What is the history of simplified characters?

Simplified Chinese characters are short and long. Rongcheng's Chinese characters spread from ancient times to modern times, with a long history, bearing thousands of years of Chinese civilization and being the pride of China people. In recent years, the topic of complexity and simplification of Chinese characters has heated up again, which has aroused widespread concern in society. This is a good thing. The statement that simplified characters are only a few decades seems to be far from historical facts. Looking at the existing historical materials, whether it is unearthed documents or photocopied classics, it can be clearly shown that the history of simplified characters is not decades, but thousands of years, and simplified characters have existed since ancient times. For example, from Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty, we can see the simplified word "cong" today: two people in tandem mean to follow; The traditional "cong" appeared relatively late (about in the Western Zhou Dynasty). Another example is the pictograph "net" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Shuo Wen Jie Zi took "net" as the main body. For another example, there are "insects" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, silk manuscripts of Mawangdui Han Tomb in the Western Han Dynasty, bamboo slips of Yinqueshan Han Tomb and many inscriptions in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and "insects" are mostly written as "insects". Other simplified words, such as "electricity, cloud", originated from Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Jinwen. The historical data of the development of Chinese characters is enough to prove that there have been simplified characters since the emergence of Chinese characters, and the coexistence of simplified characters and traditional characters is an objective existence since the emergence of Chinese characters. For example, the history of "Zhong" and "Zhong" can be traced back to Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty, all of which are cognitive characters. The writing of "zhong" is: three "people" are juxtaposed; The writing of "numerous" is: "heaven (mistaken for" eye "in the Zhou Dynasty) and the next three" people ". After the evolution of fonts in later generations, the word "zhong" simply can't be seen as the three "people" under "Sun". The word "zhong" is written by three "people" side by side as two "people" above a "person", and "people are three people", so there is still some understanding. Generally speaking, the history of simplified characters is as long as that of traditional characters. Chinese characters have evolved from Oracle Bone Inscriptions and inscriptions on bronze to official script and regular script, and the function of writing Chinese characters is improving. Simplified Chinese characters are just another way of writing Chinese characters, which are formed in succession in the development and evolution of Chinese characters and gradually shaped in long-term use. The current simplified Chinese character list is more about the induction, sorting and screening of simplified Chinese characters in past dynasties. Most of these simplified Chinese characters come from "commonly used characters" and "calligraphy characters" in past dynasties, that is, simplified Chinese characters in past dynasties, and many of them have entered ancient Chinese character books. For example, the word "Mai" can be found in the Qin bamboo slips "Sleeping Tiger Land" from the end of the Warring States to the Qin Dynasty, the bamboo slips and inscriptions of Juyan in the Han Dynasty, and included in the jade articles of the Southern Dynasties; The word "Li" is very common in Han steles, and it is included in Shuo Wen Jie Zi as the ancient prose of the Warring States Period. The word "dust" was first found in the manuscripts of Dunhuang Bianwen in the Tang Dynasty, and the word "pen" was first found in Jing Jun Monument and Fangzhou Tuo Epitaph in the Northern Qi Dynasty, both of which were included in Jiyun in the Northern Song Dynasty. "Buying grain" and "selling grain" are included in the "Mannuzi Book" in the Tang Dynasty. The word "grain" can be found in pre-Qin ancient books such as Mozi Lu Wen, and it is also common in inscriptions in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and is included in jade articles. The word "hand" has also been included in "jade"; The word "You" was found in Dunhuang Bianwen in Tang Dynasty and the manuscript of Beijing Popular Novel in Yuan Dynasty, and later included in Zhengzitong in Ming Dynasty. The word "money" first appeared in the Biography of Ancient Lienv published in the Song Dynasty, and was later included in Zhengzitong. The word "Zhan" can be found in the official document archives of Bing Ke Chao Chu in the late Ming Dynasty and Liantan Ci in Muji in the early Qing Dynasty, and it is included in 1932 General Vocabulary of Guoyin. Many simplified Chinese characters are derived from cursive script. For example, the word "Lou" originated from the cursive script of the Han Dynasty, and many calligraphers in the past dynasties wrote it in cursive script similar to "Lou". Alphabetic fonts were first seen in Biography of Ancient Lienv published in Song Dynasty, and were later included in the general vocabulary of Guoyin. The word "Chang" also originated from cursive script, which was first seen in Jizhang in Han Dynasty and Han bamboo slips in Juyan and Dunhuang. The word "dream" also comes from cursive script, which is found in the calligraphy works of Cai Xiang in the Northern Song Dynasty and Li Zhuowu in the Ming Dynasty, and also in the New Sound of Peace and Yuefu in the Yuan Dynasty, and was later included in the Kangxi Dictionary. Other words such as "time, east, joy, clip, book, learning, awareness, action, sun, waste, exhaustion, rank, management, doping, guidance, Deng, phoenix, bad, joint, neighbor, injury, reality, persistence, tree and ying" are also cursive words in history. There are many simplified characters in the Book of Popular Characters since the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and more than half of them are written in the same or similar ways as modern simplified characters, such as "things, treasures, rituals, sounds, society, pity, bosom, doping, Luo, listening, Wan, Zhuang, dream, Yang, although, medicine, phoenix, righteousness, chaos, wrinkle and Taiwan" The government agencies of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom also adopted simplified words with vitality since the Tang and Song Dynasties, such as "insect, country, hunger, forbearance and behavior". 1935, Qian collected more than 2,400 words from Simplified Chinese Dictionary, and 1936, collected 4,445 words from Simplified Chinese Dictionary. Trn Quang Diu's List of Commonly Used Simplified Words contains 3 150 words; Before 1937, the Font Research Institute of Beiping Research Institute published the First Table of Simplified Chinese Characters, which is about 1700 words, most of which are taken from the glyphs in the engraved versions of traditional Chinese opera novels since the Song and Yuan Dynasties. Simplified characters approved for publication by the State Council after the founding of New China are based on simplified characters formed over thousands of years, with a long history and clear inheritance. A few problems in application can be solved in many ways, without affecting their normal memory and writing Chinese. Chinese characters have gradually changed from graphics and lines to strokes. After the official transformation, many characters have become illegible and difficult to understand. Due to the changes of ancient and modern sounds, some words have changed from the original homophonic to dissonant or small homophonic, and this change did not start from the contemporary simplified words. For example, the "dragon" in Biography has been divided into two parts, but it is not an pictographic character. The "dragon" in traditional Chinese characters and the "dragon" in simplified Chinese characters have become pictographic characters without pictographic characters; Whether it is the traditional Chinese character "Wei" or the simplified Chinese character "Wei", it is difficult to see from the beginning that it is a knowing word of "human hand holding the elephant"; "Di" is a pictophonetic character, and its pronunciation has been difficult to play the role of phonetic symbol in modern times. The pronunciation of the simplified word "di" is consistent with modern pronunciation. "Yan" and "Jiao" are both inherited words, and there are no simple and complicated problems. However, due to the evolution of the glyph, the four points at the bottom of the two have changed from the original difference to the same. The four points of the former are originally image dovetails, while the four points of the latter represent "fire". Such things have nothing to do with simplification or not.