That argument can extend to any complicated system developed over hundreds and thousands of years. Off the top of my head, English Common Law is an example as well as English spelling and grammar. English is a horrible language with massive numbers of grammatical exceptions. I thank the many gods that I was born in an English speaking country.
Speaking of not knowing how to pronounce a Chinese character, that is not entirely true. Many of the characters you see in Chinese have a radical in the construct that indicates a sound. Unfortunately tone is not indicated.
Chinese won't be the new English, I agree. But emoji, which function exactly the same way Chinese characters do (image representing a meaning) are already an English augment.
Sort of an additional aside, there is a way to type a Chinese character by radical assemblage. So even if you don't know how to pronounce it by pinyin, you can still retype it into an e-dictionary. Similar method is used to look it up in a traditional dictionary. I never bothered to learn as it requires a touch typist skill to be fast enough to abandon the pinyin entry.
Speaking of not knowing how to pronounce a Chinese character, that is not entirely true. Many of the characters you see in Chinese have a radical in the construct that indicates a sound. Unfortunately tone is not indicated.
Chinese won't be the new English, I agree. But emoji, which function exactly the same way Chinese characters do (image representing a meaning) are already an English augment.
Sort of an additional aside, there is a way to type a Chinese character by radical assemblage. So even if you don't know how to pronounce it by pinyin, you can still retype it into an e-dictionary. Similar method is used to look it up in a traditional dictionary. I never bothered to learn as it requires a touch typist skill to be fast enough to abandon the pinyin entry.