#214: Strokes of Genius
Learning Chinese is intimidating: four tones, 3,000-odd characters or ideograms to carry on a basic conversation, a completely different orientation of words on the page \u2026 oh, and about a dozen languages classified as \u201cChinese\u201d whose speakers wouldn\u2019t understand one another. Becoming literate in any Chinese language was even more difficult at the turn of the 20th century than it is now. Then, no standard pronunciation system existed to get you started on the road to learning one of them. The story of how Mandarin won out\u2014and how its tens of thousands of ideograms survived threats of colonization, simplification, and Romanization\u2014is the subject of Kingdom of Characters by Jing Tsu, a professor of East Asian languages and literature at Yale. She joins us on the podcast to discuss the rebels, novelists, engineers, librarians, and fringe reformers who made modern Mandarin what it is today.
Go beyond the episode:
- Jing Tsu\u2019s Kingdom of Characters
- Something else that radically changed Chinese culture: modern art
- Not all languages survive encounters with the West: listen to our interview with Don Kulick about the death of Tayap
Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek. Follow us on Twitter @TheAmScho or on Facebook.
Subscribe: iTunes \u2022 Feedburner \u2022 Stitcher \u2022 Google Play \u2022 Acast
Have suggestions for projects you\u2019d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.