[zerof1l]

It would be interesting to see a study comparing languages where writing encodes sounds like English versus languages where writing encodes meaning, like Chinese. And also how a person’s visual and auditory capabilities relate to reading. Because languages like English need both I think.

I’m learning Japanese, and I’ve started learning Chinese characters, both their meanings and how to read them. Reading them feels different than English... I have a hypothesis that our brains work differently when processing symbols that encode meanings as opposed to just sounds. English requires an extra step, where characters are translated into sounds and then into words.

With Chinese characters, you are immediately looking at the meaning; you don’t need translation into sounds. This feels like a more efficient process cognitively to me, even though I have to memorize to recognize more characters.

[colechristensen]

Here's an fMRI study of reading Japanese Hiragana (phonetic), Kanji (logographic) and English as the reader's second language.

They all activate different regions of the brain and clearly are being processed in different ways.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2782536/

[AlotOfReading]

The other major branch of the sino-tibetan languages is traditionally written in alphabetic scripts like Tibetan. If there's a meaningful practical difference associated with what kind of writing system you use, it's not obvious to me what it would be. Modern English is much less phonetic than classical Tibetan as well.

[HPsquared]

English does encode meaning in the spelling, and the connection between spelling and pronunciation is loose at best.

The spelling of a word is more connected to the meaning than it is to the pronunciation.