The Chinese Language is Inefficient

The Language Log blog acts as if all languages are equally good, but reading it convinces me otherwise. It reguarly has items that are difficult or impossible to translate.

Consider this gripe:

The anguish is very real. My wife had a character in her name that most computers will not reproduce ([石羡]), despite it being relatively common in names in our part of the world, and has been refused bank accounts, credit cards, and a mortgage because of it. In the end she changed her name rather than continue to deal with the hassle. The character is in the standard, but it was too late for us.

The phonetic alphabet was invented about 5k years ago, and improved by the Greeks about 3.5k years ago. But the invention has not reached China or Japan yet, and their languages do not computerize very well.

They would be much better off if they all learned English, and abolished the Chinese language.