Chapter 29: Chinese Phonetic Alphabet Scheme

My own writing…" Rainy Day sighed, "I've thought about it, but I don't know where to start. Not everyone is Sequoyah."

Sequoyah was a Cherokee and the creator of the Cherokee script. He also visited various tribes in an attempt to create a script that would be used by all tribes, but this was obviously impossible.

Eventually, this pioneer in Indian writing died of illness while traveling around, a fateful end.

Ma Shao was silent for a while, still hesitating, but finally made up his mind and said, "I have some ideas."

Rainy Day was stunned when he heard this.

However, he seemed to trust Ma Shao very much, so he did not question him, but asked directly with some expectation: "What's the idea?"

Ma Shao stood up, took out some white paper and a feather pen, and then started writing on the paper.

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

That's right, it is the "Chinese Phonetic Alphabet Scheme" used by New China.

If the Indians wanted to develop, writing was essential. But Ma Shao was not a linguist, and he had no knowledge of languages ​​at all. He was poor at even speaking English, so it was impossible for him to create his own writing system.

He had only one idea for creating characters, which was to start from his mother tongue, or to be more 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 Apaches 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 for Chinese to learn English. When it comes to learning a foreign language, Ma Shao himself is a failed example.

If Chinese is really introduced in an all-round way and implemented for ten years, the literacy rate of Indians may not even reach the level of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.

How many decades do the Indians have left?

Ma Shao felt that there were only two. If the Indians were unable to gain a foothold in North America and establish a solid base to protect themselves by the end of the Civil War, then their future fate would probably be no different from the history of their previous life.

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

At this time, Chinese workers had not yet arrived, and there were very few Chinese in America. How could a 13-year-old Apache boy who had basically no contact with the outside world explain his outrageously fluent Chinese? Could he

claim that "the great spirit appeared in my dream last night and taught me a beautiful language"?

That's ridiculous!

If he were reborn in the 19th century BC, Ma Shao might be willing to do so. But now it is the 19th century AD, 1844, and Maxwell is about to publish his first paper.

This may have miraculous effects on the Indians at first, but what happens then? Will the Indians be amazed by the miracles and become addicted to religion?

Ma Shao doesn't want this to happen.

So in the end, he could only choose the "Hanyu Pinyin Scheme" and combine it with the Apache language to create a phonetic script. The result of the fusion of the two may not be perfect, but this is the only way he can achieve the creation of characters.

The "Scheme for the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet" may seem simple, but in fact it is the result of discussions among tens of thousands of linguists in later generations based on practice. It is easy to learn and practical, concise and accurate, suitable for Chinese and close to English.

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

And Ma Shao doesn't need to explain anything. After all, this plan was made in 1958, which is more than a hundred years ago.

At this time, let alone the "Pinyin Scheme", even the Wade-Giles romanization has not appeared yet, so he can just say that he invented it.

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

It's a good opportunity to promote friendship between the two sides.

Even further, the two sides could take this opportunity to directly recognize each other as relatives, saying that they are brothers who were separated ten thousand years ago... In any case, Ma Shao would definitely be happy with this.

"My idea is this," Ma Shao said as he wrote, "The pronunciations of these letters and combinations are similar to those in English, such as a, b, c... an, han, en... and then they can be used to spell out Apache words."

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

"For the changes in tone, we can add four symbols corresponding to the four basic tones."

Xia Yutian could speak many languages ​​at a young age and had an extraordinary talent for languages. Therefore, he understood the plan proposed by Ma Shao very well, and was able to draw inferences from it and write a large number of Apache words based on the pinyin rules.

"ashilai, gousidan, gonsiei, naniyagei..." One Apache word after another was created. He became more and more excited as he wrote, and even his pen was a little unsteady.

There is no doubt that this is an absolutely feasible solution. In his opinion, it is simply a miracle!

In the past, he also wanted to create Apache writing on rainy days, but he had no idea how to do it. It felt as if it was impossible.

But when Ma Shao proposed this set of rules, everything seemed to come naturally, and the birth of various words was so natural and smooth.

He believed that within a few days, the Apache language could be written down.

"Ma Shao, you created the Apache script!" Yutian hugged Ma Shao's arm, spitting excitedly.

"Calm down." Ma Shao wiped his face awkwardly.

Even though it was raining, he was still very excited and couldn't calm down. He said confidently, "You must be 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 broke out in a sweat.

He had always felt that the high priest's religious beliefs on rainy days were not strong, and he even often showed some materialistic tendencies. He thought that he would not turn into a fanatical shaman because of this incident.

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

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

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

This is not difficult to understand. Rainy Day nodded in understanding, but then asked, "What does it mean to update the rules?"

"Updating the rules means changing the rules of standard usage. 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 be vital." Ma Shao 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.