True in the 19th century and before, and in 1910-45 also a method of making the language more accessible to the Japanese rulers. But nowadays IMO most of the extraneous agenda’s are on the anti-character side. The characters are practically helpful to more deeply understand the majority of the words in the language which are Chinese derived, and to learn the other languages that use them. Against which one could make the argument, ‘yes but it takes too much time’. But seems to me petty nationalism creeps in on the anti-character side. I don’t see much evidence of social reaction or pro-Japanese colonialism among people saying the characters are useful to learn.
I once read a blog written by someone who traveled to NK and he described their accent as “twangy” compared to SK.
It’s not obvious … but folks in Glasgow, Scotland speak English … not obvious at all …
East and West Germans had no problem linguistically - apart from all sorts of DDR jargon relating to various socio-economic arrangements and practices, and (to Western ears) curiously bureaucratised formulations (one I remember is Winkelmaterial - “waving materials” - things to dole out for the masses to show enthusiasm at all those stage-managed rallies and parades). There’s a fair number of books about it. But those are only slightly more hindrances to communication than regional dialect differences (and to some extent maybe reflect pre-existing regional differences of accent and vocabulary) as exist in, say, the UK.
Come to think of it, I saw a documentary recently about a TV programme in South Korea that features North Korean refugees who come to tell their stories. They didn’t seem to have too many linguistic problems, even if the social and mental adjustments were tough.
I remember on a pbs political show when east and west Germany reunited they pointed out that even though Germany had had a national dictionary for a couple of centuries the eastern version didn’t have about 200 words that the western one did
mostly the words concerned capitalism and democracy
From what my Brazilian family members say, it seems that for many the Spanish/Portuguese combination is a one-way street, with Portuguese speakers understanding spoken Spanish better than the other way around. My theory is that the extra vowel sounds in Portuguese complicate things, and it usually seems that common Spanish words match the ten-dollar word in Portuguese (e.g. *olvidar *exists in Portuguese, but people use esquecer).
That’s for careful conversation directly with the Spanish speaker… As a fellow once told me, when two women start talking between themselves in their own Spanish dialect it’s all over, not one word can be deciphered.
Given the much greater number of Spanish speaking countries and Spanish speakers (~ 2x), Portuguese speakers are going to be more exposed to Spanish than the other way around. That’s going to make Portuguese speakers more familiar with the Spanish “accent” then Spanish speakers are towards the Portuguese “accent”.
I’m sure that is a major factor, though not necessarily the dominant one. I still think the reason is more profound, such as the origins of both languages and the presence of dipthongs in Portuguese; regardless, I do not have the appropriate linguistic background to do anything other than speculate. I will say that being a Portuguese speaker made it a breeze to test out of a couple of years of Spanish in college.