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A review by audrareads
Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern by Jing Tsu
5.0
As the kids would say: ten million stars
There’s a chapter on inventing and adapting the typewriter. Another on the telegraph. Monks and librarians. Printing presses. Computers. People who spent their lives trying to increase literacy. Examples of how characters were simplified to be more accessible. Inventing an alphabetization system because there wasn’t one?! And just in general expanding your worldview and technologies beyond a 26 character alphabet.
Even with no background in Chinese, this was very approachable and fascinating.
There’s a chapter on inventing and adapting the typewriter. Another on the telegraph. Monks and librarians. Printing presses. Computers. People who spent their lives trying to increase literacy. Examples of how characters were simplified to be more accessible. Inventing an alphabetization system because there wasn’t one?! And just in general expanding your worldview and technologies beyond a 26 character alphabet.
Even with no background in Chinese, this was very approachable and fascinating.