The Chinese Typewriter: A History by Thomas S. Mullaney

Chinese writing is character based, the one major world script that is neither alphabetic nor syllabic. Through the years, the Chinese written language encountered presumed alphabetic universalism in the form of Morse Code, Braille, stenography, Linotype, punch cards, word processing, and other systems developed with the Latin alphabet in mind. This book is about those encounters -- in particular thousands of Chinese characters versus the typewriter and its QWERTY keyboard. Thomas Mullaney describes a fascinating series of experiments, prototypes, failures, and successes in the century-long quest for a workable Chinese typewriter.

The earliest Chinese typewriters, Mullaney tells us, were figments of popular imagination, sensational accounts of twelve-foot keyboards with 5,000 keys. One of the first Chinese typewriters actually constructed was invented by a Christian missionary, who organized characters by common usage (but promoted the less-common characters for "Jesus" to the common usage level). Later came typewriters manufactured for use in Chinese offices, and typewriting schools that turned out trained "typewriter girls" and "typewriter boys." Still later was the "Double Pigeon" typewriter produced by the Shanghai Calculator and Typewriter Factory, the typewriter of choice under Mao. Clerks and secretaries in this era experimented with alternative ways of organizing characters on their tray beds, inventing an arrangement method that was the first instance of "predictive text."

Today, after more than a century of resistance against the alphabetic, not only have Chinese characters prevailed, they form the linguistic substrate of the vibrant world of Chinese information technology. The Chinese Typewriter, not just an "object history" but grappling with broad questions of technological change and global communication, shows how this happened.

"The Chinese Typewriter is a fascinating and extensive study into the characteristics of the Chinese language."
- Ai Weiwei

"How to make a typewriter for a language that has a discrete picture for each word? Here's the story of a century of experiments. Fascinating."
- Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Woman Warrior, China Men, and Tripmaster Monkey

"Mullaney reveals a topic I have always attempted to investigate through my art. The book is not about the tool itself, but the characteristics of Chinese-writing cultures. It explains what is behind Chinese thinking and its unique working method, and why China is what it is today."
- Xu Bing, artist; creator of Book from the Sky and Square Word Calligraphy

"The Chinese Typewriter is lucidly written and brilliantly conceived. This book will help readers understand and appreciate China, the Chinese language, and writing in general with greater and necessary nuance."
- Lisa Gitelman, editor of "Raw Data" Is an Oxymoron and author of Paper Knowledge

"The Chinese Typewriter is a fascinating book: in the light of new developments in computer science, Thomas Mullaney brings us a completely different interpretation of nonalphabetic Chinese and the modern fate of Chinese culture through the historical lens of the Chinese typewriter. This is a rich book that encompasses different resources, historical insights, and intriguing storytelling from long and broad perspectives."
- Wang Hui, Professor of Literature and History, Tsinghua University; author of China's Twentieth Century)