History
EN
The Characters That Built China
['Ramtin Arablouei Rund Abdelfatah Lawrence Wu Laine Kaplan-Levenson Julie Caine Anya Steinberg Yolanda Sangweni Casey Miner Kumari Devarajan Victor Yvellez Deb George', 'Ramtin Arablouei', 'Rund Abdelfatah', 'Lawrence Wu', 'Laine Kaplan-Levenson', 'Julie Caine', 'Anya Steinberg', 'Yolanda Sangweni', 'Casey Miner', 'Kumari Devarajan']
Throughline
In this episode, we follow three key reformers who worked to modernize written and spoken Chinese, sometimes risking their lives to do so. Their work simplified Chinese, standardized it, and took it from an inaccessible language built for the elite to a modern language for the masses. It was a struggle that spanned generations, changed the fate of millions of people, and helped create the powerful modern nation-state of China.