> From: William T Goodall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> on 23/4/02 10:31 pm, The Fool at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > I'll see your newsbytes and raise you a C|net from yesterday: > > http://news.com.com/2100-1023-888246.html > > " > > But until more Chinese households have telephone lines and can see more > > online content they like, penetration rates could remain low, according > > to the research firm. > > " > > > > " > > Only 35.6 percent of homes in China have telephones, and few Internet > > sites have developed good Chinese content, he said. > > "Content in English or in Japanese is much more common. If you surf the > > Net (in Chinese), you see a lot of the same stuff over and over again," > > Yu said. "There's a feeling that there's nothing fresh out there." > > " > > > > I don't think there is enough information to decide how this will turn out. > We'll just have to wait three or four years and see. I have made a reminder > in my calendar... > > > Did ya see that bit where most of the content is english/japaneese? > > > > And it doesn't address the issue, of keyboards which was my primary > > point. When you have to Know a minumum of 3000 characters to be > > considered literate, the complexity of creating content with a keyboard > > is an exceptionally difficult process for the average person. With latin > > based languages, it is far less difficult for the average person to > > create content, like a letter. > > > > The localized versions of Mac OS, Windows etc provide the means to enter the > local language by keyboard. It seems more likely someone would learn how to > use that facility for their native language (difficult though that might be) > than learn a foreign language instead (which would be even harder). Their are 47 character keys on my keyboard. With shift I have access to 94 symbols. Now map that 47 into about 6000 characters. Not only would they have to memorize x thousand symbols, but x thousand keymappings. > And what about a Chinese version of something like IBM _Via Voice_? And I suppose their are just thousands of rich Chinese people able to buy that software (in the same way their are all these rich Chinese people able have telephone lines and computers and Internet access... The other Ideograph languages won't be replacing the Latin based languages, because their is only a small number of Japanese in the world, and only a small number of Koreans. The only Ideograph language (Chinese) that could have any major impact is bound by the fact that China is a poor communist dictatorship. 1 in 6 people speak Chinese (by the world population). 1 in 10 speak English. If communism in China falls in the next few years, then all bets are off.
