Fizan Ahmed

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The ideographs are pronounced differently in different areas but read the same—rather in the way that 1, 2, 3 means the same to us as it does to a French person even though we see it as “one, two, three” while they see it as “un, deux, trois.” An equally useful advantage of written Chinese is that people can read the literature of 2,500 years ago as easily as yesterday’s newspapers, even though the spoken language has changed beyond recognition. If Confucius were to come back to life today, no one apart from scholars would understand what he was saying, but if he scribbled a message people ...more
The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way
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