Romanization in Colonial SE Asia

[Beatriz]

The Roman alphabet or variants of it are already used in Maritime SE Asia and Vietnam. Is it possible for Burma, Siam and other SE Asian states to have adopted the Roman script either under colonial rule, or under the influence of Westernization-as-key to modernization like Ataturk’s Turkey?
Also, what factors push for or against the use of Native scripts?

The Burmese junta pushed for its own unaesthetic but accentless romanization IOTL.

 

[carturo222]

Ottoman Turkish was in urgent need of help. The Arabic alphabet is not a good fit for Turkish sounds. Likewise, Vietnamese was written in modified Chinese, which was really not suitable. A proper alphabet was a relief.
The other languages of SE Asia have their own writing systems, more or less adapted to their phonology, and would see little need to change it. Maybe Thailand would have done it while their king was introducing Western customs. Thai has a very difficult script, and perhaps the king might have decided to adopt Roman letters. However, the design of the Thai script was conceived to preserve Sanskrit etymology, and that would be lost if the script were simplified.

 

[schai]

If that was the case, no one would be able to read the old history book.

There would be a disconnection between modern SE Asia and old SE Asia.

 

[Metempsychosis]

If that was the case, no one would be able to read the old history book.

There would be a disconnection between modern SE Asia and old SE Asia.

If Europe had the time and effort, I think that would be the point: cutting the people off from their past would be really useful in their "civilizing projects".

 

[Domz]

The tones system of Thai, Lao, and Cambodian would make Romanization a nightmare (which would be the equivalent of giving Chinese a Latin script). It would more than likely end up looking like Vietnamese or Chinese pinyin.

You’d probably see even more nativist uprisings in Thailand as a result (there were already quite serious provincial nativist uprisings in OTL Thailand [1], which would probably mean late 19th-early 20th century Thailand would be more politically unstable, ironically possibly encouraging an earlier democratic Constitution and stronger Thai anti-monarchism, Communist, and democratic movements in the 20th century.)

[1] Baker, Chris. Phongpaichit, Pasuk. A History of Thailand (Fourth Edition).

 

[Beatriz]

If Europe had the time and effort, I think that would be the point: cutting the people off from their past would be really useful in their "civilizing projects".

Wasn’t the Viet alphabet promoted for this reason as a clean break from Confucianism?

 

[Metempsychosis]

Wasn’t the Viet alphabet promoted for this reason as a clean break from Confucianism?

Reading about it, it seems it was equally enforced by the French, who even wanted to go as far as forcing their language onto the Vietnamese.

Still, the Latin alphabet in Vietnam has a history going back to the 17th century, so IDK.

 

[Beatriz]

The tones system of Thai, Lao, and Cambodian would make Romanization a nightmare (which would be the equivalent of giving Chinese a Latin script). It would more than likely end up looking like Vietnamese or Chinese

Here is a map of tonal languages (red). Note that for computer-based input systems and some typed words, Pinyin is often written without tonal - which is feasible due to polysyllabic words in mandarin.
Accent marks.

 

[Domz]

Reading about it, it seems it was equally enforced by the French, who even wanted to go as far as forcing their language onto the Vietnamese.

Still, the Latin alphabet in Vietnam has a history going back to the 17th century, so IDK.

Reading r/askhistorians and Quora, it seems that Vietnamese Rominzation was a 50% indigenous Vietnamese and 50% French encouragement effort.

Here is a map of tonal languages (red). Note that for computer-based input systems and some typed words, Pinyin is often written without tonal - which is feasible due to polysyllabic words in mandarin.
Accent marks.
View attachment 822460

I forgot that Cambodian isn’t a tonal language, although it has significantly been influenced by Thai, a tonal language (and vice-versa).

Cambodia and Laos, under the French, were backwaters in comparison to Vietnam, so perhaps that was why the French ignored Cambodia and Laos in comparison to Vietnam. I’m trying to think of an Indic reason to not adopt a Latin script and I think that India uses both their indigenous script and a Latin script (a leftover of British colonization). I also believe that younger generations in Eastern Asian countries (China, Vietnam) use the Latin script on the internet, due to how complex it is to write their indigenous scripts on a keyboard, ignoring tones as well. Anyone who’s more familiar with this please correct my educated guesses (excluding Thailand).

 

[Zincvit]

Wasn’t the Viet alphabet promoted for this reason as a clean break from Confucianism?

Eh, , the earliest Vietnamese reformers preferred a phonetic script using Chinese, a Nôm-derived script, or just standardizing Nôm. The French occupation create the incentive for both the western-educated intellectuals and the Imperial Court to adopt the Latin script.

 

[Beatriz]

Here is a map of tonal languages (red). Note that for computer-based input systems and some typed words, Pinyin is often written without tonal - which is feasible due to polysyllabic words in mandarin.
Accent marks.
View attachment 822460

Also, the Latin Alphabet seems to be .. clunky for Viet due to 1. large numbers of monopthongs (single vowels like “a”) 2. Dipthongs - sequences of vowels like “ai” or “uoi” 3. Multiple tones

I feel that it is best suited to languages with less complex vowel systems (5 in the original, or more of you use digraphs (sequences of multiple letters for _one_ sound like ‘oo’ in English) )

A similar problem occurs with North Indian languages (retroflex consonants plus the voiceless/aspirated/voiced/murmured distinction)

However there can be workarounds for Thai e.g
/kʰlɯ̂ːn/ as “khlèu:n”