I've heard that the printing press is one of the most important inventions in human history, but it seems incompatible with so many languages. A lot of them seem to change as you add letters to a word, or give each word a different character entirely.
So was there ever a 1700s mandarin printing press? Or was China doomed to be playing catchup with Europe and their cheap books? Did any languages (including English) change to accomadate these limitations?
Printing actually existed in China before Gutenberg, though woodblocks were preferred over movable type. In this old thread u/FreudianSlip summarises the early Chinese history of printing, and here you can read about the technical side of things as written by u/keylian. And in this thread u/svendskov wrties about the popularity of woodblock printing in China. This was also discussed in this panel thread with multiple users participating