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The Chinese Typewriter: A History (The MIT Press)
Download The Chinese Typewriter: A History (The MIT Press)
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Review
Ai Weiwei | "The Chinese Typewriter is a fascinating and extensive study into the characteristics of the Chinese language."New Scientist | "The Chinese Typewriter tells the fascinating story of technological colonialism, racism and the complexities of a language unlike any other."South China Morning Post | "[A] masterstroke of linguistic history."Times Higher Education | "[T]he story of an invention that has been vital in preserving Chinese script and culture in the modern information age." The Spectator | "Thomas S. Mullaney describes the fiendish experiments involved in a century-long quest for a workable Chinese keyboard" Nature magazine | "The Chinese Typewriter provides a captivating exploration of one of the most consequential technolinguistic feats in modern history." Xu Bing, artist; creator of Book from the Sky and Square Word Calligraphy | "Mullaney reveals a topic I have always attempted to investigate through my art. The book is not about the tool itself, but the characteristics of Chinese-writing cultures. It explains what is behind Chinese thinking and its unique working method, and why China is what it is today."WICN/NPR | "[A] fascinating history of technology, language, and invention."
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Review
The Chinese Typewriter is a fascinating and extensive study into the characteristics of the Chinese language.―Ai WeiweiMullaney reveals a topic I have always attempted to investigate through my art. The book is not about the tool itself, but the characteristics of Chinese-writing cultures. It explains what is behind Chinese thinking and its unique working method, and why China is what it is today.―Xu Bing, artist; creator of Book from the Sky and Square Word CalligraphyThe Chinese Typewriter is lucidly written and brilliantly conceived. This book will help readers understand and appreciate China, the Chinese language, and writing in general with greater and necessary nuance.―Lisa Gitelman, editor of “Raw Data†Is an Oxymoron and author of Paper KnowledgeThe Chinese Typewriter is a fascinating book: in the light of new developments in computer science, Thomas Mullaney brings us a completely different interpretation of nonalphabetic Chinese and the modern fate of Chinese culture through the historical lens of the Chinese typewriter. This is a rich book that encompasses different resources, historical insights, and intriguing storytelling from long and broad perspectives.―Wang Hui, Professor of Literature and History, Tsinghua University; author of China's Twentieth Century
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Product details
Series: The MIT Press
Hardcover: 504 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press; 1 edition (August 8, 2017)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0262036363
ISBN-13: 978-0262036368
Product Dimensions:
6 x 1.5 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.6 out of 5 stars
13 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#276,984 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Sixty-five years ago I bought a copy of Lin Yutang’s “The Wisdom of Confucius.†I still have it, the clearest and best organized introduction to the Confucian Classics ever written in English, as far as I know. During the 1930's through 50's, anyone wanting to know about Chinese language and culture in English relied on works by Lin Yutang. He was a genius who has since dropped from view, but Thomas S. Mullaney brings him back as the unlikely hero of the fascinating history of the Chinese typewriter. In this book, the typewriter is presented as the foil in the monumental 150-year quest to find the organizing principle of Chinese writing. Lifetimes were devoted by a fascinating array of geniuses to find such a principle, primarily to fit the Chinese written language onto the typewriter. After numerous valiant attempts over many decades, the answer was at last revealed: there is no organizing principle of written Chinese. It cannot be adapted for the typewriter by reducing it to alphabetical or numerical order. Organized according to common usage, or according to analyses of the brush strokes, are the two obvious remaining choices. Those are the principles upon which Chinese characters were traditionally sorted for printing or typing, with only moderate success.The Chinese puzzle was finally solved by Lin Yutang, who invented an electro-mechanical typewriter using predictive text The auto-suggestions on the Google search bar, or in Microsoft Word, are taken for granted today. You type in a letter or two and the computer program comes up with what you probably want. But in 1947 Lin Yutang rolled out an electro-mechanical typewriter that did just that without a computer, and in Chinese – and it could print every Chinese character in existence. The Chinese Communist Revolution and the Korean War destroyed any chance of gaining financial backing to manufacture the MingKwai, as Lin called his typewriter, and it was never brought into production. However, the emergence of the personal computer made predictive text imminently practical and perhaps saved the written Chinese language from total eclipse from the alphabetic scripts used by the rest of the world. I think Lin Yutang would be satisfied.The fascinating history of the Chinese typewriter – and Chinese written language – is exceptionally well told in this exhaustively researched book. The writing flows along like a novel and I couldn’t put it down. I was surprised, however, on page 277-8 to read that Mullaney speculates that the one and only MingKwai typewriter ever made must have been destroyed. He could have looked at the web page of the Lin Yutang House in Taipei and see that it is included as one of the exhibits on display there, apparently whole and complete. I certainly hope the web site is correct and that Mullaney was mistaken. All of the many other digressions and anecdotes within the book carried me right along with them, and I give Mullaney five well deserved stars for a book that has no competition. It is one of a kind.
I love typewriters and languages, so this book was a sure thing as my interests go.And I learned a great deal.Perhaps the greatest takeaway was the degree to which the Chinese language was viewed as inferior (not just outside of China but also within) simply because the many thousands of characters weren’t easily accommodated onto a Western-designed keyboard.It’s worth noting that the Internet itself was not designed to support Chinese characters either. IDNs are, at best, a hack and probably will be for the foreseeable future.But it’s fascinating to see how the “standard†Western typewriter evolved and how it impacted typewriter innovations for supporting Chinese.The conventional single shift keyboard that we use today was not the only keyboard available a hundred years ago. For instance, I have a typewriter that features a great many more keys (and no shift key)Turns out that this typewriter was ideal for the Thai language, at least until the company that made this typewriter was bought out and the design laid to rest.Progress we call it.The author has a sequel in the works, I’m assuming it will be titled The Chinese Computer. And I can’t wait to read it.
Fantastic book. Mullaney uses the Chinese typewriter as an extended case study of innovation processes and the mostly psychological barriers to experimentation and political and economic barriers to adoption. Highly recommended for technologists, especially in view of China's growing role and leadership in key areas of technology, from machine learning to consumer tech.The book assumes some basic understanding of modern Chinese history (late 19th century onward). The more you know, the better you'll understand passing references to language reform debates, Maoist terminology and so on, but the book is geared to the interested layperson, not just China specialists.Ironic note for potential Kindle customers: the Chinese characters sprinkled throughout the text for illustrative purposes don't render on older devices.
The thorough research required to make the typewriter and the book about the typewriter happen!!!
Incredible research and interesting pictures. A fascinating read.
More thorough than I expected.
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