1840 Indian Rebirth

Chapter 29 [Chinese Pinyin Scheme]

"My own words..." Rainy Tian sighed, "I have also considered it, but I feel that I can't start. Not everyone is Sequoyah."

Sequoyah was a Cherokee, the creator of the Cherokee script, and he also visited various tribes to try to create a script that could be used by all tribes, but this was obviously impossible.

In the end, the pioneer of the Indian writing industry died of illness while traveling around, and he died regretfully.

The horse whistle was silent for a while, as if he was still hesitating, but finally made up his mind and said, "I have some ideas."

Hearing this on a rainy day, he couldn't help being taken aback.

However, he seemed to trust the horse whistle very much, so he didn't question it, but asked directly with some expectation: "What idea?"

Ma Shao got up and fetched some blank paper and a quill, and then began to write on the paper.

He first wrote down 26 English letters, and then wrote down some combinations of them, such as "zh", "ch", "eng", "an"...

That's right, it is the "Chinese Pinyin Scheme" used by the new China in later generations.

If the Indians want to develop, writing is indispensable.But Ma Shuo is not a linguist, and he doesn't even have any language knowledge at all. Even English is poor, and it is impossible to create characters independently.

There is only one way of thinking for him to create characters, which is to start from his mother tongue, to be precise, his mother tongue in his previous life, Chinese.

Chinese is a mature language, but also a relatively difficult language to learn.

Therefore, although Ma Shao thought about introducing Chinese to the Apache people more than once, when he thought about it rationally, he realized that it was not feasible at all.

It must be more difficult for Indians to learn Chinese than it is for Chinese to learn English, and when it comes to learning foreign languages, Ma Whistle itself is an example of failure.

If Chinese is really fully introduced and implemented for ten years, the literacy rate of Indians may not even reach the level of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods.

How many decades do the Indians have?

Ma Shuo felt that there were only two. If the Indians could not gain a foothold in North America by the end of the Civil War and had not established a solid base enough to protect themselves, then their future fate would probably be the same as the history of their previous lives.

Apart from this, there was another reason which prevented him from introducing Chinese.

In this era, Chinese workers have not yet arrived, and there are very few Chinese in America. How can a 13-year-old Apache boy who has almost no contact with the outside world explain his outrageously fluent Chinese?
Is it possible to declare that "Last night, Daling entrusted a dream and taught me a beautiful language"?
What nonsense!

If it was reborn to the nineteenth century BC, Ma Shao might be willing to do this.But it was the nineteenth century AD, in 1844, and Maxwell was on the verge of publishing his first paper.

This may have worked miraculously among the Indians at first, but then, the Indians marveled at the miracles and became religious from then on?

Horse Whistle doesn't want that.

So in the end, he could only choose the "Chinese Pinyin Scheme", combined with Apache language, to create a pinyin text.The result of the fusion of the two may not be perfect, but this is the only way he can achieve character creation.

"Chinese Pinyin Scheme" seems simple, but in fact it is the result of discussions by tens of thousands of linguists in later generations combined with practice. It is easy to learn, practical, concise and accurate, suitable for Chinese and close to English.

Although it is not perfect, it is absolutely balanced, and it can be called a regular hexagon player with strong vitality.Through it, it is enough to spell out all the Apache vocabulary.

And the horse whistle does not need to explain anything, after all, this plan was made in 1958, and it is still more than 100 years away.

In this year, not to mention the "Chinese Pinyin Scheme", even the Wade Pinyin has not yet appeared, so he can just say that he invented it himself.

As for the future, if the Chinese on the other side of the ocean find that this set of Apache pinyin is inexplicably matched with Chinese, it is not difficult to explain-fate!

Just to promote the friendship between the two sides.

Even going one step further, the two sides took this opportunity to directly recognize each other, saying that they were brothers who were separated 1 years ago... Anyway, Ma Shao is absolutely happy to do this.

"My idea is this." Ma Whistle said while writing, "The pronunciation of these letters and combinations is similar to that of English, such as a, b, c... an, han, en... Then you can use them to spell Apache vocabulary of the language."

"The number 'one' can be represented by 'datelaa', the number 'two' can be represented by 'nakeyi' or shortened to 'naki', the number 'three' can be represented by 'tagi'...and this 'giao'..."

"For the change of tone, we can add four symbols, corresponding to the four basic tones."

Rainy Day can speak multi-ethnic languages ​​at a young age, and his language talent is naturally extraordinary, so he understands the plan proposed by Ma Shao, and can draw inferences from one instance, and write a lot of Apache vocabulary according to the rules of pinyin.

"Ashilai, gousidan, gonsiei, naniyagei..." One Apache word after another was created, and he became more and more excited as he wrote it, and he couldn't even hold his pen steady.

There is no doubt that this is an absolutely feasible plan, and even in his opinion, this is simply a miracle!
In the past, I also wanted to create Apache characters in rainy days, but I had no idea, and it felt like it was impossible.

But when Ma Shao proposed this set of rules, everything seemed to be a matter of course, and the birth of various words was so natural and flowing.

He believes that within a few days, the Apache language can be written.

"Ma Shao, you created the Apache script!" Rainy day hugged Ma Shao's arm, spittle splashed everywhere excitedly.

"Calm down." Ma Whistle wiped his face in embarrassment.

He was still excited on a rainy day and couldn't calm down. He said firmly, "You must have been sent by the Great Spirit to save us, absolutely! I guarantee with my life that this must be the will of the Great Spirit!"

"..." Ma Shao was sweating for a while.

He has always felt that the high priest's religious beliefs in rainy days are not strong, and he often shows some signs of materialism. Now he probably won't become a fanatic shaman because of this incident.

He brought the topic back to the text: "Ahem, we need to complete the establishment of all words as soon as possible, and set standard usage and update rules."

"Standard usage and update rules?" Rainy Day was a little puzzled.

Ma Shao explained: "Standard usage is the method of using words that everyone should follow as much as possible. Only a unified language can communicate, and the more unified the easier it is to communicate."

It's not difficult to understand, Rainy Day suddenly nodded, but then asked: "What do you mean by updating the rules?"

"The update rules are the rules that change the standard usage. The language is not static, but it cannot be changed at will. We must set up a set of rules specifically to deal with language changes. Only in this way can the Apache language have vitality." Ma Whistle said slowly .

As a person from the Internet age, the evolution process of language change, innovation, and elimination is common sense in life for him.

　New books for collection and recommendation.

　　


(End of this chapter)