The Chinese Typewriter: A History
The question why an alphabetic Chinese script was never developed is often asked, a good answer is here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.quora.com&#x2F;Why-does-China-have-no-alphabet-Why-did-China-never-invent-an-alphabet" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.quora.com&#x2F;Why-does-China-have-no-alphabet-Why-di...</a>. Non-Chinese speakers focus on the cumbersomeness of the script while overlooking how good it fits the tonal languages it&#x27;s used for (not just Mandarin) and the benefits of radicals.<p>Western alphabetic supremacists weren&#x27;t the first ones to suggest that an alphabetic script should be created, Chinese scholars also thought about this quite early but tradition was probably too string even at that time. A similar situation also applies to Egyptian hieroglyphic writing.<p>Another good writeup of Tom Mullaney&#x27;s work with more details on early ways of writing Chinese characters using codes, etc. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;archive&#x2F;2016&#x2F;11&#x2F;chinese-computers&#x2F;504851&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;archive&#x2F;2016&#x2F;11&#x2F;chine...</a>