Talk:The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy/Archive 1

Archive 1

Permission to use text

I have the copyright on the text in [1], and have given permission for its use on Wikipedia. --Alvestrand 07:25, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Rebuttal

Since this is a page about this book, and probably acurately, would it be appropriate to add a rebuttal to this article. For example there was a SCMP article about a study that used neuroimaging to monitor brain patterns of subjects reading. In western subjects reading was associated with increased activity in the part of the brain associated with hearing, they literally heard the word as they read it however in Chinese subjects reading Chinese brain activity increased in the part of the brain associated with sight and action not hearing. This suggests that Chinese characters do not merely function as a "lousy phonetic script". KTo288 03:40, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the discussions of the merits of the theory would fit very well on Written Chinese. If there's a specific report that styles itself as a direct rebuttal of deFrancis' theory, I think it would fit well here, but it would have to reference this book explicitly. --Alvestrand (talk) 11:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

several of the myths are made up

i havent heard of half the myths in here, what kind of problem did this guy have? he just wanted to fill in space for his book.ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 19:42, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

the article's on the book, so let's just report faithfully what the book talks about. If you want to include attacks on the book in the article, you have to find reliable sources for the statements you quote. --Alvestrand (talk) 22:14, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

want more examples?

if you say my example wasnt enough, i can pull up thousands of more examples of the confusion that would arise due to the massive amount of homophones per sound in mandarin if the script were to change........

and i have sources now dont remove the section

I'm limiting myself to only commenting on the fact that you, as an indefinitely blocked user, are making edits. When you've been unblocked, we can discuss the merits (and I'm happy to discuss the merits with anyone else). --Alvestrand (talk) 07:40, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

it appears antonielly cannot respond to my response

he claims i have a hidden agenda, but cannot even bother to respond to my response on why homophones in english is less important than in mandarin. considering the fact that there is no single "chinese language" his assertion that im promoting the chinese language is totally flase. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.107.79.137 (talk) 20:34, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Notability of book

This book has 489 hits on Google Books. Some of those are reviews, but all the reviews I was able to get at were snippeted, so I can't quote them. Some more research is needed to establish its notability beyond all reasonable doubt. --Alvestrand (talk) 04:55, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

My impression is that this is one of those books that all the major Western proponents of the [greater extent of] "romanization" of Chinese (from Victor H. Mair to William C. Hannas to whoever runs http://www.pinyin.info/ ) love to cite - as it may be the best-known book in English giving the background for the romanization proposals and discussing the debate over them, in China and elsewhere (obviously, from the pro-Romanization position). Its popularity among the pro-romanization camp has probably been helped by DeFrancis being the de facto "dean" of the Western pro-Romanization camp. Actually, I am surprised that the Wikipedia articles on Written Chinese and Romanization of Chinese give little, if any, attention to the Romanization debate, either in China or in the West. It could be quite an interesting debate, assuming that the contributors will refrain from "shouting" and edit wars, but will stick to describing the published arguments of the "romanizers" and their opponents. Vmenkov (talk) 06:14, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Does Ramsey (1987) cite this? It doesn't look familiar...and while there are plenty of problems with that book, it still is pretty broad in coverage.

Anyway, if the book is notable, that still needs to be demonstrated in the article (rather than the talk page), and so far that has not been done. Nothing in the article says anything about this book's influence on the Romanization debate. As for influence on perception of the Chinese language (as bisyllabic rather than monosyllabic, etc.), this book was not groundbreaking—Chao was saying those things as early as 1968 (A Grammar of Spoken Chinese) and Li & Thompson as early as 1981 (Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar). —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 15:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not good at navigating scholarly references. I found some mention such as this one, which talks about this book ".... and many other important works", implying that this book is important - but only by implication. Actually, the "festschrift" referred to in that article contains references to the book in several places - is the text at page 257 of [2] the kind of "testimony to the book's influence" you're looking for?

(Quote: "One of Professor DeFrancis' most significant contributions has been his effort to make more people aware of the true nature of the Chinese writing system, viz, that it is phonetically based and not some arcane, magical set of symbols conveying meaning without reference to language (however that might be possible!). In recent years, his two books, The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy and Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems, have served to clarify Chinese writing in lively prose easily accessible to the layman.") --Alvestrand (talk) 17:37, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

The homophone argument

The homophone argument was added to the article once again, this time by a new user, and in a less strident form. However, I couldn't see that the reference given was relating its comment to DeFrancis' book, so I reverted it again.

I don't understand the homophone argument, however - if so many words sound the same, how are Chinese people able to understand each other when they speak? One could presume that they do the same thing as people do when encountering homophones in English - they differentiate from context, or rely on verbal clues more subtle than what's captured in a simple pronounciation guide. But I don't speak enough Chinese to speak to that at all. --Alvestrand (talk) 00:05, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Thats why chinese people don't have a strong speaking tradition- you don't see chinese leaders scream out loud like hitler does, they write long speeches and distribute them.Herius (talk) 18:47, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

the homophone problem could be solved in a purely phonetic script by alternate spelling- for example: fang->phang , but i don't see that happening with that many homophones.Herius (talk) 19:11, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

and chinese characters can actually be used by speakers of different languages to communicate- in written form only though, when written in a special way, if read aloud, it would be totally incomprehensible. see classical chinese.Herius (talk) 19:11, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

But when two illiterate Puthonga speakers talk to each other, what do they say when they have to use two words that are homophones? --Alvestrand (talk) 21:50, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I fully agree with Alvestrand. The argument that the huge homophony degree inherently requires that specific writing system is nonsense, especially if we consider that journalists and reporters speak Mandarin on TV and homophones mostly do not pose a problem for viewers to disambiguate their talk (which is not accompanied by written subtitles).

Interestingly, this article argues that the huge homophony degree found in Mandarin vocabulary has appeared due to the idiosyncrasies of the Chinese writing system. This would mean that the Chinese writing system has been causing the homophony increase over time, and not that the homophony requires the Chinese writing system for disambiguation. Very thought-provoking. --Antonielly (talk) 03:00, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not just an article - it's an extract from a book by one of the most vociferous anti-Hanzi polemicists, William C. Hannas. He's been making this point in his earlier book (Asia's Orthographic Dillema) as well: the ease with which educated Chinese writers (or Kanji/Hanzha-savvy Japanese or Korean writers) can create new (mostly two-character) words from existing components, or to use old constructions, without regards to pronunciation results in the style of (scholarly and formal) writing that would be difficult to understand if read aloud. From Hannas point of view this of course makes Chinese characters "bad" (because, after all, it's always been the purpose of his books), meanwhile a proponent of Hanzi could just as well say that this is a great help for compact and elegant writing (e.g. enabling people to get information faster from reading printed text that from listening to speech, or to communicate easier across dialect barriers). Vmenkov (talk) 04:09, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

As to the normal conversation, of course you hear sometimes people asking the other party, "with what character to you spell this name?" (e.g. an apartment complex names Jinshan Huayuan - is that 花园 or 花怨?), but that's probably roughly on the same level as one would ask in English, "is that S-e-a-n or S-h-a-w-n?", or "no, it's 'guerilla war' and not 'gorilla war'". Obviously the natural spoken language adjusts to reduce the level of homophony in the constructions actually used in speech, just like you hear "PIN number" or "ink pen" or "hairpin" or "safety pin" in English. Vmenkov (talk) 04:09, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

its too late now to reverse the amount of homophones, and i beleive homophones are actually mostly common in standard mandarin. i beleive a majority of Southern chinese dialects have majority polysyllabic words and less homophones because they are closer to old chinese. It was a poor language choice to choose mandarin, and illeterate mandarin speakers generally have limited vocabulary anyway because they are mostly peasants working the fields.Herius (talk) 17:31, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

i seriously doubt any of these professors studied literary Classical chinese (wenyanwen) seriously. They seem to all be talking about Vernacular Chinese, which would be incomprehensible if written with different languages. Classical was an effective method of communication among east asian countries before, because you only have to know the script, and you can send a person who totally doesn't speak your language a letter. The reason it was abandoned by the republic of china government was because it was harder to learn and, as i said, reading it out loud when making a speech would be disastorous because no one would understand.Herius (talk) 17:37, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

note that im refering to literary chinese (文言文), not the ancient vernacular writing also mentioned in the article.Herius (talk) 17:40, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

i beleive it is still required to learn literary chinese for University Entrance examinations in both chinese republics.Herius (talk) 17:44, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Classical Chinese was used in international communication between the Mongol Empire and Empire of Japan. This letter, dated 1266, was sent from Khubilai Khan to the King of Japan before Mongol invasions of Japan, was written in Classical Chinese. Now stored in Todai-ji, Nara, Japan.

"The Universality Myth: Chinese characters enable speakers of mutually unintelligible languages to read each other's writing. (Also, to the extent this is possible, this is due to a special property that only Chinese characters have.) Furthermore, Chinese from thousands of years ago is immediately readable by any literate Chinese today."

I beleive the only reason chinese from thousands of years ago is not immedietly readable to any litetrate chinese today, is because it looks different, like different fonts look different, like italics and regular block writing, not because of any other differences. Of course a few characters have changed meaning, and new characters have been invented, but new characters shouldn't make much of a difference because your only reading the old ones anyway, but i beleive there is generally a one to one correspondence between the ancient characters and current day Hanzi.Herius (talk) 17:49, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Richard Sears is very knowledgable in the study of chinese characters.

• Script translation- type in a modern character to see its ancient forms and its evolution
• Richard Sears on chinese script
• Richard Sears on chinese dialects and other languages that use chinese script —Preceding unsigned comment added by Herius (talk • contribs) 17:51, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Is this the Richard Sears whose LinkedIn page is at [3]? He seems to have done a great deal of work on Chinese for someone who lists no formal training in the subject among his credentials. --Alvestrand (talk) 04:06, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

whilst the vernacular writing between the different major chinese dialects and other languages that use Hanzi is incomprehensible, like mandarin and cantonese, due to different grammar, someone speaking both can both write literary chinese to each other and understand.Herius (talk) 18:02, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

this is relavant- Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den.Herius (talk) 22:52, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

even with chinese characters, some homophones are still a problem. take for example 孫子 (sun tzu), it either refers to Sun Tzu, the writer of the art of war, and means "Master Sun", or it could mean grandchild.Herius (talk) 22:58, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

You think Classical Chinese is only hard to read because the characters "look" different? I'm sorry, but that is patently false. First of all, Classical Chinese has an entirely different grammar than modern Chinese (look, for example, at the fact that most words in old Chinese are monosyllabic, whereas most words in modern Chinese are disyllabic or polysyllabic). Secondly, you can type a classical Chinese poem on the computer or whatever, and people will still have a hard time reading it, even experts. Where do you get these ideas? Politizer ^talk/_contribs 13:08, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

apparently your brain doesn't work properly. I did NOT say that literary chinese has same grammar as modern chinese, nor did is say literary chinese is written with ancient characters. i was talking about to seperate things, the fact that literary chinese can be used by speakers of different languages to communicate, and the reason why modern chinese cannto read the ancient characters. Herius (talk) 17:23, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

that is not what i said. i said the ancient writing looks different, NOT classical chinese. i am fully aware ;literary chinese uses traditional characters. and im talking about literary chinese, which every one in the republic of china learns in HIGH SCHOOL.Herius (talk) 17:20, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

The reason why homophone is not a such big problem now is because nowadays written Chiense is in Modern Chinese (vernacular), which is how people talked. Before the widespread usage of vernacular chinese for both written and spoken Chinese, it was only used when speaking. As a result, due to the homophones, vernacular Chinese tend to have less problems because it was structured around the homophone problem. Therefore, the homophone argument is less relevant against vernacular Chinese, but it's very relevant against Literary Chinese.

On the other hand, just because the problem would rarely happen, doesn't mean that we should just forget about it. If the problem of their/there would probably not affect listening comprehension, that doesn't mean we should just make them one word. In fact, I could find little reason to do it. As a result, why should the current written Chinese be romanized? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Big Wang (talk • contribs) 03:08, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Focus of article

I reverted a number of footnotes added by Herius.

While these were interesting in and of themselves, I believe this article needs to present exactly one subject fairly: DeFrancis' book. All discussion of Chinese characters, Chinese script et cetera belongs in articles about that subject, which should be linked as appropriate.

Thus, if someting is either claimed in the book, or is claimed in (referenced) articles talking about the book, they belong in this article. If not, I believe they do not.

Is this reasonable? --Alvestrand (talk) 08:57, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you're exactly right. Herius and a couple editors have for a long time now been trying to use this article as a battleground to make unsourced and uninformed statements about the Chinese language and how they think it works. Politizer ^talk/_contribs 13:00, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

apparently your brain doesn't work properly. I did NOT say that literary chinese has same grammar as modern chinese, nor did is say literary chinese is written with ancient characters. i was talking about to seperate things, the fact that literary chinese can be used by speakers of different languages to communicate, and the reason why modern chinese cannto read the ancient characters. Herius (talk) 17:23, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Calm, please, gentlemen.... I can't find anything in the article's history that indicates an edit by Herius earlier than December 27, and we should not blame him for the earlier depredations of our recent mostly-anonymous "contributor". But let's make sure that what gets added to the article is properly sourced, AND relevant to the article's subject. --Alvestrand (talk) 04:10, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Why exactly are rebuttals forbidden in this article? In many other articles about literary works, prominent criticism has been added. If someone were able to find a established criticism and rebuttal of this book, would that be allowed to be added to this article? Big Wang (talk) 02:55, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Of course it would be allowed. Criticism to specific points would not only be accepted, but also be very welcome, since it helps to demonstrate the notability of the topic. However, the inclusion of such information has to be properly sourced, and cannot be a novel synthesis of disparate material (which is an example of original research, which Wikipedia's policies disallow), and should avoid giving undue weight to minority views. If the inclusion of new information complies to all Wikipedia policies, everything is fine.

If you know of some reputable publications that contain rebuttal to specific points argued in that book, please share them with us in this talk page and let's discuss here the best way for that information to fit the article. This way the article will improve a lot. --Antonielly (talk) 04:03, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Comments and criticisms of others about De Francis' work

This Master's thesis contains various portions in which De Francis' work is cited and commented about. That thesis even presents some criticisms (particularly pp. 90-94 of the PDF file). I suggest the thesis as a good complementary reading for those who are interested in the discussion about advantages and drawbacks of the Chinese script. Maybe some portions of it could be summarized to improve this article.

By the way, a definitive rebuttal to the homophony argument can be found at the page 83 of that PDF file. --Antonielly (talk) 13:48, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks. I think Li, Charles N. Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) and Packard, Jerome. The Morphology of Chinese. also discuss de Francis' claims, and might be considered more "influential" commentaries than a masters' thesis; but this thesis should be a helpful source as well. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 14:50, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Debunking the Debunker

John DeFrancis clearly has a very poor understanding of the Chinese writtn language and its history. Chinese characters originally represented ideas, in their earlier form. While vernacular Chinese has a heavy phonological basis and would not enable speakers of mutuall unintelligable languages to understand each other, Classical Chinese DOES enable speakers of mutually unintelligible languages to read each other's writing, and its ancient form was not phonetic at all, it was an ideographic script. And also there was a Old Chinese language, which splintered into the many different chinese dalects today. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk • contribs)

John DeFrancis is a professor of Chinese, and a writer of textbooks teaching Chinese. Which professor of Chinese (or source of equivalent authority) claims that he was wrong? --Alvestrand (talk) 23:43, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

supposed i got a phd in medicine, and i say killing people will make you live longer? would you put that in an article on health? (sarcasm)68.160.244.116 (talk) 00:08, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

or better yet, suppose ive got a PHD in medicine, and i say cutting your eyes out will improve your eyesight. will you do that?68.160.244.116 (talk) 00:09, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

what part of "source" didn't you understand? --Alvestrand (talk) 05:53, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

i have a good reason why john defrancis is wrong, chinese has a massive amount of homophones per sound, but they are written in different characters, if you were to get rid of them, then you cant tell the difference between the words "bright", and dark, which are BOTH pronounced míng, yet written with different characters, 冥 and 眀 see this for proof:[4] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.83.138.17 (talk) 18:43, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

That is not a good reason. Homophones are rarely confused to each other because the context often disambiguates meaning. For instance, in English, "their" and "there" are pronounced the same. If there happened a spelling reform in English where "their" and "there" would be spelled the same, writing would be as (un)ambiguous as listening: the context would provide the correct meaning. Please do not add unsourced rebuttal information to the article again. If you do so, I will remove it. --Antonielly (talk) 00:00, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

WRONG- considering the fact that almost every sound in mandarin has dozens of homophones, the chance of the sentence having an entirely different meaning when written in another script is ten times greater than in english, where few words are homophones. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.160.247.52 (talk) 04:23, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

for example, yīng nǚ can mean "brave woman", or "cherry cake". but fortunetly the great chinese writing system allows the two to be written differently, 英 女 and 樱 籹. so that means your OWNED antonielly —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.160.247.52 (talk) 04:41, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

and this blows another one of DeFrance's theories to pieces, that chinese is not even partially pictographic or ideographic, look at the character for woman.... and it shows that its impossible for it to be phonetic based, as the two same sounding homophones are written differently... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.160.247.52 (talk) 04:43, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

眀 is also an ideogram, it combines the characters for "sun", and "moon", to mean bright, which blows John defrance's fantasy to pieces....

my rebuttal is sourced now...

QUOTE: "The Chinese script, with its thousands of characters, is not a benefit to the Chinese society, and needs to be abandoned if China is to achieve the benefits of modernization." Apparently this guy has never heard of Shi shi shi shi shi. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 10:16, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

So what if Chinese has lots of homphones? If this was really so ambiguous, wouldn't it cause problems in the spoken language? If it works in the spoken language, why can't it work in the written language? I'm also pretty sure that DeFrancis didn't say that there is *no* ideographic basis to *any* Chinese characters, just that the phonetic element is much stronger, so bringing up isolated examples isn't much of a rebuttal. saɪm duʃan Talk|Contribs 22:54, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

This discussion seems to have died 3 years ago - I guess the angry guy left. --Alvestrand (talk) 13:59, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Pictograms

• 象形字 xiàngxíngzì

Contrary to popular belief, pictograms make up only a small portion of Chinese characters. While characters in this class derive from pictures, they have been standardized, simplified, and stylized to make them easier to write, and their derivation is therefore not always obvious. Examples include 日 (rì) for "sun", 月 (yuè) for "moon", and 木 (mù) for "tree"....[5]

There is no concrete number for the proportion of modern characters that are pictographic in nature; however, Xu Shen (c. 100 AD) estimated that 4% of characters fell into this category.

Ideograms

• 指事字, zhǐshìzì

Also called simple indicatives or simple ideographs, these characters either modify existing pictographs iconically, or are direct iconic illustrations. For instance, by modifying 刀 dāo, a pictogram for "knife", by marking the blade, an ideogram 刃 rèn for "blade" is obtained. Direct examples include 上 shàng "up" and 下 xià "down". This category is small.

Ideogrammic compounds

• 會意字/会意字 huìyìzì

Translated literally as logical aggregates or associative compounds, these characters symbolically combine pictograms or ideograms to create a third character. For instance, doubling the pictogram 木 mu "tree" produces 林 lin "forest", while combining 日 rì "sun" and 月 yuè "moon", the two natural sources of light, makes 明 míng "bright".

Xu Shen estimated that 13% of characters fall into this category.

Some scholars flatly reject the existence of this category, opining that failure of modern attempts to identify a phonetic in a compound is due simply to our not looking at ancient "secondary readings", which were lost over time. For example, the character 安 ān "peace", a combination of "roof" 宀 and "woman" 女, is commonly cited as an ideogrammic compound, purportedly motivated by a meaning such as "all is peaceful with the woman at home". However, there is evidence that 女 was once a polyphone with a secondary reading of *an, as may be gleaned from the set 妟 yàn "tranquil", 奻 nuán "to quarrel", and 姦 jiān "licentious".

Adding weight to this argument is the fact that characters claimed to belong to this group are almost invariably interpreted from modern forms rather than the archaic forms, which as a rule are quite different and often far more graphically complex. However, interpretations differ greatly between sources.

THese are proof that john defrancis is a liar when he says theres not a single pictogram or ideogram in chinese

Now, where did that quote come from? And where do you get the idea that DeFrancis says "there's not a single pictogram or ideogram in Chinese"? Anyway, you're blocked from editing Wikipedia, User:ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ. That means you don't get to make changes here. --Alvestrand (talk) 07:02, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

now, where did i place a quote? and wheres the rule saying my ip cant make changes here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.160.247.92 (talk) 07:04, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Inappropriate to have this discussion on an article talk page, but Wikipedia:SOCK#Blocking. If you want to go on editing, request unblocking of your account. --Alvestrand (talk) 07:40, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, i was BLOCKED, not BANNED. there is no rule saying the contributions of BLOCKED users should be erased.

it says that he says that there is no such thing as an ideographic script in the article.....

One Sided ATM

Received a copy a few days ago, before receipt of which I was generally prepared to accept what I gathered (by virtue of the title and hearsay mostly) to be the thesis of the work. I agree with comments by author in first thread above and additionally talk page in my draft space has further comments. ATM there is no presentation of what is obviously a substantial opposition to the work. One important point that I don't think has received sufficient attention is that it was published more than 25 years ago, a whole generation has grown up and under significantly changed circumstances. 72.228.150.44 (talk) 15:20, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Also Alvarez doesn't mention it, but I think most would find it interesting that it opens with a long introductory chapter on Singlish which referred to a form of Chinese writing that would be imposed on the conquered peoples of Australia and North America which was the subject of a scholarly group convened under authority of the Empire of Japan in 1942/3 and the documents of which DeFrancis found in Japan after the war. 72.228.150.44 (talk) 04:28, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

The problem with "substantial opposition" is that nobody's written up a source-based summary of the opposition. We have lots of rants, and some pointers to sources in the talk page, but no real text. I do remember the chapter on "singlish" - from this many years later, and without the book handy, I don't remember if it claimed to be real documents or just a fantasy intended to make people think about the issue. --Alvestrand (talk) 13:53, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Singlish was made up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.189.241.209 (talk) 12:46, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Criticism

There has been criticism of this specific work and of John DeFrancis's views in general, mostly consisting of reviews in scholarly publications when the book was first published. They are mostly accessible by the online database JSTOR which I have access to.

If it isn't about "The Chinese language: Fact and Fantasy", i will label it as such, otherwise the criticism is about the book.

There are four types of critics

1. Outright hostile to John DeFrancis and his ideas

Dennis Duncanson does not restrain himself in being polite in his sarcastic and biting review of DeFrancis and "Fact and Fantasy", not agreeing with anything he says.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/25211897

2. Polite, but rebutting DeFrancis's arguments

http://www.jstor.org/stable/415490

(Not Fact and Fantasy, a response to "The Chinese Renaissance and the Vernacular")

http://www.jstor.org/stable/25486311

3. Mixed rebuttal and support

(Not Fact and Fantasy, its a review another work by DeFrancis called "Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems")

http://www.jstor.org/stable/415119

(Not Fact and Fantasy, its a review another work by DeFrancis called "ABC Chinese-English (Alphabetically Based Computerized) Dictionary by John DeFrancis")

http://www.jstor.org/stable/417822

4. Supportive of most of the work but irked by some mistakes and preposterous he made, or his rudeness towards other scholars in the book. It might sound funny for a review but one person was serious enough that he pointed it out.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2759019

In the following review, the reviewer William C. Hannas was irked by DeFrancis's extreme rudness and arrogance

http://www.jstor.org/stable/495058

The reviewers are all western sinologists or western based, I don't have access to Chinese criticism of DeFrancis or even know whether they care about him since he doesn't have a following in China itself.

I will be posting links to sources soon and begin drafting a criticism section.Matheus Andrews (talk) 17:44, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

And the following is not a specific rebuttal to DeFrancis, but a study which claims that Kanji (characters) are easier to learn than syllabic Kana

http://www.jstor.org/stable/747295

Matheus Andrews (talk) 19:01, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I would like help in citation formats and templates, if no one helps me I guess I will try to figure it out. Any specific citation format for JSTOR?Matheus Andrews (talk) 19:14, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Matheus. There are several citation methods (see WP:CITE). Parenthetical refs (see University of Hawaii Press) are simplest and footnotes (see John DeFrancis) are common. Keahapana (talk) 21:23, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Clarification; Review

In the interests of clarity, I'll be amending the sentence, "A good portion of the book is devoted to debunking what DeFrancis calls the 'six myths' of Chinese characters" to "A good portion of the book is devoted to attempts at debunking what DeFrancis calls the 'six myths' of Chinese characters." Absent the insertion of "attempts at," readers may be developing the impression that DeFrancis succeeded in his undertaking.

If someone cares to revert to the original wording, please append a cite testifying to DeFrancis' success.

Next, I wonder whether someone would be kind enough to shed a little light concerning the book review to which the article links?

From what I can tell, the reviewer is a computer scientist, an active and respected contributor to Wikipedia, and a self-effacing gentleman with a pleasing sense of humor. Further, his review makes a perceptive point missed by (nearly) all other reviewers, academic and popular: The circular nature of DeFrancis' argument. That is all wonderful, but when it comes to Chinese and Chinese characters the reviewer appears to be a non-specialist.

If linking to reviews written by non-specialists is acceptable, it seems there is no need to allow the current review to remain an orphan any longer than it has. I believe the article can be enriched by creating a new section: Popular Reception. Here the effect of the book on non-specialist readers can be presented, and supported by links to the more well-written reviews scattered about the Net. Thoughts? Lawrence J. Howell (talk) 06:56, 27 May 2013 (UTC)