The AskHistorians Podcast is a project that highlights the users and answers that have helped make/r/AskHistorians one of the largest history discussion forum on the internet. You can subscribe to us via iTunes, Stitcher, or RSS. If there is another index you'd like the cast listed on, let me know (I am working on adding a few at the moment, and getting us on YouTube)!
This Episode:
/u/keyilan takes on the topic of official language policy in China (both PRC and Taiwan), North and South Korea, and Japan. Dispelling some myths about languages in East Asia, he goes on to cover efforts at character simplification; efforts to promulgate "proper" language; modern linguistic differences stemming from political divisions; and why Taiwan spoke Japanese for a while, among much more.
One of our longer single episodes, China takes up most of the show, with Korea being covered around minute 56 and the section on Japan around 1 hour 20 minutes in.
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Thanks all!
Coming up next fortnight: /u/The_Alaskan covers a tetrad of Alaskan disasters: 1912 Katmai-Novarupta volcanic eruption, the 1925 Nome Serum Run, the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake, and the 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.
I played around with some new post-production settings on this one, so I welcome feedback on the audio quality (which was helped by /u/keyilan having a good mic and voice like rich bird's nest soup).
Loved this episode!
/u/keyilan, I'm not sure if I missed it during the Korea section, but is there any sort of policy at all regarding Hanja (Chinese characters used in the Korean language), or is it simply dead in modern discourse? I've always been interested in the Hanja-Hangul switch in Korean, though I understand that's pretty outside the scope of "Modern." Do Hanja still have any influence or use in Korean culture or writing?
Very interesting episode!
It got me wondering if there is a difference (for example in speed) between the development of logographic and alphabatic scripts. For example, a different pronounciation for a word can in theory immediately be integrated in an alphabetic script whereas I feel it the mandarin script would be more robust.