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Simplified Chinese | |
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Script type | |
Time period | 1956–present |
Direction |
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Official script | |
Languages | Chinese |
Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Oracle bone script
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Sister systems | |
ISO 15924 | |
ISO 15924 | Hans(501),Han (Simplified variant) |
Simplified Chinese characters | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Simplified Chinese | 简化字 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 簡化字 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Alternative Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 简体字 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 簡體字 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Simplified Chinese characters are one of two standardized character sets widely used to write the Chinese language,with the other being traditional characters. Their mass standardization during the 20th century was part of an initiative by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to promote literacy,and their use in ordinary circumstances on the mainland has been encouraged by the Chinese government since the 1950s. [1] They are the official forms used in mainland China,Malaysia and Singapore,while traditional characters are officially used in Hong Kong,Macau,and Taiwan.
Simplification of a component—either a character or a sub-component called a radical—usually involves either a reduction in its total number of strokes,or an apparent streamlining of which strokes are chosen in what places—for example,the ⼓ 'WRAP' radical used in the traditional character 沒 is simplified to ⼏ 'TABLE' to form the simplified character 没. [2] By systematically simplifying radicals,large swaths of the character set are altered. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms that embody graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms. In addition,variant characters with identical pronunciation and meaning were reduced to a single standardized character,usually the simplest among all variants in form. Finally,many characters were left untouched by simplification and are thus identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies.
The Chinese government has never officially announced the completion of the simplification process after the bulk of characters were introduced by the 1960s. In the wake of the Cultural Revolution,a second round of simplified characters was promulgated in 1977—largely composed of entirely new variants intended to artificially lower the stroke count,in contrast to the first round—but was massively unpopular and never saw consistent use. The second round of simplifications was ultimately retracted officially in 1986,well after they had largely ceased to be used due to their unpopularity and the confusion they caused. In August 2009,China began collecting public comments for a revised list of simplified characters; [3] [4] [5] [6] the resulting Table of General Standard Chinese Characters lists 8,105 characters,including a few revised forms,and was implemented for official use by China's State Council on 5 June 2013. [7]
In Chinese, simplified characters are referred to by their official name 简化字; Jiǎnhuàzì, or colloquially as 简体字; ⓘ . The latter term refers broadly to all character variants featuring simplifications of character form or structure, [note 1] a practice which has always been present as a part of the Chinese writing system. The official name tends to refer to the specific, systematic set published by the Chinese government, which includes not only simplifications of individual characters, but also a substantial reduction in the total number of characters through the merger of formerly distinct forms. [9]
According to Chinese palaeographer Qiu Xigui, the broadest trend in the evolution of Chinese characters over their history has been simplification, both in graphical shape (字形; zìxíng), the "external appearances of individual graphs", and in graphical form (字体; 字體; zìtǐ), "overall changes in the distinguishing features of graphic[al] shape and calligraphic style, [...] in most cases refer[ring] to rather obvious and rather substantial changes". [10] The initiatives following the founding of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) to universalize the use of their small seal script across the recently conquered parts of the empire is generally seen as being the first real attempt at script reform in Chinese history.
According to the Book of Han (111 AD), an attempt had been made by King Xuan of Zhou (d. 782 BC) to unify character forms across the lands of the Zhou, with his chief chronicler having "[written] fifteen chapters describing" what is referred to as the "big seal script". The traditional narrative, as also attested in the Shuowen Jiezi dictionary (c. 100 AD), is that the Qin small seal script that would later be imposed across China was originally derived from the Zhou big seal script with few modifications. However, the body of epigraphic evidence comparing the character forms used by scribes gives no indication of any real consolidation in character forms prior to the founding of the Qin. [11] The Han dynasty that inherited the Qin administration coincided with the perfection of clerical script through the process of libian
New Culture Movement |
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Though most closely associated with the People's Republic, the idea of a mass simplification of character forms first gained traction in China during the early 20th century. In 1909, the educator and linguist Lufei Kui formally proposed the use of simplified characters in education for the first time. Over the following years—marked by the 1911 Xinhai Revolution that toppled the Qing dynasty, followed by growing social and political discontent that further erupted into the 1919 May Fourth Movement—many anti-imperialist intellectuals throughout China began to see the country's writing system as a serious impediment to its modernization. Many began calling for script reform, or even for Chinese characters to be entirely replaced with an alphabet. [12] During the 1930s and 1940s, discussions regarding simplification took place within the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party. Many members of the Chinese intelligentsia maintained that simplification would increase literacy rates throughout the country. In 1935, the first official list of simplified forms was published, consisting of 324 characters collated by Qian Xuantong. However, fierce opposition within the KMT resulted in the list being rescinded in 1936. [12]
One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lufei Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernize China as quickly as possible. Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged and subsequently blamed for their problems. Soon, people in the movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernizing China and therefore proposed that a reform be initiated. It was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Lu Xun, one of the most prominent Chinese authors of the 20th century, stated that "if Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die" (漢字不滅,中國必亡). Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the economic problems in China during that time. [13]
Work throughout the 1950s resulted in the 1956 promulgation of the Chinese Character Simplification Scheme . In 1965, the PRC published the List of Commonly Used Characters for Printing (hereafter Characters for Printing) revising the Chinese Character Simplification Scheme, which included standardized printed forms for 6196 characters. There had been simplification initiatives aimed at eradicating characters entirely and replacing them with pinyin as an official alphabet for Chinese, but this initiative was abruptly abandoned in 1958.[ citation needed ]
Within the country, further character simplification became associated with the political left in Chinese society, and ultimately with the Cultural Revolution. Efforts culminated with a second round of simplified characters promulgated in 1977. In part due to the shock and unease felt as the Cultural Revolution had wound down, and with Mao's death, the second round of simplifications was poorly received.[ citation needed ]
In 1986, authorities retracted the second round completely, though they had been largely fallen out of use within a year of their initial introduction. That year, the authorities also promulgated a final list of simplifications identical to the 1964 list save for 6 changes—including the restoration of 3 characters that had been simplified in the first round: 叠, 覆, 像; the form 疊 is used instead of 叠 in regions using traditional characters. The PRC stated that it wished to keep Chinese orthography stable.
In 2009, the Chinese government published a major revision to the list which included a total of 8,300 characters. No new simplifications were introduced. n addition, orthographies for 44 characters were proposed to be modified slightly to fit traditional calligraphic rules. Also, the practice of unrestricted simplification of rare and archaic characters by analogy using simplified radicals or components is now discouraged. A State Language Commission official cited "oversimplification" as the reason for restoring some characters. The language authority declared an open comment period until 31 August 2009, for feedback from the public. [6] The proposed orthographic changes to 44 characters were not implemented due to overwhelmingly negative public opinion. [14]
The 2013 Table of General Standard Chinese Characters contained 45 newly recognized standard characters that were previously considered variant forms, as well as official approval of 226 characters that had been simplified by analogy and had seen wide use but were not explicitly given in previous lists or documents.
Singapore underwent three successive rounds of character simplification, eventually arriving at the same set of simplified characters as mainland China. [15] The first round was promulgated by the Ministry of Education in 1969, consisting of 498 simplified characters derived from 502 traditional characters. A second round of 2287 simplified characters was promulgated in 1974. The second set contained 49 differences from the mainland China system; these were removed in the final round in 1976. In 1993, Singapore adopted the 1986 mainland China revisions. Unlike in mainland China, Singapore parents have the option of registering their children's names in traditional characters.
Malaysia also promulgated a set of simplified characters in 1981, though completely identical to the mainland Chinese set. They are used in Chinese-language schools.
In British Hong Kong, A small group called 导字社; 導字社; dou6 zi6 se5 (or 导字会; 導字會; dou6 zi6 wui6) attempted to introduce a special version of simplified characters using romanizations in the 1930s. Today, however, traditional characters remain dominant in Hong Kong.[ citation needed ]
All characters simplified this way are enumerated in Chart 1 and Chart 2 in the 1986 Complete List. Characters in both charts are structurally simplified based on similar set of principles. They are separated into two charts to clearly mark those in Chart 2 as 'usable as simplified character components', based on which Chart 3 is derived.
Merging homophonous characters:
Adapting cursive shapes (草書楷化):
Replacing a component with a simple arbitrary symbol (such as 又 and 乂):
Omitting entire components:
Omitting components, then applying further alterations:
Structural changes that preserve the basic shape
Replacing the phonetic component of phono-semantic compounds :
Replacing an uncommon phonetic component:
Replacing entirely with a newly coined phono-semantic compound:
Removing radicals
Only retaining single radicals
Replacing with ancient forms or variants: [note 2]
Adopting ancient vulgar variants: [note 2]
Readopting abandoned phonetic-loan characters:
Copying and modifying another traditional character:
Based on 132 characters and 14 components listed in Chart 2 of the Complete List, the 1,753 derived characters found in Chart 3 can be created by systematically simplifying components using Chart 2 as a conversion table. While exercising such derivation, the following rules should be observed:
Sample Derivations:
The Series One List of Variant Characters reduces the number of total standard characters. First, amongst each set of variant characters sharing identical pronunciation and meaning, one character (usually the simplest in form) is elevated to the standard character set, and the rest are made obsolete. Then amongst the chosen variants, those that appear in the "Complete List of Simplified Characters" are also simplified in character structure accordingly. Some examples follow:
Sample reduction of equivalent variants:
Ancient variants with simple structure are preferred:
Simpler vulgar forms are also chosen:
The chosen variant was already simplified in Chart 1:
In some instances, the chosen variant is actually more complex than eliminated ones. An example is the character 搾 which is eliminated in favor of the variant form 榨. The 扌 'HAND' with three strokes on the left of the eliminated 搾 is now seen as more complex, appearing as the ⽊ 'TREE' radical 木, with four strokes, in the chosen variant 榨.
Not all characters standardised in the simplified set consist of fewer strokes. For instance, the traditional character 強, with 11 strokes is standardised as 强, with 12 strokes, which is a variant character. Such characters do not constitute simplified characters.
The new standardized character forms shown in the Characters for Publishing and revised through the Common Modern Characters list tend to adopt vulgar variant character forms. Since the new forms take vulgar variants, many characters now appear slightly simpler compared to old forms, and as such are often mistaken as structurally simplified characters. Some examples follow:
The traditional component 釆 becomes 米:
The traditional component 囚 becomes 日:
The traditional "Break" stroke becomes the "Dot" stroke:
The traditional components ⺥ and 爫 become ⺈:
The traditional component 奐 becomes 奂:
A commonly cited example of the irregularity of simplification involves characters that share the "hand" component 又 , which is used in many simplified characters. While there is an observable pattern involving the replacement of 𦰩 with 又 as seen in 漢 → 汉, 難 → 难, 癱 → 瘫, 嘆 → 叹, 灘 → 滩, when observing that 歎 → 叹, 歡 → 欢, 勸 → 劝, 灌 (not simplified) and 罐 (not simplified), an inconsistency arises. This is due to the fact that in the Complete List of Simplified Characters, 漢 → 汉 appears in Chart 1 while 難 → 难 is listed in Chart 2 and 癱 → 瘫 as a derived character in the non-exhaustive list in Chart 3. Therefore, 难 is defined as a 'simplified character component' according to the standard, while 又 is not. Based on 难, 癱 is simplified to 瘫, and 灘 to 滩. Since both 歡 → 欢 and 勸 → 劝 appear in Chart 1, they are not defined as derived characters. There are therefore no characters or components found in Chart 2 usable for derivation of 灌 and 罐. Further investigation reveals that these two characters do not appear in Chart 1 nor in "Series One Organization List of Variant Characters". Thus they remain unchanged from traditional forms in the Common Modern Characters list.
The People's Republic of China and Singapore generally use simplified characters. They appear very sparingly in texts originating in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and overseas Chinese communities, although they are becoming more prevalent as mainland China becomes more integrated globally. Conversely, the mainland is seeing an increase in the use of traditional forms[ citation needed ] on signs and in logos, blogs, dictionaries, and scholarly works.
The Law of the People's Republic of China on the National Common Language and Characters implies that simplified Chinese characters are the country's standard script, with traditional Chinese being used for purposes such as ceremonies, cultural purposes such as calligraphy, for decoration, in publications and books on ancient literature and poetry, and for research purposes. Traditional characters remain ubiquitous on buildings that predate the promotion of simplified characters, such as former government buildings, religious buildings, educational institutions, and historical monuments. Traditional characters are also often used for commercial purposes, such as in shopfront displays and advertisements.
As part of the one country, two systems model, the PRC has not attempted to force Hong Kong or Macau into using simplified characters. The PRC tends to print material intended for people in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and overseas Chinese in traditional characters. For example, versions of the People's Daily are printed in traditional characters, and both People's Daily and Xinhua have traditional character versions of their website available, using Big5 encoding. Mainland companies selling products in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan use traditional characters in order to communicate with consumers; the inverse is equally true as well.
Dictionaries published in mainland China generally show both simplified and their traditional counterparts. In digital media, many cultural phenomena imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan into mainland China, such as music videos, karaoke videos, subtitled movies, and subtitled dramas, use traditional Chinese characters.
Textbooks, official statements, and newspapers show no signs of moving to simplified Chinese characters, including state-funded media. However, for example, Hong Konger students sometimes opt to write with simplified characters when taking notes or while taking exams, in order to write faster.
It is common for Hong Kongers to learn traditional Chinese characters in school, as well as some simplified characters incidentally, usually by consuming media produced on the mainland. For use on computers, however, people tend to type Chinese characters using an IME with a traditional character set, such as Big5. In Hong Kong, as well as elsewhere, it is common for people to use both sets, due to the ease of conversion between the two sets.[ clarification needed ]
Simplified characters are not officially used in governmental and civil publications in Taiwan. However, it is legal to import simplified character publications and distribute them. Certain simplified characters that have long existed in informal writing for centuries also have popular usage, while those characters simplified originally by the Taiwanese government are much less common in daily appearance.
In all areas, most handwritten text will include informal simplifications which are not the same as the simplifications officially promulgated by the PRC, often ones influenced instead by 新字体, shinjitai characters that originated in Japan.[ citation needed ] For example, the simplification 台 of the first character of "Taiwan" 臺 rivals its orthodox form in commonality, even in publications and academic contexts. In part, this is due to the simplification process adopting existing variants already in use, rather than inventing new simplifications as was done in the unsuccessful second round. [16] [17] This is because the adoption of simplified characters has been gradual and predates the Chinese Civil War by several decades and some are used beyond mainland China to some extent. [18]
In Singapore, where Mandarin Chinese is one of the official languages, simplified characters are the official standard and are generally used in most of official publications as well as the government-controlled press.
While simplified characters are taught exclusively in schools and are generally used in most of official publications, the government does not officially discourage the use of traditional characters and still allow parents to choose whether to have their child's Chinese name registered in simplified or traditional characters.
Traditional characters are widely used by older Singaporeans, and are widespread on billboards, stall menus, and decorations, as well as in newspapers and on television.
Chinese is not an official language in Malaysia, but over 90% of ethnic-Chinese students in the country are educated in Chinese schools, which have been teaching in simplified characters since 1981. Traditional characters are also widely used by older people and are likewise widespread on billboards, to a greater extent than in Singapore. Most of Malaysia's Chinese-language newspapers compromise by retaining traditional characters in article headlines, but opting to use simplified characters for the bodies of articles.
There is no restriction on the use of traditional characters in mass media, and television programs, books, magazines and music imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan are widely available, almost always using traditional characters. Many shop signs and menus in hawker centres and coffee shops continue to be written with traditional characters. [19]
In Indonesia, Chinese is not an official language. However, the country is also home to a sizable ethnic-Chinese community, and similarly to Malaysia, ethnic-Chinese students typically receive their education in Chinese-language schools that almost exclusively use simplified characters. Traditional characters are seldom used, typically only for stylistic purposes.
In general, schools in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore use simplified characters exclusively, while schools in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan use traditional characters exclusively.
Today, simplified Chinese characters predominate among college and university programs teaching Chinese as a foreign language outside of China, [20] such as those in the United States. [21]
In December 2004, Ministry of Education authorities rejected a proposal from a Beijing Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) political conference member that called for elementary schools to teach traditional Chinese characters in addition to the simplified ones. The conference member pointed out that many, especially young people, have difficulties with traditional Chinese characters; this is especially important in dealing with non-mainland communities such as Taiwan and Hong Kong. The educational authorities did not approve the recommendation, saying that it did not fit in with the "requirements as set out by the law" and it could potentially complicate the curricula. [22] A similar proposal was delivered to the first plenary session of the 11th CPPCC in March 2008. [23]
Most, if not all, Chinese-language textbooks in Hong Kong are written in traditional characters. Before 1997, the use of simplified characters was generally discouraged by educators. After 1997, while students are still expected to be proficient and utilize traditional characters in formal settings, they may sometimes adopt a hybrid written form in informal settings to speed up writing. With the exception of open examinations, simplified Chinese characters are considered acceptable by the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority for their speed.[ citation needed ]
Chinese textbooks in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia are written exclusively in simplified characters, and only simplified characters are taught in school. Traditional characters are usually only taught to those taking up calligraphy as a co-curricular activity or Cantonese as an elective course at school.
The majority of textbooks teaching Chinese are now based on simplified characters and Hanyu Pinyin –although there are textbooks originating in China which have a traditional version. For practical reasons, universities and schools prepare students who will be able to communicate with mainland China, so their obvious choice is to use simplified characters.
In places where a particular set is not locally entrenched, such as Europe and the United States, instruction is now mostly simplified, as the economic importance of mainland China increases, and also because of the availability of textbooks printed in mainland China. Teachers of international students often recommend learning both systems.
In the United Kingdom, universities mainly teach Mandarin Chinese at the undergraduate level using the simplified characters coupled with pinyin. However, they will require the students to learn or be able to recognise the traditional forms if they are studying in Taiwan or Hong Kong (such as taking Cantonese courses). In Australia and New Zealand, schools, universities and TAFEs use predominantly simplified characters.
Russia and most East European nations are traditionally oriented on the education of the PRC's system for teaching Chinese, which uses simplified characters but exposes the learners to both systems.
In South Korea, universities have used predominantly simplified characters since 1990s. In high school, Chinese is one of the selective subjects. By the regulation of the national curricula standards, MPS I and traditional characters had been originally used before (since the 1940s), but by the change of regulation, pinyin and simplified characters have been used to pupils who enter the school in 1996 or later. Therefore, MPS I and traditional characters disappeared after 1998 in South Korean high school Chinese curriculum.
In Japan there are two types of schools. Simplified Chinese is taught instead of traditional Chinese in pro-mainland China schools. They also teach Pinyin, a romanization system for standard Chinese, while the Taiwan-oriented schools teach bopomofo, which uses phonetic symbols. However, the Taiwan-oriented schools are starting to teach simplified Chinese and pinyin to offer a more well-rounded education. [24]
In the Philippines, the use of simplified characters has become increasingly popular. Before the 1970s, Chinese schools in the Philippines were under the supervision of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China. Hence, most books were using traditional characters. Traditional characters remained prevalent until the early 2000s. Institutions like the Confucius Institute, being the cultural arm of the People's Republic of China, are strong proponents of the use of simplified characters. Also, many schools are now importing their Mandarin textbooks from Singapore instead of Taiwan.
Public universities such as the Linguistics and Asian Languages Department of the University of the Philippines use simplified characters in their teaching materials. On the other hand, private schools such as Chiang Kai Shek College and Saint Jude Catholic School remain major proponents of the usage of traditional characters. Some private universities, such as the Ateneo de Manila University, also use simplified characters.
In computer text applications, the GB encoding scheme most often renders simplified Chinese characters, while Big5 most often renders traditional characters. Although neither encoding has an explicit connection with a specific character set, the lack of a one-to-one mapping between the simplified and traditional sets established a de facto linkage. [4]
Since simplified Chinese conflated many characters into one and since the initial version of the GB encoding scheme, known as GB 2312-80, contained only one code point for each character, it is impossible to use GB 2312 to map to the bigger set of traditional characters. It is theoretically possible to use Big5 code to map to the smaller set of simplified character glyphs, although there is little market for such a product. Newer and alternative forms of GB have support for traditional characters. In particular, mainland authorities have now established GB 18030 as the official encoding standard for use in all mainland software publications. The encoding contains all East Asian characters included in Unicode 3.0. As such, GB 18030 encoding contains both simplified and traditional characters found in Big-5 and GB, as well as all characters found in Japanese and Korean encodings.
Unicode deals with the issue of simplified and traditional characters as part of the project of Han unification by including code points for each. This was rendered necessary by the fact that the linkage between simplified characters and traditional characters is not one-to-one. While this means that a Unicode system can display both simplified and traditional characters, it also means that different localisation files are needed for each type.
In font filenames and descriptions, the acronym SC is used to signify the use of simplified Chinese characters to differentiate fonts that use TC for traditional characters. [25]
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)'s Internationalization working group recommends the use of the language tag zh-Hans
as a language attribute value and Content-Language value to specify web-page content in simplified Chinese characters. [26]
There are ongoing disputes among users of Chinese characters related to the introduction of simplified Chinese characters.[ quantify ] Author Liu Shahe was an outspoken critic of the simplification of Chinese characters. He wrote a dedicated column entitled "Simplified Characters are Unreasonable" in the Chinese edition of the Financial Times . [27]
Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Chinese characters have a documented history spanning over three millennia, representing one of the four independent inventions of writing accepted by scholars; of these, they comprise the only writing system continuously used since its invention. Over time, the function, style, and means of writing characters have evolved greatly. Informed by a long tradition of lexicography, modern states using Chinese characters have standardised their forms and pronunciations: broadly, simplified characters are used to write Chinese in mainland China, Singapore, and Malaysia, while traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.
Traditional Chinese characters are one of several standard sets of characters used to write Chinese languages. In Taiwan, the set of traditional characters is regulated by Taiwan's Ministry of Education, standardized in the Standard Form of National Characters. These forms were predominant in written Chinese until the middle of the 20th century, when various countries that use Chinese characters began standardizing simplified sets of characters, often with characters that existed before as well-known variants of the predominant forms.
Stroke order is the order in which the strokes of a Chinese character are written. A stroke is a movement of a writing instrument on a writing surface. Chinese characters are used in various forms in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. They are known as Hanzi in (Mandarin) Chinese, kanji in Japanese (かんじ), and Hanja in Korean (한자).
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 extensive in the scope of its modification.
The debate on traditional Chinese characters and simplified Chinese characters is an ongoing dispute concerning Chinese orthography among users of Chinese characters. It has stirred up heated responses from supporters of both sides in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and among overseas Chinese communities with its implications of political ideology and cultural identity. Simplified characters here exclusively refer to those characters simplified by the People's Republic of China (PRC), instead of the concept of character simplification as a whole. The effect of simplified characters on the language remains controversial, decades after their introduction.
Radical 140 or radical grass (艸部) meaning "grass" is one of 29 of the 214 Kangxi radicals that are composed of 6 strokes. It transforms into 艹 when appearing at the top of a character or component. In the Kangxi Dictionary and in modern standard Traditional Chinese as used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, 艹 consists of four strokes, while in Simplified Chinese and modern Japanese, 艹 consists of three strokes.
The development of Singapore's Chinese characters can be divided into three periods.
Radical 63 or radical door (戶部) meaning "door" is one of the 34 Kangxi radicals composed of 4 strokes.
Radical 130 or radical meat (肉部) meaning "meat" is one of the 29 Kangxi radicals composed of 6 strokes. When used as a left component, the radical character transforms into 月 in Simplified Chinese and Japanese or ⺼ in modern Traditional Chinese used in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components is a lexicographic tool used to order the Chinese characters in mainland China. The specification is also known as GF 0011-2009.
Radical 162 or radical walk (辵部) meaning "walk" is one of the 20 Kangxi radicals composed of 7 strokes. When used as a component, this radical character transforms into ⻍, ⻌, or ⻎.
Radical 188 or radical bone (骨部) meaning "bone" is one of the 8 Kangxi radicals composed of 10 strokes.
The xin zixing are a set of standardized Chinese character forms. It is based on the 1964 "List of character forms of Common Chinese characters for Publishing" as compared to jiu zixing. The standard is based on regular script and popular characters, and changes are made to the printed version of Song (Ming) typefaces. This standard covers the simplified and traditional characters, which separates it from other standards. SimSun font uses this standard, which shows variation with other regional standards such as MingLiU and Taiwan's KaiU, and with the regular script version of SimKai, which is the written character standard for China.
Modern Chinese characters are the Chinese characters used in modern languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. Chinese characters are composed of components, which are in turn composed of strokes. The 100 most frequently-used characters cover over 40% of modern Chinese texts. The 1000 most frequently-used characters cover approximately 90% of the texts. There are a variety of novel aspects of modern Chinese characters, including that of orthography, phonology, and semantics, as well as matters of collation and organization and statistical analysis, computer processing, and pedagogy.
Chinese character order, or Chinese character indexing, Chinese character collation and Chinese character sorting, is the way in which a Chinese character set is sorted into a sequence for the convenience of information retrieval. It may also refer to the sequence so produced. English dictionaries and indexes are normally arranged in alphabetical order for quick lookup. But Chinese is written in tens of thousands of different characters, not just dozens of letters in an alphabet, and that makes the sorting job much more challenging.
Strokes are the smallest structural units making up written Chinese characters. In the act of writing, a stroke is defined as the trace left on the writing material from a discrete application of the writing implement. The modern sense of discretized strokes first came into being with the clerical script during the Han dynasty. In the regular script that emerged during the Tang dynasty—the most recent major style, highly studied for its aesthetics in East Asian calligraphy—individual strokes are discrete and highly regularized. By contrast, the ancient seal script has line terminals within characters that are often unclear, making them nontrivial to count.
Stroke number, or stroke count, is the number of strokes of a Chinese character. It may also refer to the number of different strokes in a Chinese character set. Stroke number plays an important role in Chinese character sorting, teaching and computer information processing.
The goal of Chinese character rationalization or Chinese character optimization is to, in addition to Chinese character simplification, optimize the Chinese characters and set up one standard form for each of them.
A Chinese character set is a group of Chinese characters. Since the size of a set is the number of elements in it, an introduction to Chinese character sets will also introduce the Chinese character numbers in them.
Chinese character frequency is the applicational frequency of characters in written Chinese. It is calculated on a corpus, i.e., a collection of texts representing one or more languages. The frequency of a character is the ratio of the number of its occurrences to the total number of characters in the corpus, with the formula of
Fi = ni ⁄N × 100%,
For programs in teaching and learning Chinese as FL outside China, the simplified version has gradually gained ground and become the first choice because of student demand…
Most contemporary Chinese language programs at U.S. colleges and universities emphasize the simplified form.