』t help giving up this plan.

第二次世界大戰後，GHQ想強迫日本放棄漢字。他們聲稱85%的日本人不能讀報紙，這拖延了日本的民主化。在GHQ的命令下，1948年在全國進行了讀寫測試。調查結果顯示，識字率是98%，遠遠高於GHQ的評估。最後，他們放棄了這個計劃。

Nowadays, we still can find a small part of people keep asking for abandoning Kanji. They said 「Don』t write Kanji, the kids can』t read them!」 or 「If you abandon Kanji, there will be more people want to move to Japan. 」 .etc To be honest, these words sound so ridiculous to local people and totally nonsense. I wonder if they can speak Japanese which I guess not. However, one thing for sure, their attitude will not be welcomed by Japanese people. Japanese people welcome tourists and try their best to satisfy them, but they hate foreign people interfere their own business. Not to mention average Japanese people have a negative attitude towards so called 「immigrants」.

如今，我們仍然可以發現很少的一部分人不斷要求放棄漢字。他們說「不要寫漢字，孩子們不能閱讀它們」或者「如果你放棄漢字，會有更多人想來到日本」等等。老實說，這些話聽起來對當地人而言十分荒謬，完全是胡說八道。我想知道是否他們能說日語。我猜他們不能。但是有一點可以肯定的是，他們的態度不會受到日本人的歡迎。日本人歡迎遊客，並且儘力滿足他們，但是他們不喜歡外國人干涉自己的事情。更不用說大多數日本人對被稱為「移民」的人態度是消極的。

Michael J Findley, BA Bible 1979, MA Church History 1981 from Bob Jones University (1981)

Answered Nov 6, 2017

The real issue is communicating with computers. Any nonASCI language is a problem. That includes Hebrew, Dravidian, Arabic, and even cuneiform based languuages. Just remember that the computer should be the tool which adapts. It should not be be the master.

真正的問題是與計算機之間的通訊，任何非ASCII 語言有問題。這包括希伯來語、德拉威語、阿拉伯語甚至基於楔形文字的語言。請記住，計算機應該是工具去適應語言，不應該以滿足它為主。

Frank Zako, Mental traveler

Answered Feb 22

No need to worry, there will a lot people learning Chinese in next 50 years.

There is another sacred layer of Chinese language regarding the science and technology of Daoism (nothing to do with religion) that will take another 30 years for the world to start to understand. Most Chinese don』t even know about this. All key elements of Chinese culture are unintentional low quality reprints of it.

不用擔心，未來50年會有很多人學中文。

中文還有另外一個受到尊崇的語言文化是關於道家（這無關於宗教）的科學和技術。這將需要30年的時間才能讓世界去理解。大多數中國人甚至不知道這個。所有關鍵的中國元素是非刻意的低質量的重新印刷（這段翻譯的感覺不大對啊。。。）。

Jamie Oglethorpe, I like to improve my word power

Answered Nov 8, 2017

I don』t think anybody is asking any such thing. Well, maybe software designers who have to deal with those languages. Their parochial needs can safely be ignored.

我認為沒有人要求這種事情，好吧，也許軟體設計者必須處理這些語言，他們的狹隘要求可以被安全地忽視。

The fact is that the telegraph and computers were invented by societies with alphabetic writing. It is impossible to send telegrams if all you had was Kanji. With 30 symbols at most it is obvious. Similarly, early computers were only possible with a very limited number of symbols.

事實上電報和計算機是被使用字母書寫系統的社會所發明的，這很明顯，如果你用電報發送30個漢字元號是不可能的。與之相似的是早期的計算機只能使用非常有限的符號。

The availability of computers made Chinese and Japanese symbolic processing possible. Naturally recording the symbols as a series of brush strokes, makes such text almost as linear as Western text.

計算機的可用性讓中文和日語符號處理成為可能，將符號自然的記錄成一系列的筆畫的集合，使得這些文本像西方文字一樣的線性化（這裡地方翻譯的似乎有問題）。

So the answer is that nobody else cares. We have catered for their needs with Unicode, so they can get on with it.

所以答案是沒有人關心這個，我們已經用Unicode滿足了他們的需求，所以他們可以繼續使用它。