"The modern Chinese character simplification movement originated from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. In order to improve the literacy rate, simplified characters were written on the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's seals and official documents. According to informal statistics, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom General Secretary used more than a hundred simplified characters, including 80% were later adopted by the Chinese Communist Party" (Character Reform in Contemporary China, p. 38). The most famous character of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was the change of "or" in "国" to "王". However, after the demise of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the character simplification movement also stopped.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, China faced a serious crisis of carving up the country among the great powers. In this era of national turmoil and changing people's minds, many intellectuals are worried about the country and the people, and advocate reforms to strengthen themselves. During the reform movement, some patriotic intellectuals considered that if they wanted to save the country and become strong, they needed to popularize education and cultivate talents, and they had to overcome the obstacles caused by complicated Chinese characters. Under this trend of thought, the pinyinization of Chinese characters began. The main figures of the reform movement, such as Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, and Tan Sitong, all advocated the pinyinization of characters. However, the reform movement only lasted a hundred days, and the pinyin movement was stillborn. (Character Reform in Contemporary China P.5~6)
The vernacular movement of the May 4th Movement is well known to everyone. In fact, the text simplification movement should be compared with the vernacular movement, because both are New Culture Movements part of. During this period, many people proposed ways to improve the knowledge level of the Chinese people. To improve the knowledge level, we must first increase the literacy rate. To increase the literacy rate, we must simplify complex Chinese characters. Simplifying Chinese characters is supported by many intellectuals. Most intellectuals who advocate the use of vernacular Chinese are in favor of simplifying Chinese characters. The famous Chinese scholar Hu Shi did not object either.
In 1922, Qian Xuantong proposed the "Plan for Reducing Chinese Character Writing" at the Beiyang Government's Preparatory Conference for the Unification of Mandarin, saying, "Writing is a tool, and its suitability should be the primary criterion. Switching to pinyin is To treat the root cause, simplifying Chinese characters is a temporary solution, and a temporary solution is the most important method at present." At that time, it was also proposed to convert Chinese characters into pinyin, so that people who could speak and write could write. However, there were many homophones in Chinese characters, so pinyinization was simply not feasible, so it was abandoned.
In the spring of 1935, the Shanghai cultural circle launched a large-scale movement to simplify Chinese characters, which was called the "hand-written characters movement" at the time. This means that how ordinary people write, the book is printed how it is written, making the text easier to write and recognize, and more popular among the public. In August of the same year, the Nationalist Government announced the first batch of 324 simplified characters. The principles of simplification are: 1. Describe without writing. 2. Choose simplified characters that are more popular in society and use them first. 3. Characters that have been simplified will no longer be simplified. However, it was immediately opposed by Kuomintang veteran Dai Jitao and others. As a result, it was discontinued in February 1936. When the Second World War broke out, the Chinese character simplification movement was promoted within the jurisdiction of the Communist Party. Newspapers and magazines in the area used existing or created simplified characters, which were also called "liberation characters." (Character Reform in Contemporary China P.41)
The Chinese Character Simplification Movement
January 28, 1956 - The first batch of simplified characters in the Chinese Communist Party was released
After the establishment of the Communist Party of China in 1949, the Chinese Character Reform Research Committee was established in February 1952 to collect suggestions from the public and scholars who advocated the simplification of Chinese characters since the Republic of China, and proposed a draft "Chinese Character Simplification Plan" at the end of 1954. , and was announced in the People's Daily in February 1955. In July, the State Council established the "Chinese Character Simplification Plan Approval Committee", with Dong Biwu as the chairman, and Guo Moruo and writer Lao She were both members of the committee. On January 28, 1956, the association approved 515 simplified Chinese characters and 54 simplified radicals
In 1977, just after the Cultural Revolution, the draft of the "Second Chinese Character Simplification Plan" was announced. In 1986, the "Second Simplification Plan" was abolished by the "State Council". In the same year, the "National Language and Characters Working Committee" was reorganized from the "Chinese Character Reform Commission" and re-issued a general list of simplified characters. At the same time, the "Ministry of Culture" and the "Ministry of Education" issued a "Joint Notice on Simplified Characters", which was consistent with the It means: the shape of Chinese characters should remain stable within a period of time to facilitate application. At this point, the Chinese character simplification movement in mainland China has come to an end.
(Character Reform in Contemporary China P.105)
In December 2000, the People's Republic of China passed a "National Standard Spoken and Written Language Law", which was scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2001. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China will legally determine the status of Mandarin and standardized Chinese characters as the country's common spoken and written languages. At the same time, the dialect, traditional Chinese characters and variant characters will be protected as cultural heritage and allowed to exist for a long time in certain fields and specific regions. However, Abuse cannot be included in Mandarin broadcasts and movies. Actors who play leading figures in movies and TV series generally speak Mandarin in the drama. If the content requires it, certain dialects should not be used too much. The number of movies and TV series using dialects should also be controlled. However, local dramas Not included in this list. (China Times, December 10, 2000)
There are nine major principles for simplifying Chinese characters, which are described as follows:
1. Retain the outline of the original character: Rugui (turtle), consider (think) ).
2. Keep some features of the original characters and omit others: such as Sheng (sound) and Yi (medical).
3. Change the strokes to simpler radicals: such as support (support) and fight (war).
4. Change the phonetic characters to simple phonetic symbols: such as Jing (surprise) and Hu (protection).
5. Merging similar words: For example, "里" and "里" are connected, and the simpler "里" is used as the merging word. "yu" and "yu" are connected, and the combined word is "yu".
6. Cursive script: such as zhuan (zhuan), dong (east), car (car), zhuan (zhuan).
7. Use ancient pictograms, instructions, and knowing words: For example, three people form a crowd (zhong), two people form a crowd (subordinate), and a net (net). These ancient characters are both simple and consistent with the principles of character creation. These ancient characters may have been complicated for aesthetic reasons.
8. Use simple symbols to replace complex radicals: such as chicken (chicken), joy (huan), and difficult (difficulty), change the left radical to ㄡ.
9. Use ancient characters: such as 圣为圣, 礼 (rite), 无 (无), 陈 (dust), etc.
It is worth mentioning that Luo Jialun, one of the leaders of the May 4th Movement, vigorously advocated the text simplification movement after coming to Taiwan, and was criticized by the party and state bosses as "propaganda for bandits." When Hu Shi saw the implementation of simplified Chinese characters in the United States, he said that the simplified characters were very good.
The current situation of the implementation of simplified Chinese characters
After the implementation of simplified Chinese characters, many people will not be able to understand the calligraphy and painting, ancient books, and the calligraphy on ancient monuments. This will cause a cultural gap, so Today we advocate "knowing the complex and responding to the simple". In other words, simplified Chinese characters are encouraged, but more traditional Chinese characters must be understood. Just like after implementing the vernacular, you still have to read classical Chinese. Traditional Chinese characters are often seen on many signboards in mainland China, such as Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, China Southern Airlines, and "Acer" computers. At present, most Christmas cards and New Year's cards are mostly in traditional Chinese characters, and plaques and calligraphy coexist in both traditional and simplified Chinese characters.
In Beijing, the large signboards of "China Haidian Book Mall" and "Art College" of Peking University are embossed with large embossed characters. Many signs use traditional Chinese characters for aesthetic reasons. However, textbooks, publishing houses, television, etc. all use simplified Chinese characters, but publishers of ancient books also use traditional Chinese characters. (Taiwan students at Peking University P.108)
As a unique art: Chinese calligraphy has not been restricted by simplified characters in mainland China. Because calligraphy is an art, and it is a unique art form in the world and a treasure of Chinese culture. The function of art is not to convey information or record history, so there is no need to use simplified Chinese characters. In fact, the art of cursive writing is originally about simplified characters. It is not easy to artistically simplify a multi-stroke character and express its beautiful form, and this itself is an artistic re-creation
Changes in Chinese Characters in Hong Kong and Taiwan
It basically stopped after the founding of New China in 1949
So now the simplified characters used in mainland China and Hong Kong and Taiwan basically still use the characters before 1949