Weak spoilers: forgetting a writing system

deceze · 05-01-2012, 08:02 PM

I find it weird that the people onboard the Mugunghwa would forget the comparatively simple Korean writing system, yet remember the much more complex Chinese one. Even if, or maybe especially if, we assume the problem was a complete computer wipe and they had to reconstruct records from nothing, I'd find it more plausible that people remembered the Korean phonetic hangul alphabet than being able to reconstruct thousands of Chinese hanja. And even those they seemed to have messed up, seeing as the inscription on "the egg" was apparently misinterpreted.

Was the writing system just yet another victim of cultural revolution, restoration of "old values"? Opinions?

Mr_Eon · 05-01-2012, 08:14 PM

Here's a possibility. Chinese is often the language of scholars in the East - if their society retreated into feudalism then it's possible that only the scholars and nobles would retain the ability to write.

Korean would pass out of favour, then out of fashion and over a long enough timeline might disappear.

Alfaerin · 05-01-2012, 08:21 PM

It would hardly be practical, but all it would take is one influential person, or a small group of influential people, deciding that everything should be written using Chinese characters. Maybe it was a move to feel elitist, or maybe it was a move to keep women and peasants from being able to read. Either way, once they started writing everything important in hanja, the value of being able to read and write Korean characters would gradually diminish until it was eventually not even worth teaching. That's how languages and writing systems die out. Look at cursive writing; in this age of digital communications, a lot of people only use cursive to sign their names. Some schools don't even teach it anymore, and plenty of younger people grow up without being able to read or write in cursive characters. And why not? Just about everything is printed nowadays.

deceze · 05-01-2012, 08:28 PM

That's certainly a possibility, but hanja use is fading rapidly even today. You'd think in a few hundred years, their use would be mostly nonexistent, so only the most scholarly of scholarly scholars would still even bother to learn them to read old scripture. And since they have even forgotten how to handle their own ship, you'd think keeping an ancient writing system alive would be the least of their concerns. On the contrary, I'd expect most of the ship's controls to be labeled in hangul. Hmm, putting it that way, their reverted "scholarly" culture was the cause for them to become unable to control their ship, perhaps?

EvilDarkrai · 05-01-2012, 08:45 PM

Then again, it's never confirmed that the writing system they adopted was in fact Chinese. *Hyun-ae only said that it resembled Chinese. I think it more likely that they ended up being forced to invent their written language anew, and what they ended up with was similar to Chinese.

deceze · 05-01-2012, 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EvilDarkrai

I think it more likely that they ended up being forced to invent their written language anew...

Which is exactly where I think that it'd be more plausible they'd reinvent hangul than hanja. Assuming everybody on board could read and write hangul at some point (as corroborated by the fact that Hyun-ae was taught hangul but not (yet?) hanja), it would seem more plausible that somebody on board survived whatever happened and for that person to be able to reconstruct a handful of phonetic symbols rather than a vast catalog of logograms, which have no apparent connection to the spoken word.

I don't know if you have any knowledge about either writing system, but hanzi/hanja/kanji are tough! Even a person using them all their life still has occasional lapses, requiring the help of a dictionary. This is made even worse by the use of assisted writing using a computer. Since all communication seems to be electronic in Hyun-ae's world, I doubt people found hanja more memorable than hangul.

Maybe the central hangul font file became corrupted, but the hanja file was salvaged? ;-P

Alfaerin · 05-01-2012, 09:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deceze

That's certainly a possibility, but hanja use is fading rapidly even today. You'd think in a few hundred years, their use would be mostly nonexistent, so only the most scholarly of scholarly scholars would still even bother to learn them to read old scripture.

I'd bet that's why Hyun-ae couldn't read their writing; she had probably only learned hangul. Today and when Hyunae was born, a LOT more people are/would be writing things worth reading, and they have/would have little reason to write with anything but the simplest writing system. But in Analogue after Hyun-ae went into cryostasis, society underwent a reversion to patriarchal values, and that gives people a VERY plausible ulterior motive for letting hangul die out: reinforcing their superiority over women and peasants. All throughout time, there are countless examples of elitists scheming to keep knowledge out of the hands of those deemed "beneath" them, and they did this by making literacy HARDER to attain, not easier. Cases in point: the history of the English Bible, and why it was illegal to teach slaves to read. It makes perfect sense in Analogue that a noble or group of nobles would insist on using a more difficult writing system over the simpler hangul.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deceze

On the contrary, I'd expect most of the ship's controls to be labeled in hangul. Hmm, putting it that way, their reverted "scholarly" culture was the cause for them to become unable to control their ship, perhaps?

Very nice insight; I think you probably nailed it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EvilDarkrai

Then again, it's never confirmed that the writing system they adopted was in fact Chinese. *Hyun-ae only said that it resembled Chinese. I think it more likely that they ended up being forced to invent their written language anew, and what they ended up with was similar to Chinese.

Hyun-ae refers to it as "Chinese-based characters." But I think you're probably right that some evolution occurred there, given the whole Pale Bride/sick daughter mix-up.

Zukhramm · 05-01-2012, 09:12 PM

Languages do not necessarily move toward simplicity all the time. I seem to remember reading, but do not quote me on this, that languages with few adult learners, such as in the isolation on the Mugunghwa tend to stay more complex.

deceze · 05-01-2012, 09:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alfaerin

...and that gives people a VERY plausible ulterior motive for letting hangul die out: reinforcing their superiority over women and peasants.

That makes perfect sense of course. It didn't affect the noble women much apparently, but since there's no word of or about the common populace, it's not unreasonable and may in fact confirm your theory.

So they ultimately doomed themselves by letting hangul die out on purpose. Idiots.

Alfaerin · 05-01-2012, 09:52 PM

Well, Mute does say one thing in passing about Hana, the common girl So-jin had an affair with... Commenting on her poetry, she says something like, "They taught her letters just so she could write THAT?" So from the sound of it, teaching a commoner to read and write was somewhat extraordinary.

A sense of elitism is really the only plausible in-universe explanation I can come up with... Otherwise, I'm going with "Because then Hyun-ae would've just written things down after you-know-what happened."

deceze · 05-01-2012, 10:07 PM

As an afterthought and to complicate this even further:

The main computer's language appears to be English. The game obviously is in English, so is the terminal, Hyun-ae comments on the fact that your interface is set to English (so it's not an in-game oh-yeah-BTW-you-can-understand-Korean thing) and both *Mute and *Hyun-ae make references to you reading translations of the original documents. That of course fits in with people having forgotten how to operate the ship; they'd have probably deprecated English and the latin alphabet together with hangul.

Now, why can both *Hyun-ae and *Mute communicate with the player in English...?

Alfaerin · 05-01-2012, 10:31 PM

Wow, good point XD I guess the only way to explain is assuming information on English was still on the ship's computers even if no one spoke or used it. At a minimum, there had to have been information on hangul that no one else used, or else Mute could never have read Hyun-ae's diaries for herself, as she does at multiple points.

deceze · 05-01-2012, 10:36 PM

Then *Mute should have been able to help people out in regaining control of the ship too, as she apparently speaks/reads/writes all three languages. Maybe, uhm, the elite class purposefully let that knowledge slip, too, so they'd have their little floating kingdom in the stars forever...?! Sorry, grasping for straws here. X-D

Alfaerin · 05-01-2012, 10:46 PM

Yeah, I'm running out of explanations too. XD;

EvilDarkrai · 05-01-2012, 11:40 PM

I had the impression that the whole English thing was a translation done on *Hyun-ae's part for our sake because she deduced that such was our primary language. It's possible that records for English translation existed in the ship's archival memory in case of contact with foreign nationalities at a later point. If the translation process is automatic, then it's doubtful that society would even know that the language existed in their computer banks.

*Hyun-ae probably unlocked a lot of ship functions that the actual humans had forgotten how to use because she knew more about the computer than they did, and once she was interfaced directly with it that process would become all the simpler. Perhaps automatic language translation is one of them.

05-01-2012, 08:02 PM	#1
deceze Join Date: Jun 2010 Reputation: 0 Posts: 50	Weak spoilers: forgetting a writing system I find it weird that the people onboard the Mugunghwa would forget the comparatively simple Korean writing system, yet remember the much more complex Chinese one. Even if, or maybe especially if, we assume the problem was a complete computer wipe and they had to reconstruct records from nothing, I'd find it more plausible that people remembered the Korean phonetic hangul alphabet than being able to reconstruct thousands of Chinese hanja. And even those they seemed to have messed up, seeing as the inscription on "the egg" was apparently misinterpreted. Was the writing system just yet another victim of cultural revolution, restoration of "old values"? Opinions?

05-01-2012, 08:21 PM	#3
Alfaerin Join Date: Apr 2012 Reputation: 0 Posts: 18	It would hardly be practical, but all it would take is one influential person, or a small group of influential people, deciding that everything should be written using Chinese characters. Maybe it was a move to feel elitist, or maybe it was a move to keep women and peasants from being able to read. Either way, once they started writing everything important in hanja, the value of being able to read and write Korean characters would gradually diminish until it was eventually not even worth teaching. That's how languages and writing systems die out. Look at cursive writing; in this age of digital communications, a lot of people only use cursive to sign their names. Some schools don't even teach it anymore, and plenty of younger people grow up without being able to read or write in cursive characters. And why not? Just about everything is printed nowadays. Last edited by Alfaerin: 05-01-2012 at 08:28 PM. Reason: Adding more to make and clarify my point

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

05-01-2012, 08:14 PM	#2
Mr_Eon Join Date: Apr 2009 Reputation: 166 Posts: 1,032	Here's a possibility. Chinese is often the language of scholars in the East - if their society retreated into feudalism then it's possible that only the scholars and nobles would retain the ability to write. Korean would pass out of favour, then out of fashion and over a long enough timeline might disappear.

05-01-2012, 08:28 PM	#4
deceze Join Date: Jun 2010 Reputation: 0 Posts: 50	That's certainly a possibility, but hanja use is fading rapidly even today. You'd think in a few hundred years, their use would be mostly nonexistent, so only the most scholarly of scholarly scholars would still even bother to learn them to read old scripture. And since they have even forgotten how to handle their own ship, you'd think keeping an ancient writing system alive would be the least of their concerns. On the contrary, I'd expect most of the ship's controls to be labeled in hangul. Hmm, putting it that way, their reverted "scholarly" culture was the cause for them to become unable to control their ship, perhaps?

05-01-2012, 08:45 PM	#5
EvilDarkrai Join Date: Oct 2011 Reputation: 2 Posts: 28	Then again, it's never confirmed that the writing system they adopted was in fact Chinese. *Hyun-ae only said that it resembled Chinese. I think it more likely that they ended up being forced to invent their written language anew, and what they ended up with was similar to Chinese.

05-01-2012, 09:12 PM	#8
Zukhramm Join Date: Nov 2009 Reputation: 14 Posts: 38	Languages do not necessarily move toward simplicity all the time. I seem to remember reading, but do not quote me on this, that languages with few adult learners, such as in the isolation on the Mugunghwa tend to stay more complex.

05-01-2012, 09:52 PM	#10
Alfaerin Join Date: Apr 2012 Reputation: 0 Posts: 18	Well, Mute does say one thing in passing about Hana, the common girl So-jin had an affair with... Commenting on her poetry, she says something like, "They taught her letters just so she could write THAT?" So from the sound of it, teaching a commoner to read and write was somewhat extraordinary. A sense of elitism is really the only plausible in-universe explanation I can come up with... Otherwise, I'm going with "Because then Hyun-ae would've just written things down after you-know-what happened."

05-01-2012, 10:07 PM	#11
deceze Join Date: Jun 2010 Reputation: 0 Posts: 50	As an afterthought and to complicate this even further: The main computer's language appears to be English. The game obviously is in English, so is the terminal, Hyun-ae comments on the fact that your interface is set to English (so it's not an in-game oh-yeah-BTW-you-can-understand-Korean thing) and both Mute and Hyun-ae make references to you reading translations of the original documents. That of course fits in with people having forgotten how to operate the ship; they'd have probably deprecated English and the latin alphabet together with hangul. Now, why can both Hyun-ae and Mute communicate with the player in English...?

05-01-2012, 10:31 PM	#12
Alfaerin Join Date: Apr 2012 Reputation: 0 Posts: 18	Wow, good point XD I guess the only way to explain is assuming information on English was still on the ship's computers even if no one spoke or used it. At a minimum, there had to have been information on hangul that no one else used, or else Mute could never have read Hyun-ae's diaries for herself, as she does at multiple points.

05-01-2012, 10:36 PM	#13
deceze Join Date: Jun 2010 Reputation: 0 Posts: 50	Then *Mute should have been able to help people out in regaining control of the ship too, as she apparently speaks/reads/writes all three languages. Maybe, uhm, the elite class purposefully let that knowledge slip, too, so they'd have their little floating kingdom in the stars forever...?! Sorry, grasping for straws here. X-D

05-01-2012, 10:46 PM	#14
Alfaerin Join Date: Apr 2012 Reputation: 0 Posts: 18	Yeah, I'm running out of explanations too. XD;

05-01-2012, 11:40 PM	#15
EvilDarkrai Join Date: Oct 2011 Reputation: 2 Posts: 28	I had the impression that the whole English thing was a translation done on Hyun-ae's part for our sake because she deduced that such was our primary language. It's possible that records for English translation existed in the ship's archival memory in case of contact with foreign nationalities at a later point. If the translation process is automatic, then it's doubtful that society would even know that the language existed in their computer banks. Hyun-ae probably unlocked a lot of ship functions that the actual humans had forgotten how to use because she knew more about the computer than they did, and once she was interfaced directly with it that process would become all the simpler. Perhaps automatic language translation is one of them.