Prof. David C.S. LI, Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies

Writing-mediated Interaction Face-to-face through Sinitic Brush-talk (漢文筆談): Implications for Evolutionary Linguistics. The 13th International Conference in Evolutionary Linguistics (CIEL-13). Shandong University, China (online). Shandong University, China, 4-5 June 2022.

Abstract
As a functional substitute of speech, writing-mediated brush conversation was commonly conducted within Sinographic East Asia (SEA, today’s China, North Korea, South Korea, Japan and Vietnam). There is ample historical evidence of literati of Sinitic from different parts of SEA engaging in ‘brush-talk’ 漢文筆談 interactively. This is still practiced in Chinese-Japanese pen-talk today. The spread of Sinitic texts from the ‘center’ to the ‘peripheries’ was the background to acquisition of literacy in Sinitic by people within SEA. Their shared knowledge of Sinitic explains why, for over a thousand years until the 1900s, literati of Sinitic were able to ‘speak’ their mind by conducting ‘silent conversation’ in cross-border communication. Implications for evolutionary linguistics were discussed: (i) writing as ‘the second miracle’ after the invention of speech; (ii) Sinitic brush-talk as the 3rd or 4th mode of communication after speaking and (tactile) sign language; and (iii) the ingenious invention of a morphographic, non-phonographic script to serve as a ‘scripta franca’ by enabling humans with no shared spoken language to make meaning interactively through writing.