The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[rikforto]

Sorry, I don't understand what problems you are referring to.

• The Dictator reads the SBJ aloud in Cantonese.
  
  
• The Author writes down the Cantonese (which he speaks) in a phonetic notation.
  
  
• Author goes back to Europe.
  
  
• Author reads the Cantonese and understand it (minus technical terms).
  
  

What is wrong here?

Language change meant it was a very different situation from Latin where national pronunciations were quite understandable and educated people were expected to be able to converse in them. A phonetic transcription would have been opaque to the [edit: Dictator] even if he were proficient in the [Author's] alphabet. Further, the gap in vocabulary was wider than the gap between Latin and it's vernacular descendants, not just because of sound change, but because of a fundamental shift from one character to two character vocabulary, so the [Author] would have no point of entry for understanding it. This method would not create a useful record for the [Author], nor could someone trained in Classical Chinese understand it if he read it back to them, and this would have been apparent to everyone involved at the outset.