# How did they send messages in Chinese, using Morse Code? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 27, 2015, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-send-messages-in-chinese-using-morse-code/718609 "2015-04-27T02:31:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-send-messages-in-chinese-using-morse-code/718609/1 "2015-04-27T02:31:46Z")
Did they have to translate it into another language first? ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-send-messages-in-chinese-using-morse-code/718609/2 "2015-04-27T02:49:47Z")
Chinese Telegraph Code ---
**Author:** ![rsa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@rsa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsa)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-send-messages-in-chinese-using-morse-code/718609/3 "2015-04-27T02:59:09Z")
[Interesting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_telegraph_code). > [@](#): > > The PRC’s Standard Telegraph Codebook (Ministry of Post and Telecommunications 2002) provides codes for approximately 7,000 Chinese characters. > > Senders convert their messages written with Chinese characters to a sequence of digits according to the codebook. For instance, the phrase 中文信息 (Zhōngwén xìnxī), meaning “information in Chinese,” is rendered into the code as 0022 2429 0207 1873. It is transmitted using the Morse code. Receivers decode the Morse code to get a sequence of digits, chop it into an array of quadruplets, and then decode them one by one referring to the book. ---
**Author:** ![Obtenebrate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9f8e36/32.png) [@Obtenebrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Obtenebrate)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-send-messages-in-chinese-using-morse-code/718609/4 "2015-04-27T04:18:13Z")
That certainly seems harder than simply learning to translate letter by letter but I haven’t learned to do either, let alone both, so I could be wrong. In some ways, it kind of sounds like translating into another language- I could see an experienced operator knowing certain words and phrases without having to look in the book, that are either commonly used or of enough importance to be strictly memorized, but any unfamiliar statements and they would have to check the codebook. Which is exactly what you would expect from someone learning a language, knowing common or important phrases but needing to look at their translation dictionary when new words came up. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-send-messages-in-chinese-using-morse-code/718609/5 "2015-04-27T08:51:29Z")
An experienced radio operator (in English) would be able to ‘read’ a morse signal from another experienced operator much as we ‘read’ a stream of words. There are also the ‘Q’ codes which translate as common phrases. No doubt the Chinese, and presumably all countries that don’t use the alphabet, have something similar - maybe an extended set. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-send-messages-in-chinese-using-morse-code/718609/6 "2015-04-27T14:57:18Z")
Using Morse code for the digits seems an excessive waste of effort. Just adopting a simpler code that just encodes numbers would get you a four times improvement in information density. Let alone looking at an appropriate coding that took frequency of use into account.