BROADCASTS.com

b'

What does it take to reinvent the world\'s oldest living language? China today is one of the world\'s most powerful nations, yet just a century ago it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, left behind in the wake of Western technology.

Jing Tsu is a cultural historian, linguist and literary scholar. Joining Dan on the podcast, Jing tells the story of China\'s most daunting challenge as a linguistic one: to make the formidable Chinese language - a 2,200-year-old writing system that was daunting to natives and foreigners alike - accessible to a globalised, digital world and transform China into a superpower in the process.

This episode was produced by Hannah Ward, the audio editor was Dougal Patmore.

If you\'d like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!

To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.