No, I'm genuinely confused by your claim that in order for Chinese to be similar to English in this manner, it would be "somehow unique among all human languages." These are contradictory ideas. That's why I was asking for clarity.
> I'm objecting to your argument that Chinese would be an incomprehensible mess if written alphabetically.
That's fine, but it runs directly counter to your initial comment. If a phonetic transcription would make Chinese just as easy to understand as it is written now, it would be quite different from English, and almost every other written language, all of which include non-phonetic elements in order to facilitate reading.
I'm not sure what's confusing you. You laid out your initial argument clearly. I laid out my response clearly.
Now, you're obsessing over some pretty obvious misinterpretations of what I've written, and you're ignoring the argument you yourself initially made.
> If a phonetic transcription would make Chinese just as easy to understand as it is written now, it would be quite different from English, and almost every other written language, all of which include non-phonetic elements in order to facilitate reading
Pinyin, the phonetic transcription of Standard Chinese, is written with spaces and punctuation. You're going on about something that doesn't exist.
> I'm objecting to your argument that Chinese would be an incomprehensible mess if written alphabetically.
That's fine, but it runs directly counter to your initial comment. If a phonetic transcription would make Chinese just as easy to understand as it is written now, it would be quite different from English, and almost every other written language, all of which include non-phonetic elements in order to facilitate reading.