When Was the Latest Time That China Could Have Fragmented Culturally?

[Intransigent Southerner]

It's not under a unified empire, is it. Alphabetic writing is good for rapid literacy gain, but encourages divergence of languages and culture during periods of disunion.

I really don't know. China probably had higher literacy rates than Europe, and Taiwan is more literate than Turkey (never mind Iraq). I think the benefits of the alphabet is overrated. Additionally, I'm thinking about how most of Central Asia used a single, alphabetic literary language into the 19th century (Chagatay Turkic), or how Arabic and Latin (both using alphabets) remained the literary language for a long, long time.

 

[frustrated progressive]

I really don't know. China probably had higher literacy rates than Europe, and Taiwan is more literate than Turkey (never mind Iraq). I think the benefits of the alphabet is overrated. Additionally, I'm thinking about how most of Central Asia used a single, alphabetic literary language into the 19th century (Chagatay Turkic), or how Arabic and Latin (both using alphabets) remained the literary language for a long, long time.

There is a difference between a literary language being for a narrow and prescribed purpose, and well, being the written language. Wasn't Central Asia (north of Samarkand) basically illiterate?

 

[Intransigent Southerner]

There is quite a lot of Mandarin/Wu/Yue/[insert Chinese variety] literature from Early Modern China, so Classical Chinese was not the sole written language. And I would argue that for much of the medieval world, Arabic and Latin were the written languages, as you say. Sanskrit for much of Classical Southeast Asia too.

Central Asia had a very developed written tradition north of Samarkand, primarily in Chagatai Turkic.

 

[darthfanta]

It got me thinking,I think that the latest is the North South Dynasty period.From my readings,it seems that aristocratic clans were the main supporters of regionalism.Until the reign of Wu Zetian,they dominated government posts and sponsored coups and rebellions in different government regimes.They despised government interference in local affairs and unlike the gentry of later periods actually had large political influence,money and soldiers to attempt rebellions or coups when the different aristocratic clans banded together.They also seem to despise clans from different areas.For example,they aristocrats from Guanzhong seems to be one block,those in the North China Plain seems to be another while those from the south of the Yangtze formed a third bloc.

 

[RousseauX]

Hm. End of the Han dynasty is the absolute latest. Keep the Three Kingdoms apart, and they'll eventually diverge. Wei shattered in the north, Wu united and sailing the seas in the south. Still, creating a more stable balance of powers in the Warring States period would be more viable, perhaps by keeping Qin from uniting them.

Not necessarily the Arab core shattered in the 20th century after centuries of unification under the Ottomans, China in the 1800s was probably as culturally diverse as the Arab world was

 

[Soulbound]

technically china is fragmented culturally right now today...... though there are many diffrent CHINESE culture groups so unless your excluding those and Tibet, Muslims, Mongolians, and various asian and Chinese cultures.....

 

[Admiral Matt]

I think a fragmented China at the cusp of modernization could definitely have resulted in a cultural separation. Mass education under regional states would have done wonders for solidifying regional particularism as well as existing language/cultural differences. Of course, that would itself require the presence of elites who are able to accept/promote this fragmentation, which didn't exist (much) in the post-1911 space.

This is an excellent point. There was a window there - unique in China's post-Qin history - when with the right motivation for the right groups, the whole country south of the Yangtze could have Balkanized. It was not the most likely outcome, but it was incontrovertibly there.

It's a strange thing, but despite the enormity of China's history, it was probably only the axial ages - whether pre-Qin or Western irruption - when this was feasible.