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The development of Singapore's Chinese characters can be divided into three periods.
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Radicals which are not simplified:
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History
Before 1969, Singapore usedtraditional Chinese characters
Traditional Chinese characters are one type of standard Chinese character sets of the contemporary written Chinese. The traditional characters had taken shapes since the clerical change and mostly remained in the same structure they took at ...
. From 1969, the Ministry of Education
An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...
promulgated the ''Table of Simplified Characters'' (), which differed from the Chinese Character Simplification Scheme
The Chinese Character Simplification Scheme () is the standardized simplification of Chinese characters promulgated in the 1950s by the State Council of the People's Republic of China. It contains the existing Simplified Chinese characters that a ...
of the China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
. After 1976, Singapore fully adopted the simplified Chinese characters
Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters used in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore, as prescribed by the ''Table of General Standard Chinese Characters''. Along with traditional Chinese characters, they are one o ...
of the People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
. In 1977, the second attempt to simplify the characters was stopped, ending the long period of confusion associated with simplification.
1969 Table of Simplified Characters
The 1969 ''Table of Simplified Characters'' was also known as the "502 Table of Simplified Characters" or simply "502". This table listed a total of 502 commonly used Simplified Characters. It contains 11 characters unique to Singapore, 38 characters simplified in different ways compared to that ofmainland China
"Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...
, and 29 characters whose left or right radical were not simplified.
Simplification examples are as follows:
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Different ways of simplification as compared to those of Mainland China
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* (meaning "table")
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Radicals which are not simplified:
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See also
*Singaporean Mandarin
Singaporean Mandarin () is a variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken natively in Singapore. It is one of the four official languages of Singapore along with English, Malay and Tamil.
Singaporean Mandarin can be classified into two distinct Manda ...
* Singdarin
Colloquial Singaporean Mandarin, commonly known as Singdarin or Singnese, is a Mandarin dialect native and unique to Singapore similar to its English-based counterpart Singlish. It is based on Mandarin but has a large amount of English and Mal ...
* Languages of Singapore
A multitude of languages are used in Singapore. It consists of several varieties of languages under the families of the Austronesian languages, Dravidian languages, Indo-European languages and Sino-Tibetan languages. According to the Constitut ...
* Simplified Chinese characters
Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters used in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore, as prescribed by the ''Table of General Standard Chinese Characters''. Along with traditional Chinese characters, they are one o ...
* ''Shinjitai
are the simplified forms of kanji used in Japan since the promulgation of the Tōyō Kanji List in 1946. Some of the new forms found in ''shinjitai'' are also found in Simplified Chinese characters, but ''shinjitai'' is generally not as extensiv ...
'', for the specific forms of simplified Chinese characters used in Japan
* variant Chinese characters
Variant Chinese characters (; Kanji: ; Hepburn: ''itaiji''; ; Revised Romanization: ''icheja'') are Chinese characters that are homophones and synonyms. Most variants are allographs in most circumstances, such as casual handwriting. Some contexts ...
(or ''itaiji'')
References
{{Reflist Chinese scripts Chinese-Singaporean culture Spelling reform 1969 introductions 1969 in Singapore