The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[Shira_the_Mogul]

Definitely, but have you ever tried translating a text of any length between two very different languages?  It requires good knowledge of both languages, and easily takes 10x more time than writing a phonetic rendering from dictation.  

It is worse with Literary Chinese, where the phonology is decidedly unhelpful in understanding the text. This would be a trilingual endeavour between the speaker's topolect (Mandarin, in your assumption, I believe?), Literary Chinese prose (which has diverged considerably in grammar and is not readily understood by a listener), and the scribe. Dictating this isn't unheard of (e.g. Ministers would dictate Literary Chinese-medium messages to the Emperor, and the Hongwu Emperor did engage in this), but it is not considered realistic for anyone but the most educated of Chinese. It is hard to express just how important the characters themselves are in disambiguating Literary Chinese, lest you get lost in 其/期/齐/奇, 工/公/功/攻/宫/弓, or something like that. It is less ambiguous in Middle Mandarin, but still an extremely unusual situation. 

I must still question how someone would be a TCM practitioner, know Shennong Bencao and its contents to the point of being able to recite it from memory (not unrealistic!), yet not know characters. Shennong Bencao is Literary Chinese and being able to recite it and understand its contents means knowing the characters, or the spoken word would be nonsense. This language is inextricable from the characters that write it because the language was a polar opposite of what it is now (Garo would be the best modern parallel). A Chinese person uneducated in Literary Chinese would not understand even Analects if dictated to them, beyond the first few lines which are idioms. Even if this were to be dictated for someone illiterate in characters, they would still be confused, because again, this language is so insanely diverged.

Say I take this line, with Mandarin Pinyin:
玉泉　味甘平。主治五臟百病。柔筋強骨、安魂魄、長肌肉、益氣，久服耐寒暑，不饑渴，不老神仙。人臨死服五斤，死三年色不變。一名玉劄。
Yùquán wèi gān píng. Zhǔzhì wǔzàng bǎi bìng. Róu jīn qiáng gǔ, ān húnpò, zhǎng jīròu, yì qì, jiǔ fú nài hánshǔ, bù jī kě, bùlǎo shénxiān. Rén línsǐ fú wǔ jīn, sǐ sān nián sè bù biàn. Yī míng yù zhá.

If I were to render this in Baihua:
玉泉   味甘，性平。主治五脏的各种疾病。它能使筋脉柔韧、骨骼强健，安定魂魄，增长肌肉，补益元气。长期服用，能耐受寒冷和暑热，不感到饥饿口渴，不衰老而成神仙。人临死时服五斤，死后三年面色也不改变。它又名玉札。
Yùquán  wèi gān, xìng píng. Zhǔzhì wǔzàng de gè zhǒng jíbìng. Tā néng shǐ jīn mài róurèn, gǔgé qiángjiàn, āndìng húnpò, zēngzhǎng jīròu, bǔyì yuánqì. Chángqí fúyòng, néng nài shòu hánlěng hé shǔrè, bù gǎndào jī'è kǒu kě, bù shuāilǎo ér chéng shénxiān. Rén lín sǐ shí fú wǔ jīn, sǐ hòu sān nián miànsè yě bù gǎibiàn. Tā yòu míng yù zhá.

It is considerably different! If this were for someone illiterate in characters (and thus unable to access the classics), this would be very confusing!

This could be why the script never saw documented use again - the idea was bad, so they stopped using it.

And the result would have been just as useless to him as a printed copy of the SBJ -- because he would not know how each character was pronounced, and thus he would not know its meaning.

Pronunciation alone is really not enough for Literary Chinese. It almost impossible to find any phoneticised Literary Chinese books even today because it is just...not something you do. You translate it into Baihua (the translator's topolect) instead, then write it out. If this were Shennong Bencao translated into Baihua, we would expect to see every line being considerably longer.