As a native Chinese speaker I read that article years ago when my English was just enough to read long articles like that. I found it so damn funny and with a great sense of humor (maybe a Chinese sense of humor). I don't understand why people think it's "unrelentingly pessimistic" that is "unjustified". I even recommended this to my friend who studies linguistics and teaches Chinese to foreigners.
I'm from Peking University and I don't really know "how to write the character 嚔, as in da penti 打喷嚔 'to sneeze'" either. I think it's a general problem in the era of computer and internet, as people input Chinese with pinyin, not with pen and ink. It's going to be interesting to see how Chinese evolve with modern technology.
Jump in a Beijing taxi and show the taxi driver the pinyin for the address you wish to go to instead of the Chinese characters. Report back on how well it works out for you.
Disregarding your question, which others have answered plenty well already, I find it funny that you refer to them as hieroglyphics, since actual Egyptian hieroglyphics ended up being discovered to be phonetic as well!
Some of the characters do actually encode sounds, typically in the right side of the character. However, the encoding is more like a memory aid than it is phonetical. 中 (zhong1), 钟 (zhong1), 种 (zhong3/zhong4); 艮 (gen3), 跟 (gen1) 根 (gen1), but 很 (hen3). And it doesn't always work: 立 (li4), 位 (wei4), 拉 (la1).
They are not hieroglyphs, you will see no pinyin publicaly in China. Many ignorant americans come to China having studied Pinyin and they fall flat on their face.
pretty close, except 神马 actually means Godly Horse, 神么actually means God? Not really funny when I explain it out, it's the typo and pronunciation variance that's kinda funny.
Well, since most audience here are non-Chinese speaking people, how about let's be clear. So in this context, "神马／神么" are Mandarin words, and I believe that people in HK speak Cantonese and don't usually use these Mandarin words.
On the other hand, IMHO, just IMHO, "God" being translated into Chinese(Cantonese) as "神" is not thoughtful as it introduces confusion.
I'm from Peking University and I don't really know "how to write the character 嚔, as in da penti 打喷嚔 'to sneeze'" either. I think it's a general problem in the era of computer and internet, as people input Chinese with pinyin, not with pen and ink. It's going to be interesting to see how Chinese evolve with modern technology.