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Title details for Kingdom of Characters (Pulitzer Prize Finalist) by Jing Tsu - Available

Kingdom of Characters (Pulitzer Prize Finalist)

by Jing Tsu
Jing Tsu
Audiobook (Includes supplementary content)
Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
What does it take to reinvent a language?
After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world’s most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, as the world underwent a massive technological transformation that threatened to leave them behind. In Kingdom of Characters, Jing Tsu argues that China’s most daunting challenge was a linguistic one: the century-long fight to make the formidable Chinese language accessible to the modern world of global trade and digital technology.
Kingdom of Characters follows the bold innovators who reinvented the Chinese language, among them an exiled reformer who risked a death sentence to advocate for Mandarin as a national language, a Chinese-Muslim poet who laid the groundwork for Chairman Mao's phonetic writing system, and a computer engineer who devised input codes for Chinese characters on the lid of a teacup from the floor of a jail cell. Without their advances, China might never have become the dominating force we know today.
With larger-than-life characters and an unexpected perspective on the major events of China’s tumultuous twentieth century, Tsu reveals how language is both a technology to be perfected and a subtle, yet potent, power to be exercised and expanded.
* This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF that contains charts, photos, and visuals from the book.
Expand title description text
Publisher: Books on Tape Edition: Unabridged
Awards:

OverDrive Listen audiobook

  • ISBN: 9780593458648
  • File size: 325765 KB
  • Release date: January 18, 2022
  • Duration: 11:18:40

MP3 audiobook

  • ISBN: 9780593458648
  • File size: 325820 KB
  • Release date: January 18, 2022
  • Duration: 11:24:33
  • Number of parts: 14
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Formats

OverDrive Listen audiobook
MP3 audiobook

subjects

History Language Arts Nonfiction

Languages

English

What does it take to reinvent a language?
After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world’s most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, as the world underwent a massive technological transformation that threatened to leave them behind. In Kingdom of Characters, Jing Tsu argues that China’s most daunting challenge was a linguistic one: the century-long fight to make the formidable Chinese language accessible to the modern world of global trade and digital technology.
Kingdom of Characters follows the bold innovators who reinvented the Chinese language, among them an exiled reformer who risked a death sentence to advocate for Mandarin as a national language, a Chinese-Muslim poet who laid the groundwork for Chairman Mao's phonetic writing system, and a computer engineer who devised input codes for Chinese characters on the lid of a teacup from the floor of a jail cell. Without their advances, China might never have become the dominating force we know today.
With larger-than-life characters and an unexpected perspective on the major events of China’s tumultuous twentieth century, Tsu reveals how language is both a technology to be perfected and a subtle, yet potent, power to be exercised and expanded.
* This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF that contains charts, photos, and visuals from the book.
Expand title description text
History Language Arts Nonfiction
  • Details

    Publisher:
    Books on Tape
    Edition:
    Unabridged

    Awards:

    OverDrive Listen audiobook
    ISBN: 9780593458648
    File size: 325765 KB
    Release date: January 18, 2022
    Duration: 11:18:40

    MP3 audiobook
    ISBN: 9780593458648
    File size: 325820 KB
    Release date: January 18, 2022
    Duration: 11:24:33
    Number of parts: 14

  • Creators
  • Formats
    OverDrive Listen audiobook
    MP3 audiobook
  • Languages
    English
  • Reviews
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