File talk:800px-Map-Chinese Characters.png

Taiwan

Why does Taiwan appear in dark green? There's no competing script here, only Chinese characters. Dragonbones 15:05, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

What about Bopomofo? It's another (syllabic) script, derived from Chinese Characters, just as much as Japanese kana is. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:29, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, but it doesn't compete with Chinese characters. It's not used in competition with them. It's only used for teaching kids the pronunciation of Chinese characters, just as various forms of depicting pronunciation are used in Western dictionaries. In my 12 years here I've never ever seen anyone use bopomofo to write a message to someone else. There's only one script here, traditional Chinese characters. You wouldn't consider Hanyu Pinyin in China or IPA in the US to be "competing" with Mandarin or English respectively, would you? Dragonbones 16:30, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll bow to your firsthand local knowledge...! Perhaps my wording on the caption of the Chinese character article itself ("in conjunction with" is better than my word choice here ("in competition with")... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 16:48, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your responses! Ok, I'll reword my comments using 'conjunction', for clarity. In Japanese (which I studied only briefly, but enough to have an idea what it's like), the kana 'are' used in conjunction with the kanji -- sentences are normally strung together alternating the two. In Taiwan, I wouldn't even go so far as to call bopomofo a script used 'in conjunction' with; sentences never alternate the two. A look at any periodical will show that 99.99% is in Chinese characters, with a very rare insertion of bopomofo, similar to the rare insertion of a phonetic alphabet in English to show pronunciation, rather than to write English. So bopomofo should really be thought of as a phonetic alphabet and a crutch, if you will, not as a script. BTW, I don't know how to edit the map yet; I'm pretty new here. Cheers! Dragonbones 02:02, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

North Korea

I suppose this is difficult to verify, but I was under the impression that chinese characters are no longer used at all in North Korea. - Rafaelgr 15:57, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Maximum extent of former historic use

Codex Sinaiticus, please clarify on what grounds you determined the "maximum extent of former historic use"? The PRC, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Vietnam are OK, but the rest is questionable. --Nanshu 23:11, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Since there is no answer, I suppose Codex Sinaiticus selected the light green area based on the maximum extent of the Qing Empire, and I modified it (in addition to North Korea). Keep in mind that the Qing was the Manchu empire. In other words, China was just one of the empire's territories. People in the Outer Territories (tulergi golo) used their own (non-Chinese) languages and the communication with the central government was mostly done in the Manchu language. The takeover by the Chinese was started in 1882 when they established Chinese-style Xinjiang Province in East Turkestan. It was, however, in the 1900s that Chinese colonialism in Mongolia was approved by the empire. --Nanshu 22:27, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Nanshu manchus are one of the ethic minorities of China they are Chinese and the manchu empire's capital is Beijing chinese includes both han chinese and manchu chinese ok?

But the Manchu didn't use Chinese characters except as rulers of China. Their own language had its own script. On the other hand, Mongolia and a large chunk of southeastern Siberia used to be Chinese territory and should be included as an area which formerly employed Chinese script. [Presumably, the map also only charts 'official' use and excludes areas like San Francisco, Havana, and New York.] -114.91.65.133 (talk) 12:27, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Edit: In fact, historic use is much closer to the first map than Nanshu's current edits. I can't think of a time when Central Asia would've used Chinese characters, though. Han and Tang involvement in the Tarim Basin was mostly just in modern Xinjiang. -114.91.65.133 (talk) 12:37, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

This is incorrect. The Manchus/Qing kept the territories of the empire apart ethnically, and encouraged publishing not only in Chinese, but also in Mongolian, Tibetan, and Manchurian. I don't believe that Mongolia was really a part of the Qing Empire that regularly used the Chinese script. Studies have shown that publishing in Mongolia (Mongolian) was more concerned with Tibetan Buddhism than with Confucianism or other Chinese topics.

Bathrobe (talk) 13:43, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Colors

This image is difficult to see. The order of the color should be, Dark Green >> Green >>> Light Green or Light Green >> Green >>> Dark Green, from inner side to outward. And also need legends (explanatory notes). --Brionies (talk) 22:38, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Cambodia indluded?

Cambodia is listed as part of the maximum extant, is there a reason for this? As far as known, Chinese cultural influence have been very limited in the region. Besides immigrant communities, Chinese characters were never employed since Cambodia uses its own script. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.136.27.231 (talk) 00:34, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Singapore

Singapore's an predominantly english speaking country, not chinese 99.237.109.167 (talk) 23:13, 20 June 2009 (UTC)