By Tim Gingrich

Illustration: Liu Rui

A complex system of code that facilitates conversations, collaboration and the exchange of media across a geographically diverse and culturally complex demographic— in today’s digital age, such a description could apply to only one thing: the Internet. But thousands of years before the dawn of the Digital Age, only one thing on earth could have lived up to such a claim: Chinese.

Before the adoption of Mandarin as China’s national lingua franca in the early 20th century, daily communication for a great many Chinese people was routinely carried out in one of thousands of regional dialects, some of which were confined to a very narrow geography. There are even examples of neighboring villages speaking mutually unrecognizable dialects.

For thousands of years, what linked these linguistically diverse communities together – despite their verbal variety – was a shared written script understood and relied upon by leaders, scholars and merchants across the country. At the time of its invention some 5,000 years ago, the Chinese written language represented an innovation comparable to the Internet. Its social properties rivaled today’s social media.

Everything from official documents to famous novels was “uploaded” to Chinese for people all across the country to read. Traces of this ancient information superhighway are even embedded in the modern languages of neighboring countries, such as Japanese “kanji” and Korean “hanja” – both of which are derived from ancient Chinese characters.

So what can the history of the Chinese language tell us about the future of the Internet? First, the Internet will not eradicate local niches. Even today, more than a half-century since Mandarin was standardized as the national spoken language in China, regional dialects remain. They are not just merely an afterthought but a hallmark of regional diversity in modern-day China, where it is common for people to speak Mandarin at work or school and their dialect at home or with relatives.

In the same way, the Internet promises not only to connect disparate communities but also to preserve and reinvigorate pockets of interest. We’re already seeing such a trend in the proliferation of social networks. At one time, everyone spoke either MySpace or Facebook. But now a slew of options have appeared that allow people to build smaller-scale communities.

For example, InterNations. org is a social network that appeals exclusively to expatriates living in various countries, reinforcing its positioning with periodic meet-ups in international cities. Snooth.com specializes in connecting wine lovers. And Ning.com allows users to custom-create their own online social community around any interest.

Next, the Internet, like Mandarin, is the future of every communication medium. Most major newspapers have already caught on and are replicating their publications online. Huffingtonpost.com is an example of a “native speaker” – a newspaper that has lived its whole life online. So it will be with television. Research already shows younger audiences increasingly tuning into China’s video websites Youku and Tudou. The trend by many major television networks to broadcast their content online is a prelude to the eventual extinction of traditional broadcast in favor of online, on-demand content.

Finally, despite common belief, English is not the universal language – the Internet is. And like ancient Chinese, it will shape the social, economic and even political landscape for centuries to come.

Therefore, while many organizations have so far considered online as one of many components in their total communication strategy, the day is coming and has now come when websites, Web apps, widgets and a host of other social tools will form the mainstay of every entities’ external relations.
 

The author is a corporate communicator from the US now living in Beijing. He is the author of the blog gotoofareast.com and a student of the Chinese language