The script was so low status compared to Hanzi that it was used almost exclusively by women and its history wasn't really recorded. Obviously the script wouldn't be of much use outside those areas, as its 'installed base' of Tuhua works wouldn't be intelligible outside those areas. In this case, the dialect it covered was Tuhua, which is of course mutually unintelligible with any of the major Chinese dialects, and is spoken only in the border regions of three neighboring south China provinces. It was regional (as it would have to be, covering only one dialect). The story of NГјshu is probably the best example a historian could ask for of the problems posed by trying to promote a phonetic writing system in China. This was a fully phonetic syllabary, which means it only needed about 120 glyphs (with a further 500ish logographs borrowed from Hanzi). This is why they've been forced to stick to logographs. Its possible the entire popular concept of 'China' as a culturally unified unit could fall apart. Not only is that a crazy amount of work, it would erect brand new cultural barriers between all the various languages. You obviously can't write a single document for several completely different languages using a phonetic-based writing system, without having to translate everything you write into every one of the different languages. On top of that, large swaths of the country are inhabited by people who even the Chinese will admit don't speak Chinese.

The main issue here is that the mostly- logographic system China uses has historically been covering up for the fact that quite a few Chinese 'dialects' are not mutually-intelligible (eg: Cantonese, Suzhounese, Sichuanese) 1. No, there is no known record of that kind of native linguistic script analysis in pre-modern China, although its quite possible it came up and was rejected, for reasons I'll outline below.

I would really like to see what were his own thoughts. I'm just asking for examples of some written record of some Chinese person, writing down his thoughts on a phonetic system, why he considered it and why he rejected it. In other words, ancient times to 1912.Д®DIT: The analyses are fascinating, but they're not what I'm asking. The time period I'm interested in is pre-modern China. who wrote down some thoughts on considering a phonetic writing system?Дid any of them at least note what Japan and Korea did, and explicitly reject it? And most crucially, did they state their reasons for rejecting it? Did China ever consider a phonetic writing system? In other words, are there any emperors, scholars, court eunuchs or other offices, or just wise men of some school like Confucianism or Daoism or something. So you can see how this brings up my question. (I'm not sure if they still use a lot of Chinese characters, but the point is the same as Japan.) Korean also used a lot of Chinese characters in their language and had no phonetic system until around the year 1443 when they made Hangul. (They still use a lot of Chinese characters, but the point is they originally had no phonetic system, then made one.) Japanese used a lot of Chinese characters in their language and had no phonetic system, until around the year 800 when they made their first kana. I was surprised to learn the following about the Japanese and Korean languages:

Punto switcher phonetic alphabet