>>216391570
Chinese mostly understood language as a bureaucratic implement until the 20th century, if you could memorize the random hieroglyphics then you could get a job as a bureaucrat even if you were functionally retarded in everything else. You could also become a eunuch for a government job with no other qualifications needed. Japanese sperged out as well because their bureaucrats didn't want to get rid of the language and you must understand that these were the only civilized people, there was no one else to appease apart from literal warlords. So to keep these civilized people in power the language had to stay. Manchu script was more functional than Chinese script, it was the main language of the Qing bureaucracy, westerners wanted Chinese in charge so they championed the schizo hieroglyphics instead. Jesuits were particularly obsessed with them, Tibetan script could have easily became the main Asiatic language because they all knew of Buddhism, but this never happened because bureaucrats preferred their hieroglyphics.