Problems
The sheer difficulties posed by having two concurrent writing systems hinders communications between mainland China and other regions, although with exposure and experience a person educated in one system can quickly become familiar with the other system. For those who know both systems well, converting an entire document written using simplified characters to traditional characters, or vice versa, is a trivial but laborious task. Automated conversion, however, from simplified to traditional is not straightforward because there is not always a one-to-one mapping of a simplified character to a traditional character. One simplified character may equate to many traditional characters. As a result, a computer can be used for the bulk of the conversion but will still need final checking by a human. The writer Ba Jin, in his essay "Thoughts: Reform of Chinese characters" (), urged caution in any reforms to the written Chinese language. He cited the inability of those educated in Hong Kong or Taiwan to read material published on the mainland, and vice versa, as a great disadvantage of simplified Chinese. He also cited the ability to communicate, not just with Chinese peoples of various regions, but also with people from across the Chinese cultural sphere—countries such asCulture
Simplified characters
Proponents say that the Chinese writing system has been changing for millennia: it passed through the Oracle Script, Bronzeware Script, Seal Script, and Clerical Script stages. Moreover, the majority of simplified characters are drawn from conventional abbreviated forms that have been used in handwriting for centuries such as the use of 礼 instead of 禮, and some simplified characters are in fact restorations of ancient forms that had become more complicated over time. For instance, the character for "cloud" was originally 云 in early inscriptions, but the character was borrowed to write a homophonous word meaning "to say". To disambiguate the two uses of the character, the "rain" radical (Traditional characters
While some simplified characters were adopted from conventional abbreviated forms that have existed for a long time, those advocating the simplified forms often fail to point out that many such characters in fact had multiple vernacular forms out of which just one was chosen, arbitrarily, and then privileged by the designers of the simplified character scheme. Many of the changes can be seen as ideological, such as the removal of the "heart" (心) from the word "love" (愛) into the new character (爱) without heart. To some, the new 'heartless' love character is an attack on Confucianism, which emphasizes the virtues of filial piety and humanity in relationships so as to maintain a harmonious society. Supporters of simplification argue that the removal of the heart radical occurred in the context of calligraphy in ancient times and was not viewed in an anti-Confucian light. A variant form without the heart radical appears in the '' Kangxi Dictionary'' under the head character 愛. Moreover, the simplified form 爱 is well-attested in the semi-cursive script calligraphy from imperial times, appearing in the work of Sui dynasty calligrapher Zhi Guo (智果) and Emperor Taizong of Tang and has appeared in calligraphic works from the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties. Pro-traditional commentators argue that the changes through the history are almost exclusively alterations in writing styles, especially vernacular writing, and not in the fundamental structure of the characters—especially after the Qin standardization. They have alleged that simplified characters were arbitrarily schematized and then imposed by the PRC on its people with the intention of subverting and eradicating selected elements of traditional Chinese culture, in order to carry out what the PRC viewed as necessary revolutionary modernization. These critics point out that many of the fundamental characteristics underlying Chinese characters, includingLiteracy
Arguments for simplified characters
*Proponents feel that simplified Chinese characters with fewer strokes make learning easier, and is evidenced by the rapid decline in illiteracy in mainland China.Gunde, Richard. (2002). Culture and Customs of China. Greenwood Press. *Proponents point out that, although Taiwan and Hong Kong have a higher literacy rate while using traditional Chinese characters, illiteracy in mainland China is much more difficult to eradicate due to having population 50 times larger and landmass 260 times bigger, and thus illiteracy should not be attributed to script usage.Arguments for traditional characters
*Users of traditional characters point out that the literacy rate of Taiwan and Hong Kong is higher than that of mainland China, compared for the same year. It is also argued that the fact that mainland China is much larger and more populous than Taiwan or Hong Kong does not excuse a lower rate of literacy, as by definition a literacyAmbiguity
Clarity of simplified characters
*Proponents feel that some traditional characters are too similar in appearance, such as 書 (''shū'') "book", 晝 (''zhòu'') "daytime", and 畫/畵 (''huà'') "drawing": in contrast, the simplified forms which are 书, , and respectively are much more distinct. *Furthermore, the merging of characters in simplified chinese does not create confusion in vernacular usage. Classical Chinese mainly used one character for one word, which made it commonplace for one character to have multiple meanings and multiple pronunciations (e.g., "天" means "sky" (天苍苍), "heaven" (天将降大任), "nature" (浑然天成), "weather" (心忧炭贱愿天寒); "长" means "length" (''cháng'', 长一身有半), "specialty" (''cháng'', 一技之长), "grow" (''zhǎng'', 草木遂长), "senior" (''zhǎng'', 以君为长者), etc.). Context is vital to determining the meaning of a certain character in Classical Chinese. After the early 1900s' Vernacular Chinese movement, compound words were formed by multiple characters (usually two), and these words usually have only one meaning: "天空" meaning "sky", "上天" meaning "heaven", "天然" meaning "nature", "天气" meaning "weather", "长度" meaning "length", "生长" meaning "grow", etc. Context is not necessary to determine the meaning of a certain word. Thus, the act of merging characters which forms homophones, does not create confusion when using Vernacular Chinese (e.g., "头发" (頭髮, ''fà'') meaning "hair", "出发" (出發, ''fā'') meaning "set off", "谷物" (穀物, ''gǔ'') meaning "grain", "山谷" (''gǔ'') meaning "valley"). Hence, simplification reduces the number of characters one would need to learn for everyday life.Clarity of traditional characters
*Opponents cite a similar argument where the simplification of once distinct characters have made them more difficult to discern apart. A common example is 無 (''wú'') for "none", simplified into , which appears very similar to the character 天 (''tiān'') for "sky". Another example would be 設 (''shè'') for "designate", and 沒 (''méi'') for "without", which are quite hard to distinguish apart in their simplified forms 设 and and can result in confusion in quick handwriting or calligraphic fonts. This type of confusion has happened before for the characters 讀 (''dú'') for "read" and 瀆 (''dú'') for "showing disrespect" which were confused for each other in their simplified forms 读 and 渎 respectively. This disparity between leaving standalone characters unsimplified but taking the grass script form whenever applicable could lead to confusion with other similar looking components and contributes to the obscurity of its semantic value. *Similarly, some simplified characters create more confusion. In traditional Chinese, 千 (''qiān'') "thousand", and 乾 (''gān'') "dry" are very different characters. In simplified Chinese, they appear to be almost identical, being 千 and 干, respectively. *Simplified Chinese characters frequently include merged characters, which opponents view as baseless and arbitrary: 後 (''hòu'', "behind") and 后 (''hòu'', "queen") are both simplified into 后. Likewise, 隻 (''zhī'', a measure word) and 只 (''zhǐ'', "only") are merged into 只; 發 (''fā'', "happening") and 髮 (''fà'', "hair") are merged into 发; 麵 (''miàn'', noodles/flour) and 面 (''miàn'', face/side/surface) are merged into 面; 穀 (''gǔ'', "crop") and 谷 (gǔ, "valley") are merged into 谷, and so on. *On 3 September 1993, the Board of Language Usage & Applications of China permitted and reintroduced the usage of the character ‘鎔’ and released a new policy of ''Resolution for the Complication in Using Character ‘鎔’ and Its Usage Reintroduction'' (《关于"鎔"字使用问题的批复》). The movement was an attempt in trying to resolve the controversy caused by the conflict between the lawful mergers of characters of ‘鎔’and ‘熔’ and the name usage of former Vice Premier Zhu Rongji. According to earlier Chinese laws regarding Chinese Language Simplification, character ‘鎔’ should have always been written as ‘熔’; however, Zhu Rongji insisted on writing ‘鎔’ when it came down to writing his name because he was originally named in the character ‘鎔’ but not ‘熔’. Thus, the Board later reintroduced the character. Proponents of traditional characters thus argue against the use of simplified chinese, especially when it comes down to mergers of characters in names of historical heroes, scholars, philosophers, and political figures. They also report trouble in flight reservations when traveling in and out of mainland China due to the mergers of characters. On top of all that has been previously mentioned, the left-side radical of 鎔 (which is the left-side version of 金) is almost never seen in simplified characters, since it has largely been replaced by the simplified left-side radical seen in characters like 银, 铜, and 钱. *Professor Wang, at Beijing University of Education, also the Vice President of Chinese Language Association, and an official of Ministry of Education of China, agreed and criticized that some characters were oversimplified during the simplification campaign, and thus became counterproductively more difficult to learn, apply, and use. Wang particularly pointed at merged characters borne with these problems.Speed of writing
Simplified characters
*Simplified characters have fewer strokes in general. For example, the common character 邊 (''biān'', meaning "side") has 18 strokes, while its simplified form 边 has only 5. Proponents of simplification claim that this makes them faster to write. *People educated in traditional characters will often make extensive ad-hoc character simplifications in their handwriting to save time. This is similar to the practice of using abbreviations in informal written English (i.e., "thru" for "through") and proponents of traditional characters reply that this does not mean that the informal simplifications should be adopted as standard. Even in Taiwan where simplified characters are prohibited in official documents, signs can also sometimes have simplified characters. For example, 魯菜 is sometimes simplified as 鲁菜, as the character 鲁 and its variant 魯 would hardly be distinguishable if they were written with large strokes.Traditional characters
*Proponents of the counterargument posit that the speed advantage of simplified Chinese becomes less relevant in the internet age. With modern computing, entering Chinese characters is now dependent on the convenience of input method editors or IMEs. Most IMEs use phoneme-based input, such as pinyin romanization orPhonetics
Relation with simplified characters
*Proponents point out that Chinese characters are most often made up of a pronunciation-indicating part (called the ''phonetic'') and a part that indicates the generalRelation with traditional characters
*Opponents point out that some simplified forms undermine the phonetics of the original characters, e.g., 盤 (''pán'', plate) has the phonetic component 般 (''bān'') on top, but the simplified form is 盘, whose upper part is now 舟 (''zhōu''). 盧 (''lú'', aRadicals
Simplified radicals
*Proponents say that the radical system is imperfect in the first place. For example, 笑 (smile, laugh) uses the "bamboo" radical, which has no obvious relation to smiling or laughing.Traditional radicals
*Some argue that simplification results in a broken connection between characters, which makes it more difficult for students to expand their vocabulary in terms of perceiving both the meaning and pronunciation of a new character. For example, 鬧, ''nào'' (din, fuss) is now 闹, with the door radical 门 that is not indicative of its meaning. *The round of characters simplified by the Communist Party was not systematic.McBride-Chang, Catherine. Chen, Hsuan-Chih. (2003). Reading development in Chinese Children. Praeger/Greenwood publishing. . Extensive studies have been conducted among different age groups, especially children, to show that reducing the strokes loses the radical and phonetic relationships between the characters. This actually makes it more difficult for simplified character readers to distinguish the characters, since they now rely heavily on memorization. * Some traditional characters are very distinct, such as electricity/lightning 電 ''diàn'', rope 繩 ''shéng'', and turtle 龜 ''gūi''. After the simplification process, all three characters appear to share the same component even though they have no relationship at all. Respectively: electricity 电, rope 绳, turtle 龟 can now conceivably be mistaken for one another, while their distinctions in the traditional forms are unmistakable. The simplification of the word electricity/lightning 電 to 电 also removed its semantic component. Stripped of its radical, 电 no longer bears any sense of semantic affinity with characters like snow 雪, thunder 雷, and hail 雹, themselves all untouched in the PRC simplification scheme. The same radical was similarly removed in the simplification of "clouds" 雲 to 云. * The disparity between leaving standalone characters unsimplified by taking the cursive script form whenever applicable (such as in 食, 金, 糸, and 言) has been evidenced to hinder character recognition in young children by a large degree. *Critics of the proposed replacement for the traditional system of radicals see the new system as being no less arbitrary than the existing system, it therefore only complicates matters to introduce a competing standard that as a radical departure from traditional radical arrangement might cause more confusion than simplification.Aesthetics
Simplified aesthetics
*Simplified Chinese characters are more legible when small fonts are used, or if the electronic display has a low resolution. The fine details of traditional Chinese characters are easy to discern in large sizeTraditional aesthetics
*The problem with the displaying of certain traditional Chinese characters is largely irrelevant as characters are recognizable by their shape and form as a whole and not by each individual stroke. Moreover, as one gets used to reading traditional Chinese characters, the initial discomfort from having to read them on small screens or fonts is likely to fade away. *Aesthetic continuity with China's immense heritage of art, literature, and calligraphy is diminished by the supplanting of characters that have been in standard use for centuries with an arbitrary selection of vernacular and shorthand variants along with many invented forms that are nowhere to be found in most writings, inscriptions, and art made in China before the 20th century. *Traditional Chinese characters are often used as the standard characters set in Chinese calligraphy in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and are even allowed for calligraphy in the PRC, presumably because of its aesthetic value. *A strong preference for the aesthetics of traditional characters among Mainland Chinese is evident in their significant usage of traditional forms in artistic work, signage, advertising, and internet screen names. *Even though about 30% of simplified Chinese characters match simplified kanji, those who understand traditional Chinese will understand a much greater proportion of Japanese Kanji, as the current standard Japanese character set is much more similar to traditional Chinese. *Simplified characters, such as 门 for 門 (''mén'', door) look like the universal informal handwritten form, and look as improper asPracticality
Practicality of simplified characters
*Traditional Chinese characters are only still used primarily by those in Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong, and many overseas communities, comprising a small minority of the Chinese-speaking population (~50 million people). However, they also remain in use in mainland China for artistic, scholarly, and advertising purposes. Simplified Chinese has come to dominate the written form of Chinese used nearly all over the world, due to the size and rising influence of mainland China. The United Nations has also used simplified Chinese since 1973. Moving back to traditional characters on the mainland has the potential to be difficult, confusing, and time-consuming. *Chinese text written before the 20th century was in Classical Chinese, which is much different from the written vernacular Chinese used today, even in traditional characters. Learning to read the older texts requires additional study, even from Chinese-speakers educated in traditional characters. Many versions of the Chinese Classics have been published in simplified characters. *Acceptance of simplified characters is increasing, mirroring acceptance of the pinyin romanization system that was once a PRC and now an international standard, although with much greater resistance and to a significantly lesser extent. In the 1960s and 1970s, Chinese as a foreign language was taught in countries like France and the United States solely in traditional characters. In the 1990s, universities in the United States were split between simplified and traditional, with simplified growing and traditional being taught mainly for the benefit of those who wish to learn Classical Chinese, or Chinese for use in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, or overseas Chinese communities. Today, in terms of teaching and learning Chinese as a foreign language outside of China, the simplified characters has "become the first choice because of student demand". Regardless, some instructors allow students the choice to write in either simplified or traditional characters. *With today'sPracticality of traditional characters
*If the PRC was able to impose its scheme of simplified characters on the majority of Chinese people, then a reversion to the use of traditional characters could hardly be any less feasible. From the pro-traditional point of view, there is as much reason, if not more, to return to the traditional orthography, as there ever was to simplify in the first place. Furthermore, it would be fatalistic and patronizing to deem Chinese people incapable of learning the older forms due merely to the sheer prevalence of simplified characters' usage in most of China today. *While written communication with the large population of mainland China and other communities requires the use of simplified Chinese, there are compelling practical reasons which require the use of traditional characters. ThePolitics
The long history of Chinese characters and the role of the Chinese Communist Party in the design and adoption of simplified characters means that there is often a strong political aspect to the debate on the usage of traditional and simplified Chinese characters.Communist Party and simplified characters
*While the use of simplified Chinese is often associated with the PRC and its ruling Communist party, the connection today is not as simple as it once may have been. Many simplified Chinese texts are published outside of mainland China. Chinese newspapers in Singapore and Malaysia are mainly published in simplified Chinese, although overseas publications, such as in Chinese communities in the U.S., still mostly use traditional characters. Most university Chinese programs in the United States and France teach simplified characters, and the number continues to rise. The internet is also increasingly diverse, with many websites, including Wikipedia, offering an easy switch between simplified and traditional scripts. *Character simplification began in 1956 and had origins going back to the early 20th century before the founding of the PRC. Even the Kuomintang developed a draft plan for character simplification in 1935, and, as late as 1946, made positive statements about simplified characters like "As long as it doesn't use omanizationor opomofo anything can be considered ''guoyu''". Character simplification was not a part of the Four Olds nor the Cultural Revolution (both began in the mid-1960s). Whether traditional characters were "destroyed" or not is a matter of opinion, others might say they were "modified". *Simplified Chinese characters were not entirely developed by the PRC as some of the simplified characters were taken from Japanese Shinjitai, such as 学 from 學 (''xué'', to study). *Promotion of traditional characters is sometimes characterized as a Taiwanese plot to sabotage China's language policy and to promote Sinocentrism and Chinese cultural nationalism, thereby undermining China's relation with national minorities and isolating China from the world. *Those who use simplified characters often remark that the subject is a simple one which has been made overly complicated by political considerations. They claim that the use of simplified characters or traditional characters should be decided based on pragmatic or aesthetic reasons, not political ones. *The simplification process was part of a political revolution. At the time of creation, the study of writing system design was primitive and unempirical, and without a sophisticated understanding of the tradeoffs involved, the simplification process was considered careless and done poorly.Nationalist usage of traditional characters
*In the communities where traditional characters are used, simplified characters are strongly associated with Maoism and iconoclasm and so they are viewed very negatively. By extension, continued use of traditional characters has been a conspicuous way of maintaining national cultural identity.Guo, Yingjie. (2004). Routledge. Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary China: The Search for National Identity under reform. . School children in these areas are strongly discouraged from using simplified characters. In Taiwan especially, simplified characters have been regarded as "Communist" (viz. PRC propaganda), and accordingly they are quite diligently avoided. *More specifically, character simplification, in light of the destructive, "Anti- Four Olds" during the Cultural Revolution, is sometimes characterized a "Communist plot" to cut off traditional Chinese culture and values.Rohsenow, John SDevelopments in the 21st century
In recent years, the official Campaign of Simplification of Chinese Language has caused many controversial discussions in the general public to higher level of the government in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and among some international organizations.2007
In November 2007, scholars and representatives from2008
In March 2008, a Mainland author, Wang Gan, published a review article on his personal blog about the possibility of the reintroduction of Traditional Chinese, ''What About Abolishing Simplified Chinese within the Next 50 Years?''. Later Sina.com invited Wang Gan for an interview on his views on the history reasons and deficiencies of simplified Chinese characters. Twenty-one members of the2009
In early 2009, the ROC ( Taiwan) government launched a campaign to obtain World Heritage status for Traditional Chinese characters in a bid to preserve them for the future. At the Eleventh National People's Congress, a representative from Taiwan, Ms Chen Jun, called for the Chinese government to support the world heritage campaign. She also suggested the introduction of Traditional Characters education into mainland primary and secondary education to improve passion for and understanding of traditional Chinese culture and language. During a March 2009 CPPCC meeting, member Pan Qinglin proposed that simplified characters should be abolished and Traditional Character usage reimplemented over the course of ten years. His proposal was widely criticized as frivolous. At the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences China Studies Forum in April 2009, it was announced that some adjustments would be made to the simplified characters. Experts acknowledged that some of the earlier character simplifications were problematic and inhibited understanding. Academics expressed support for the concept of "know traditional, write simplified" and specifically rejected the idea of reintroducing traditional characters as too costly and impractical. They cited a survey of ninety-one top-ranked senior classical Chinese literature and Chinese language students from Beijing Normal University testing their ability to write Traditional Characters, which only three students passed.2010s
During the 2014 Two Sessions, Wu Shimin deputy to the National People's Congress, proposed the PRC should "restore traditional Chinese characters and inherit traditional culture" for discussion. During the 2019 Two Sessions, a member of the CPPCC put forward the "Proposal on the Education of Traditional Chinese Characters in Primary and Secondary Schools", theSee also
*Notes
In Taiwan, traditional characters are officially known as "proper characters" (), while most Chinese speakers outside Taiwan, whether using simplified or traditional characters, refer to traditional characters as "complex characters" ().References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Debate On Traditional And Simplified Chinese Characters Chinese characters Logographic writing systems Chinese orthography Graphemes Linguistic controversies Simplified Chinese characters Language comparison Controversies in China