Why Chinese Needs To Be Written In Characters

Addressing an old controversy

Why Chinese Needs To Be Written In Characters

We saw two lines in yesterday’s post that are extremely confusing to anybody who doesn’t already read Chinese.

The first was this:

凡鳥偏從末世來

Disguised as a common bird, a phoenix emerges in this decadent age

And the second was this:

一從二令三人木

First she complies, then she commands, and then she’s cast aside

In both cases, we’re dealing with a type of poetic character description. It’s formally called 拆字 (chāizì) in Chinese, and is translated as “to disassemble Chinese characters.” Since English and other Latin-based languages don’t have this concept, there is no good word other than “chaizi.”

Let’s take a look at how this works.