The history of vulgar characters

There are many vulgar characters in ancient inscriptions, including some in the Six Dynasties, especially in Sui and Tang Dynasties, which even influenced famous calligraphers. For example, there were many vulgar characters in the calligraphy works of Ou Yangxun and Yan Zhenqing in the Tang Dynasty.

Lv Liuliang, a poet in the Ming Dynasty, said in the note of a poem presented to Huang Zongxi that "copying vulgar words in the cloud can save half a time", and this "vulgar word" was a simplified word at that time.

After the Song and Yuan Dynasties, some common characters were often used in operas and novels, and many of them are still in use today.

1955 "Simplified Chinese Characters Scheme" was promulgated, which defined some common characters as orthography, abolished a large number of common characters and variant characters, and played a positive role in the standardization of Chinese characters. In this way, there are fewer and fewer opportunities for vulgar characters to appear in formal occasions.