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The influence of telegraph and telephone on Chinese language and literature: From the late 19th to the early 20th century (in Chinese)

The influence of telegraph and telephone on Chinese language and literature: From the late 19th to the early 20th century (auf Chinesisch)

Prof. em. Hirata Shôji, Universität Kyôto (Japan)

China is a multilingual society, and the dialects of Chinese language are so diverse that they are sometimes called “Sinitic languages.” And the Lingua Franca in the East Asia, including China, was the Classical Chinese “wenyan.” What was most important for the communication of “Sino-literate world” intellectuals was the ability to write Classical Chinese skillfully. Chinese intellectuals had to have the ability to write thousands or more Chinese characters accurately. The ability to speak Mandarin (official spoken Chinese) was far less important.
The telegram, which was based on the Latin alphabet and numbers, was introduced from the West to China in the middle of the 19th century. At that time, the Chinese telegraph code, which encodes Chinese characters using alphabets and numbers, was created and used as an important communication technology until fax was used in the 1980s. The telegraph office staffs responsible for converting Chinese characters to the Chinese telegraph codes required high literacy. In that sense, the telegraph was still Chinese character-centric.
The wired telephone, which began to be used in China at the end of the 19th century, was an epoch-making technology that even illiterates could communicate with a remote party. In place of written language, the accurate pronunciation of spoken Chinese (Mandarin or local dialects) was essential for users and telephone operators of this new communication tool. Some of the interesting topics associated with the spread of the telephone can be found in official documents and literary works from the early 20th century China.

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