@axsvl77 - Honestly, there's a lot I'd like to add. There could be a good 5-paragraph digression about how this whole scheme has historically affected their outlook on the world, and continues to do so. But that's material for a question specifically on that topic, and this answer is already getting on the longish side for my tastes.

@T.E.D. Sorry to come off rude, but this doesn't answer the question. Despite how interesting is your analysis, I wasn't asking for an analysis of why China never adopted a phonetic system (and honestly, wouldn't that be too broad and get close votes?). I want to know if anyone from Chinese history considered it, wrote down his thoughts about it, so I can see what that native person from that time period said. I would really like to know his actual thoughts on it, his own reasons for considering and rejecting it.

@congusbongus English spelling, i would say, is phonetic half of the time and non-phonetic the other half. I totally agree with your point tho. I doubt that Russia has any spelling bees...

@DrZ214 - Hence Nushu, which was not only shows a phonetic system in practice, but also (for bonus points) shows what happens when someone tries to use one. I know there's historically not been any scholarship on it, but the fact that this is all there is I believe is in itself an answer to your question. If you don't think that counts, then clearly your answer is a "no". I could add that, if you like?

@T.E.D. I would say, no it doesn't count. It does not appear to be a centralized effort or experiment by the rulers. And it certainly doesn't appear to be an attempt to phoneticize the "main" languages of China (Mandarin, Cantonese, a few others). I also strongly disagree with your statement that Nushu is proly the best example we could ask for, because we don't even know Nushu's origin or other history. You can add "no" if you want, but keep in mind it's not easy to prove a negative. I know my question is actually asking a lot, in research terms. My time period is ancient times to 1912 :-(

@DrZ214 - Well, "its not easy to prove a negative" is kind of the fault of the person who posed a question for which the answer is quite likely to be the unprovable negative, isn't it? : ;-) I've added a statement at the top to clarify how this addresses what you asked specifically.

@T.E.D. Can I help it? I really want to know what a native Chinese person thought about it, in his own words, from his own time. I think that would be far more insightful/telling than anyone's analysis today. I would've thought it almost certain that someone in China would have commented on Japanese Kana or Korean Hangul when they came out. What about the Phags-pa script that the Mongols tried to give to everyone? Surely some Chinese scholar wrote commentary about it.

@Semaphore - I could be wrong, but I believe the task of mastering Hanzi, while not easy at all, pales in comparison to the task of mastering a foreign spoken language. Of course some people need to do that too, but they'd likely be dwarfed by the amount of people who just need to read and write.

"Surely some Chinese scholar wrote commentary about it." - Its assumptions like that which put us into these pickles. pre-modern China historically has not been known for its enthusiasm for ideas that weren't invented there.

@T.E.D. I only said "commentary". I didn't say positive commentary, nor enthusiastic commentary. A very negative commentary would still be useful and insightful.

@DrZ214 You have to give an idea a certain amount of credit to even bother addressing it. If your attitude is "I live in the center of world culture. Nothing thought up by barbarians is even worth talking about", then that wouldn't tend to lend itself to a lot of detailed thought and study.

But the real point of the answer is we have proof they felt this way about other writing systems, because they had one such example in their own territory operating for hundreds of years, and didn't bother taking a hard look at it (at least not in any writing that's preserved to this day).

@T.E.D. The problem with this line of reasoning is Sanskrit - Chinese scholars studied, translated, and imported many words from that language. In fact, they devised a pronunciation notation system inspired by Sanskrit.

That makes sense. I suppose..they would have been exposed to it. Although Sanskrit was probably a dead language by then, right?

I'm not well versed in Sanskrit history, but AFAIK it was mainly read in China in the form of Buddhist texts. Journey to the West was based on a 7th century Chinese priest who went to India to retrieve Sanskrit scriptures for translation, for instance.

It just seems to me there's a big contextual leap between, "This is the encoding scheme one of the many barbarian languages uses. Let's learn it so we can understand some of their stuff." and "Let's study how barbarian language encodings themselves work compared to ours to no productive purpose, except of course in the unlikely event ours is not superior in every way."

I think you're ascribing a level of superiority complex that's probably unwarranted, given that, as I said, they developed a notation system for Chinese pronunciations out of it.

You could be right. However, its consistent with their attitude towards other outside inventions, and with the history in this specific case.

Its not like the Chinese are somehow different humans by being this way either. Ever had internet trouble, called your ISP, and tried to convince them you aren't in fact clueless and have already troubleshooted your end of the connection?

Well, in the case of Nushu, I would probably characterise its absence in Chinese records to its usage as a subversive tool by women, living under a patriarchal society.

Anyone who answers the phone just assumes you are a moron about tech matters, and talks to you accordingly. And that's probably correct in 99% of the cases, so its arguable it saves them tons of time and effort to be that way.

@Semaphore I'm not sure I caught "subversive" when researching it, but in that society likely the mere act of uneducated people finding their own way to write outside the system would have looked that way.

The fact that only one man has learned the script is a clue :P

Still it seems logical they felt much the same way about barbarian systems: their writing systems may work for them, but they only use them because they aren't enlightened enough to use the proper Hanzi Writing.

@Semaphore I'm not sure any women who had access to enough education to learn Hanzi ever learned Nushu either. That seemed to be the implication I was picking up. So even women found Nushu inferior, they just weren't allowed the education to learn the better stuff.

That's not my understanding. As I understand it, it's used as a way to hide messages from men in plain sight. Of course, probably few families in the region were progressive enough to deem it necessary for their daughters to be educated at all in the first place, but it generally appears to be a way for women to communicate in secret.

I'm curious what your research indicates to be the origin of Nushu?

@Semaphore Ah, that's info I didn't quite get. Although I did pick up that it was suppressed during the Japanese occupation specifically for its ability to be used for subversive activities.

@Semaphore That's the infuriating thing. It doesn't look like anyone recorded anything about that, so its probably a total unknown. All they know is when the first exemplar showed up, and that some of the borrowed glyphs show it probably didn't exist before the 9th century.

So they have an age range, and that's it. There may be some research out there analyzing it, but it looks like even that didn't happen before freaking 1984. In other words, I'm older than this entire field of study is.

Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher" is older than this entire field of study.

That Japanese bit sounds dubious considering even the Chinese only became aware of it in 1982...

I've seen some interesting theories before claiming it descends from the standard texts of the Shang dynasty or even earlier, although I would guess being an adaptation of Yao tribal language is more likely.

@Semaphore Legit qualm. I'm not even sure the Japanese ever conquered the particular province it was used in.

The province is on the frontlines for most of the war, so I guess it's technically possible, but yeah, pretty dubious.

@Semaphore Haven't studied the Chinese end of that war much (...checks quick map...) ok, they did take a good amount of South China. That's a crazy large area of front to be trying to defend. Gonna have to go read more about this sometime.

I guess it makes sense though. I did know about the US supply flights over the Himalayas ("Over the Hump"), and had heard it was because the Nationalist armies were cut off. Just never thought of the full geographic ramifications of that before.

@T.E.D. Yeah, they did a push in the last year singular of the war to link up with Indochina.

Pretty much a futile struggle by that point due to the merchant marine being crippled.

So this map showing the last year of the war is likely to also be a high-water-mark in the south in most places too then.

I remember seeing a pre-Ichi-Go version of that map, but Google isn't giving me any hits. Basically that whole bulge that links up with Indochina was new.

Ah! I missed this party! Darn! @T.E.D., I think the Chinese-cultural-superiority thing wasn't really present during the first half of the Tang. It was a regime founded by barbarians, and the whole culture embraced all things foreign. There was a massive importation of foreign talent, and a lot of international trade. It is no coincidence that the Buddhist texts from South Asia were translated at this time.

It is notable that they developed their own pronunciation system instead of adopting Sanscript script wholesale.

@Semaphore Do you have a link about the pronunciation system developed during this time? I'd like to read about that.

@axsvl77 I suppose that would make sense for at least the first generations of a lot of the foreign dynasties (which are rather a lot of them). Still, I was kind of under the impression that even most of China's immediate neighbors bought into the idea of Chinese cultural supremacy.