"Chinese characters (and similar writing systems) do have certain advantages versus alphabetic systems though."
You end up with much lower population literacy rate than countries with alphabetic systems. ex) China at 92% vs Korea at 99%.
Hangul was created 600 years ago to counter the difficulties faced by ordinary citizens attempting to memorize the Chinese alphabets. Hangul also by far one of the more exotic alphabet system. This video sums it up nicely:
You end up with much lower population literacy rate than countries with alphabetic systems. ex) China at 92% vs Korea at 99%.
Hangul was created 600 years ago to counter the difficulties faced by ordinary citizens attempting to memorize the Chinese alphabets. Hangul also by far one of the more exotic alphabet system. This video sums it up nicely:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUr9t0bqmc0