Simplified Chinese characters

Abbreviations are the simplified version of the traditional long- characters of Chinese writing. This call sign forms which could simplify the People's Republic of China in the 1950s. You are now in the People's Republic of China and Singapore in use, the traditional characters, however, still in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao.

Abbreviation wèi为 ( 4 dashes instead of 9 )

Name

Abbreviations are referred to in Chinese as jiǎntǐzì (简体字/简体字), traditional characters as fántǐzì (繁体字/繁体字) or zhèngtǐzì ​​(正 体 字/正 体 字).

History

In January 1956, the Government of the People 's Republic of China issued the " Plan for simplifying the Chinese writing " (汉字 简化 方案/汉字 简化 方案, Hànzì jiǎnhuà Fang'an ), with the 515 characters and 54 components have been simplified from characters. The simplification of the characters was an element of writing reform, the first popularize the default language, simplify characters and should possibly be replaced by a Latin font.

In April 1964 a further reform step was taken and the "Complete List of Simplified Characters " (简化 汉字 总 表/简化 汉字 总 表, Jiǎnhuà Hànzì zǒngbiǎo ) published. It contained 2236 characters.

In December 1977, the Chinese government issued the " Second Plan for simplifying the Chinese writing (draft)" (第二 次 汉字 简化 方案(草案) /第二 次 汉字 简化 方案(草案) Dì - èr cì Hànzì jiǎnhuà Fang'an cǎoàn ) out of the other 853 characters and 61 components of simplified characters. This design, however, was widely criticized and hardly implemented.

The list of 1964 was revised slightly edited again in 1986 and set the stage of reform from 1977 shelved.

In August 2009, the Chinese Ministry of Education issued another list ( "通用 规范 汉字 表" ) of 8300 standardized characters, 44 of which changed slightly over the previous standard and some new characters that are used in names (eg喆,淼,堃and 升), were recorded.

These simplified characters are also used by the Chinese in Singapore. Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, as well as most living in exile for political reasons led the Chinese are not a simplification, however.

The simplification was to standardize the signal, i.e. to eliminate possible variations, and to reduce the number of strokes. This was mainly achieved in which you took over variants from the manuscript in the publication. The large number of simplified characters ( several thousand) comes about primarily by the fact that components have been simplified, which occur in many characters (radicals ). Officially, the characters were simplified according to the following ten methods:

Methods of characters shortening

• Preservation of original contour:伞 → 伞,齿 → 齿
• Preservation of part of the original character :飞 → 飞,乡 → 乡
• Simplification of either the Signifikums or Phonetikums of correspondingly constructed characters:灯 → 灯( Phonetikum deng ding replaced by ) ,肮 → 肮( Signifikum bone replaced by meat) ,护 → 护
• Replacement of a part by a Phonetikum :态 → 态( tai Phonetikum above)邮 → 邮( Phonetikum you left)
• Acquisition of handwritten shapes in the document :专 → 专,乐 → 乐
• Using old versions:云 → 云,递 → 递
• Exchange complex components by simple symbols :汉 → 汉,邓 → 邓
• Creation of new characters from two signifieds :尘 → 尘(small plus earth = dust)笔 → 笔(bamboo plus hair writing brush = )
• Replacing whole sign:义 → 义,头 → 头(This method is somewhat arbitrary and that affects only a few characters, but these are partly to very commonly used )
• Replacement by an equally pronounced signs of other meanings:谷 → 谷,出 → 出

Outside the People's Republic of China

Some characters are after the simplification of Chinese from Taiwan or Hong Kong or the Diaspora ( overseas Chinese ), where the traditional characters were in use, almost unrecognizable, while people from the People's Republic of China usually do not oversimplified characters only passively - if at all - dominate.

Until 2003, there were books that were printed in simplified characters, banned in Taiwan.

In actual use, in the manuscript, many characters are simplified in a way both on the mainland and in Taiwan, which is not standardized. 点Instead of long character is written, for example in Taiwan in the handwriting of most奌. The official abbreviation of the mainland is点. Also in Taiwan号is common as a simplification of号, although it is only to the mainland by a standardized abbreviations.

In Japan, characters were simplified ( Shinjitai ), but not to such a great extent as in the People's Republic of China, and the Japanese simplified forms often do not match those that are used in the People's Republic of China.

Criticism

Today it is disputed whether the abbreviation really represent progress. By simplifying the characters are necessarily similar to each other, so that although the writing is easier and faster, but is lost in some cases differences in meaning and etymological background; according to some cognitive scientists strict lower the differences between the abbreviation and the memory reading at stronger. Especially with electronic text processing, the simplified characters have hardly any advantages that could outweigh the disadvantages, and there is little evidence that the simplified characters are actually easier to learn.

The use of the standardized simplified characters in public areas and is indeed required by law in the People's Republic of China, but especially in advertising inscriptions often traditional characters are used.

Not least, it is criticized that under the simplifying also the aesthetics, beauty and grace of Chinese characters suffer or disappear. In calligraphy, for example, are still used to a large extent traditional characters in the PRC.

Examples

Electronic data processing

For both spelling variants exist own character encodings. For abbreviations, for example, GB- encoding GB2312 and Big5 for traditional characters is used. The global standard Unicode and the compatible national standard of the People's Republic of China GB 18030, however, support both forms without any special preference.