Citizendia

Simplified Chinese
TypeLogographic
Spoken languagesChinese
Time periodsince 1956
Parent systemsChinese
 → Oracle Bone Script
  → Seal Script
   → Clerical Script
    → Traditional Chinese
     → Simplified Chinese
Sister systemsKanji, Chữ Nôm
ISO 15924Hans
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. A logogram, or logograph, is a Grapheme which represents a word or a Morpheme (a meaningful unit of language A Chinese character, also known as a Han character ( is a Logogram used in writing Chinese (hanzi Japanese ( Oracle bone script ( refers to incised (or rarely brush-written ancient Chinese characters found on Oracle bones which are animal bones or turtle shells used in Seal script ( Chinese: Simplified 篆书 篆書 Pinyin: zhuànshū is an ancient style of Chinese calligraphy. The clerical script ( pinyin lìshū; Japanese 隷書体 Reishotai; formerly also chancery script is an archaic style of Chinese calligraphy which are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with Hiragana (ひらがな 平仮名 Katakana Chữ Nôm ( IPA: /cɨ3ˀ5 nom33/ chữ Nôm in Unicode: 字[[wikt 喃|喃]]/ 𡨸 喃/ 𡦂 喃 chữ Nôm in Unicode ISO 15924, Codes for the representation of names of scripts, defines two sets of codes for a number of Writing systems (scripts In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's
This article contains Chinese text.
Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters. Mojibake is the happenstance of incorrect unreadable characters (garbage characters shown when Computer software fails to render a text correctly according to its associated A Chinese character, also known as a Han character ( is a Logogram used in writing Chinese (hanzi Japanese (

Simplified Chinese Characters (simplified Chinese: 简化字; traditional Chinese: 簡化字; pinyin: Jiǎnhuàzì) are one of two standard sets of Chinese characters of the contemporary Chinese written language. Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use A Chinese character, also known as a Han character ( is a Logogram used in writing Chinese (hanzi Japanese ( Written Chinese comprises the written symbols used to represent Spoken Chinese and the rules about how they are arranged and punctuated They are based mostly on popular cursive (caoshu) forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the "traditional" forms that were used in printed text for over a thousand years. Cursive script ( simplified草书 erroneously translated as Grass script is a style of Chinese calligraphy. The government of the People's Republic of China has promoted them for use in printing in an attempt to increase literacy. Talk People's Republic of China) PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ARTICLE GUIDELINES They are officially used in Mainland China, Singapore, Malaysia and the United Nations. Mainland China, Continental China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term synonymous with the area that is under the jurisdiction Singapore For the biogeographical region see Malesia Malaysia (məˈleɪʒə or /məˈleɪziə/ is a country that consists of thirteen states and The United Nations ( UN) is an International organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in International law, International security

Traditional Chinese is currently used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. Taiwan ( Taiwanese: Tâi-oân/Tāi-oân (historically 大灣/台員/大員/台圓/大圓/台窩灣 is an Island in East Asia. Hong Kong ( officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a territory located on China 's south coast on the Pearl River Delta, and borders For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Macau topics. Overseas Chinese communities generally use the traditional characters, but simplified characters are gradually gaining popularity as more mainland Chinese emigrate and travel abroad. At the same time, the prestige of traditional characters is increasing in the People's Republic of China.

Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizeable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some characters were simplified by applying regular rules; for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simpler variant. Some characters were simplified irregularly, however, and some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictable from traditional characters. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are thus identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies.

Chinese characters
Precursors
Traditional Chinese
Variant characters
Simplified Chinese
Simplified Chinese (2nd-round)
Traditional/Simplified (debate)
Kanji
Hanja
Hán tự
East Asian calligraphy
Input methods

Contents

Extent

Jianhuazi zong biao (简化字总表), or 简体字 the final list of simplified characters announced in 1986, contains the following:

Di yi pi yitizi zhengli biao (第一批异体字整理表, "Series One Organization List of Variant Characters") also accounts for some of the orthography difference between Mainland China on the one hand, and Hong Kong and Taiwan on the other. Although these are not technically "simplifications", they are often regarded as such, because the end effect is the same. It contains:

After World War II, Japan also simplified a number of Chinese characters (kanji) used in the Japanese language. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with Hiragana (ひらがな 平仮名 Katakana is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities The new forms are called shinjitai. Shinjitai (in Shinjitai ja [[wikt新字体 新字体]] in Kyūjitai: ja [[wikt新字體 新字體]] meaning "new character form" are the forms of Compared to Chinese, the Japanese reform was more directed, affecting only a few hundred characters and replacing them with simplified forms, most of which were already in use in Japanese cursive script. The number of characters in circulation was also reduced, and formal lists of characters to be learned during each grade of school were established. The overall effect was to standardize teaching and the use of Kanji in modern literature and media.

Origins and history

Mainland China

Although most of the simplified Chinese characters in use today are the result of the works moderated by the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the 1950s and 60s, character simplification predates the PRC's formation in 1949. Talk People's Republic of China) PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ARTICLE GUIDELINES Year 1949 ( MCMXLIX) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed (they date back to as early as the Qin Dynasty (221 - 206 BC), though early attempts at simplification actually resulted in more characters being added to the lexicon). Not to be confused with the Qing Dynasty, the last dynasty of China Events By place Carthage The Carthaginian general Hasdrubal is murdered by a Celtic assassin while campaigning to increase Events By place Roman Republic In the Battle of Ilipa ( Alcalá del Río, near Seville) in Spain, the

One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lu Feikui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. Year 1909 ( MCMIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China. The May Fourth Movement ( was an anti- imperialist, cultural and political movement in early modern China. Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Confucianism ( is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system originally developed from the teachings of the fifth century B Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and therefore proposed that a reform be initiated. It was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the “writing of ox-demons and snake-gods” niúguǐ shéshén de wénzì (牛鬼蛇神的文字). Fù Sīnián (傅斯年 1896—1950 was a famous Chinese educator and linguist, and one of the leaders of the May Fourth Movement in 1919 The May Fourth Movement ( was an anti- imperialist, cultural and political movement in early modern China. Lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, “If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Lu Xun ( or Lu Hsün ( Wade-Giles) was the Pen name of Zhou Shuren ( ( September 25, 1881 &ndash October 19 A Chinese character, also known as a Han character ( is a Logogram used in writing Chinese (hanzi Japanese ( ” (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[1].

In the 1930s and 1940s, discussions on character simplification took place within the Kuomintang government, and a large number of Chinese intellectuals and writers have long maintained that character simplification would help boost literacy in China. The 1930s were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles as countries were struggling to find a solution to the Great Depression. The 1940s decade ran from 1940 to 1949 Events and trends The 1940s was a period between the radical 1930s and the conservative 1950s which also leads the period to be In many world languages, literacy has been promoted as a justification for spelling reforms. Many languages have undergone spelling reform, where a deliberate often officially sanctioned or mandated change to spelling takes place

The People's Republic of China issued its first round of official character simplifications in two documents, the first in 1956 and the second in 1964. Year 1956 ( MCMLVI) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Year 1964 ( MCMLXIV) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the 1964 Gregorian calendar. In the 1950s and 1960s, while confusion about simplified characters was still rampant, transitional characters that mixed simplified parts with yet-to-be simplified parts of characters together appeared briefly, then disappeared. The 1950s Decade refers to the years of 1950 to 1959 inclusive The 1960s decade refers to the years from the beginning of 1960 to the end of 1969

Within the PRC, further character simplification became associated with the leftists of the Cultural Revolution, culminating in a second round of character simplifications (known as erjian 二简), or "Second-round simplified characters", which were promulgated in 1977. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in the People’s Republic of China was a struggle for power within the Communist Party of China that manifested into The second round of Chinese character simplification was an aborted orthography reform officially promulgated on 20 December 1977 by the People's Also 1977 (album by Ash. Year 1977 ( MCMLXXVII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays In part due to the shock and unease felt in the wake of the Cultural Revolution and Mao's death, the second-round of simplifications was poorly received, and in 1986 the authorities retracted the second round completely. Year 1986 ( MCMLXXXVI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar) Later in the same year, the authorities promulgated a final list of simplifications, which is identical to the 1964 list except for six changes (including the restoration of three characters that had been simplified in the First Round: 叠, 覆, 像; note that the form 疊 is used instead of 叠 in regions using Traditional Chinese). Although no longer recognized officially, some second-round characters appear in informal contexts, as many people learned second-round simplified characters in school.

Simplification initiatives have been aimed at eradicating characters entirely and establishing the Hanyu Pinyin romanization as the official written system of the PRC, but the reform never gained quite as much popularity as the leftists had hoped. Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use After the retraction of the second round of simplification, the PRC has stated that it wishes to keep Chinese orthography stable and does not appear to plan any further reforms in the future, nor restore any characters that have already been simplified.

Singapore and Malaysia

Singapore underwent three successive rounds of character simplification, eventually arriving at the same set of simplified characters as Mainland China. Singapore

The first round, consisting of 498 Simplified characters from 502 Traditional characters, was promulgated by the Ministry of Education in 1969. Year 1969 ( MCMLXIX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The second round, consisting of 2287 Simplified characters, was promulgated in 1974. Year 1974 ( MCMLXXIV) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the 1974 Gregorian calendar. The second set contained 49 differences from the Mainland China system; those were removed in the final round in 1976. Year 1976 ( MCMLXXVI) was a Leap year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. In 1993, Singapore adopted the six revisions made by Mainland China in 1986. Year 1993 ( MCMXCIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar) Year 1986 ( MCMLXXXVI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar) However, unlike in mainland China where personal names may only be registered using simplified characters, parents have the option of registering their children's names in traditional characters in Singapore.

Malaysia promulgated a set of simplified characters in 1981, which were also completely identical to the simplified characters used in Mainland China. For the biogeographical region see Malesia Malaysia (məˈleɪʒə or /məˈleɪziə/ is a country that consists of thirteen states and Year 1981 ( MCMLXXXI) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981

Method of simplification

There are several methods in which characters were simplified:

  1. Replacing complicated components of common characters with simpler shapes:
    • 對 → 对; 觀 → 观; 風 → 风; etc.
  2. Changing the phonetic:
    • 潔 → 洁; 鄰 → 邻; 極 → 极; etc.
  3. Omitting entire components:
    • 廣 → 广; 寧 → 宁; 滅 → 灭; etc.
  4. Using grass script shapes:
    • 書 → 书; 長 → 长; 馬 → 马; etc. Cursive script ( simplified草书 erroneously translated as Grass script is a style of Chinese calligraphy.
  5. Adopting ancient forms that are simpler in form:
    • 涙 → 泪; 網 → 网; 傑 → 杰; etc.
  6. Creating new radical-radical compounds:
    • 體 → 体; 塵 → 尘; 竃 → 灶; etc.
  7. Creating new radical-phonetic compounds:
    • 護 → 护; 驚 → 惊; 膚 → 肤; etc.
  8. Merging a character into another one that sounds the same or similar:
    • 餘 → 余; 穀 → 谷; 後 → 后; etc.
  9. Merging several characters into a newly created and simpler character:
    • 髮 & 發 → 发; 儘 & 盡 → 尽; etc.
  10. Systematically simplifying a shape, so that every character that uses it is simplified:
    • 門 → 门; 閉 → 闭; 問 → 问; etc (an exception to this type of simplifying is the word for "open": 開 → 开, where the door radical (門) is entirely omitted. )

Since traditional characters are sometimes merged, confusion may arise when Classical Chinese texts are printed in simplified characters. In rare instances, simplified characters actually became one or two strokes more complex than their traditional counterparts due to logical revision. An example of this is 搾 mapping to the previously existing variant form 榨. Note that the "hand" radical on the left (扌), with three strokes, is replaced with the "tree" radical (木), with four strokes.

Distribution and use

Mainland China and Singapore generally use simplified characters. They appear very sparingly in printed text produced in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and overseas Chinese communities, although they are becoming more prevalent as China opens to the world. Conversely, the mainland is seeing an increase in the use of traditional forms, where they are often used on signs and in logos.

Mainland China

The Law of the People's Republic of China on the National Common Language and Characters implies simplified Chinese as the standard script, and relegates Traditional Chinese to certain aspects and purposes such as ceremonies, cultural purposes (e. g. calligraphy), decoration, publications and books on ancient literature and poetry, and research purposes. Traditional Chinese remains ubiquitous on buildings predating communist rule, such as former government buildings, religious buildings, educational institutions, and historical monuments. Traditional Chinese is also often used for commercial purposes, such as shopfront displays and advertisements, though this is officially discouraged.

The PRC also tends to print material intended for Taiwanese, people in Hong Kong and Macau, and overseas Chinese in traditional characters. For example, the PRC prints versions of the People's Daily in traditional characters and both the People's Daily and Xinhua websites have versions in traditional characters using Big5 encoding. The People's Daily ( a daily Newspaper, is the organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, published worldwide with a circulation The People's Daily ( a daily Newspaper, is the organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, published worldwide with a circulation Big-5 or Big5 is a character encoding method used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau for Traditional Chinese characters Mainland companies selling products in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan use Traditional characters on its displays and packaging to communicate with consumers (the reverse is true as well). Also, as part of the one country, two systems model, the PRC has not attempted to force Hong Kong or Macau into using simplified characters. " One country two systems " is an idea originally proposed by Deng Xiaoping during the early 1980s then Paramount Leader of the People's Republic

Dictionaries published in mainland China generally show both simplified and their traditional counterparts. A dictionary is a book of alphabetically listed Words in a specific language with definitions etymologies pronunciations and other information or a book of alphabetically Some traditional character publications other than dictionaries are published in mainland China, for domestic consumption. In digital media, any 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, thereby exposing mainlanders to the use of traditional characters. (kɑːrɑːˌoʊkɛ in Japanese karaoke) is a form of Entertainment in which Amateur Singers sing along with recorded Music (and/or a Subtitles are textual versions of the dialog in films and television programs usually displayed at the bottom of the screen

Hong Kong

With the growing influence of Mainland China, simplified Chinese characters often appear in tourist areas; however textbooks, official statements, newspapers, including the PRC-funded media, show no signs of moving to simplified Chinese characters. However simplified Chinese character version of publications are becoming popular, because these mainland editions are often cheaper.

It is common for Hong Kong people to learn traditional Chinese characters in school, and some simplified Chinese in passing (either through reading mainland-published books or other media). For use on computers, however, people tend to type Chinese characters using a traditional character set such as Big5. Big-5 or Big5 is a character encoding method used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau for Traditional Chinese characters In Hong Kong, as well as elsewhere, it is common for people who use both sets to do so because it is much easier to convert from the traditional character set to the simplified character set because of the usage of the aforementioned methods 8 and 9 of simplification.

Taiwan

Simplified Chinese 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 PRC government are much less common in daily appearance. A century (from the Latin centum, meaning one hundred is One hundred consecutive Years Centuries are numbered ordinally (e

In all areas, most handwritten text will include informal character simplifications (alternative script), and some characters (such as the "Tai" in Taiwan: traditional 臺 simplified/alternative 台) have informal simplified forms that appear more commonly than the official forms, even in print. A proliferation of the Japanese hiragana character の [no] being used in place of the more complex 的 [de] is common (both mean "of", although the pronunciation is unrelated). is a Japanese Syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system, along with Katakana and Kanji; the Latin alphabet Japanese characters and Chinese simplified characters are not acceptable to use in official documents in Taiwan.

Singapore

Simplified characters are the official standard and used in all official publications as well as the government-controlled press. While simplified characters are taught exclusively in schools, unlike in China, the government does not officially discourage the use of traditional characters. Therefore, many shop signs continue to be written in traditional characters. Menus in hawker centres and coffeeshops are also usually written in traditional characters.

As there is no restriction of the use of traditional characters in the mass media, television programmes, books, magazines and music CD's that have been imported from Hong Kong or Taiwan are widely available, and these almost always use traditional characters. Most karaoke discs, being imported from Hong Kong or Taiwan, have song lyrics in traditional characters as well. While all official publications are in simplified characters, the government still allows parents to choose whether to have their child's Chinese name registered in simplified or traditional characters.

Education

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.

For overseas Chinese going to "Chinese school", which character set is used depends very much on which school one attends. Not surprisingly, parents will generally enroll their children in schools that teach the script they themselves use. Descendants of Hong Kongers and people who emigrated before the simplification will therefore generally be taught traditional (and in Cantonese), whereas children whose parents are of more recent mainland origin will probably be taught simplified. Hong Kong ( officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a territory located on China 's south coast on the Pearl River Delta, and borders

Teaching Chinese to non-Chinese kids as a foreign language is mainly carried out in simplified characters and Hanyu Pinyin.

Mainland China

In December 2004, Beijing's educational authorities rejected a proposal from a Beijing CPPCC political conference member that called for elementary schools to teach traditional Chinese characters in addition to the simplified ones. December 2004: ← - January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference ( People's Political Consultative Conference The conference member pointed out that most mainland Chinese, 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. Taiwan ( Taiwanese: Tâi-oân/Tāi-oân (historically 大灣/台員/大員/台圓/大圓/台窩灣 is an Island in East Asia. Hong Kong ( officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a territory located on China 's south coast on the Pearl River Delta, and borders 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. [2] A similar proposal was delivered to the 1st Plenary Session of the 11th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in the March of 2008. [3]

Hong Kong

Most, if not all, Chinese language text books 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 utilise 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. Established in 1977, the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority ( HKEAA,) (previously known as Hong Kong Examinations Authority HKEA) administers the

Singapore

Chinese text books in Singapore are written exclusively in simplified characters, and only simplified characters are taught in school. Traditional characters are only taught to those taking up calligraphy as as extra-curricular activity (or officially co-curricular activity).

Chinese as a foreign language

Most universities on the west coast of the United States teach the traditional character set, most likely due to the large population of Chinese Americans who continue to use the traditional forms. Chinese Americans ( Chinese: 华裔美国人 are Americans of Chinese descent The largest Mandarin Chinese program in North America, at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, switched to simplified characters at least a decade ago, although the majority of the surrounding Chinese Canadian population, who are non-Mandarin speaking, at that time were users of traditional characters. The University of British Columbia ( UBC) is a Canadian public research University with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna Vancouver (vænˈkuːvɚ is a coastal Chinese Canadians are Canadians of Chinese descent and constitute the second-largest Visible minority group in Canada standing at 1346510 which In places where a particular set is not locally entrenched, e. g. , Europe and some of the east coast and midwest of the United States, instruction is in or is swinging towards simplified, as the economic importance of mainland China increases, and also because of the availability of inexpensive decent quality textbooks printed in mainland China. Teachers of international students often recommend learning both systems.

In the United Kingdom, universities mainly teach Chinese at undergraduate level using the simplified characters coupled with pinyin. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use However, they will require the students to learn and be able to recognise the traditional forms by the last year of the course, by which time the students will have completed a year's study either in China or Taiwan. China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National Taiwan ( Taiwanese: Tâi-oân/Tāi-oân (historically 大灣/台員/大員/台圓/大圓/台窩灣 is an Island in East Asia.

In Australia and New Zealand, schools, universities and TAFEs use predominantly simplified characters. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. New Zealand is an Island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses (the North Island and the South Island Technical and Further Education or TAFE (pronounced) institutions provide a wide range of predominantly vocational tertiary education courses in Australia

Russia and most East European nations are traditionally oriented on the education of the PRC's system for teaching Chinese, uses simplified characters but exposes the learners to both systems. Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Talk People's Republic of China) PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ARTICLE GUIDELINES

Computer encoding

In computer text applications, the GB encoding scheme most often renders simplified Chinese characters, while Big5 most often renders traditional characters. Big-5 or Big5 is a character encoding method used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau for Traditional Chinese 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.

Since simplified Chinese conflated many characters into one and since the initial version of the GB encoding scheme, known as GB2312-80, contained only one code point for each character, it is impossible to use GB2312 to map to the bigger set of traditional characters. GB2312 is the registered internet name for a key official Character set of the People's Republic of China, used for simplified Chinese characters GB2312 is the registered internet name for a key official Character set of the People's Republic of China, used for simplified Chinese 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. GB18030 is the registered Internet name for the official Character set of the People's Republic of China (PRC superseding GB2312. The encoding contains all East Asian characters included in Unicode 3. In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's 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. In relation to the Japanese language and computers many adaptation issues arise some unique to Japanese and others common to Languages which have a very large number This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system

Unicode deals with the issue of simplified and traditional characters as part of the project of Han unification by including code points for each. In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's 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 localization files are needed for each type. In Computing, locale is a set of Parameters that defines the user's language country and any special variant preferences that the user wants to see in their User

The Chinese characters used in modern Japanese have also undergone simplification, but generally to a lesser extent than with simplified Chinese, it's worth mentioning that Japanese writing system reduced the number of Chinese characters in daily use, which was also part of the Japanese language reforms, thus, a number of complex characters were written phonetically. The modern Japanese writing system uses three main scripts Kanji, characters of Chinese origin, Hiragana Reconciling these different character sets in Unicode became part of the controversial process of Han unification. In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's Not surprisingly, some of the Chinese characters used in Japan are neither 'traditional' nor 'simplified'. In this case, these characters cannot be found in traditional/simplified Chinese dictionaries.

Web pages

The World Wide Web Consortium 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. IETF language tags are defined by BCP 47, which is currently RFC 4646 and RFC 4647 [4]

Debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters

Main article: Debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters

The use of traditional versus simplified Chinese characters debate has existed for a long time. The debate on Traditional Chinese characters and Simplified Chinese characters (繁簡之爭 more recently 正簡之爭 a

See also

Further reading

Notes

  1. ^ Yen, Yuehping. [2005] (2005). Calligraphy and Power in Contemporary Chinese Society. Routledge. ISBN 0415317533
  2. ^ 千龙网-北京-市教委驳回政协委员普及繁体字教学建议
  3. ^ Debate: A need to introduce traditional characters to schools?
  4. ^ www.w3.org
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