Question 1: Why do Taiwanese use traditional Chinese characters?
Because our country has always used traditional Chinese characters, while mainland China implemented simplified Chinese characters after the founding of the People's Republic of China. Taiwan did not implement it and has always retained the use of simplified Chinese characters. Traditional Chinese characters.
Currently, the areas where traditional Chinese characters are still used include Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. Overseas Chinese communities such as Singapore and Malaysia mostly use traditional and simplified Chinese characters. In mainland China, traditional Chinese characters are used in cultural relics, surname variations, calligraphy and seal cutting, handwritten inscriptions, and special needs. Keep or use traditional Chinese characters in other situations.
In January 2001, the "Law of the People's Republic of China on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language" was implemented, which clearly stipulated that China should promote standardized Chinese characters and also clearly defined the scope of retaining or using traditional Chinese characters. On June 5, 2013, the State Council of China announced the "General Standard Chinese Character Table", including the appendix "Comparison Table of Standard Characters, Traditional Chinese Characters and Variant Characters". The use of Chinese characters in general application fields shall be subject to the standard Chinese character list.
Question 2: Why do Taiwan and Hong Kong still use traditional Chinese characters?
It’s very simple, because Taiwan and Hong Kong have not carried out a movement to simplify Chinese characters, and neither has Macau. Singapore has waited and watched for a long time. Use simplified Chinese characters.
Because mainland China implemented simplified Chinese characters after the founding of the People's Republic of my country, but Taiwan Province of China did not implement it, so traditional Chinese characters have been used. The regions that still use traditional Chinese characters include China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia.
In Chinese history, from ancient times to the Western Han Dynasty, there were significant differences between the official standard fonts and the modern traditional fonts. It was not until the Qin Dynasty that the official script popular in the Eastern Han Dynasty appeared, which was closer to the modern traditional Chinese font. The standardized Chinese characters promulgated by successive imperial courts through the compilation of "Character Books" have official authority over the various simplified characters used spontaneously by the people.
Question 3: Why do both Hong Kong and Taiwan use traditional Chinese characters?
The simplification of Chinese characters was initiated by the Communist Party of China in the mid-1950s under the direct influence of Premier Zhou Enlai. Under the care of the host, hundreds of experts were combined to simplify the fonts of thousands of commonly used Chinese characters. The starting point at that time should be said to be the analysis of China's national conditions. China has experienced internal and external troubles for hundreds of years, and the country is weak and the people are poor. China has been an agricultural country for thousands of years, with more than 80% of the population in rural areas. At that time, more than half of China's population was illiterate or semi-illiterate. To develop culture and build a country on this basis, literacy and literacy must be an important historical mission. The purpose of simplifying characters at that time was to enable hundreds of millions of people to learn to read and write as quickly as possible, increase the speed of using characters, improve their cultural level, and make it easier for students to study in school. This is the most basic foundation. Only then can we learn science and technology and build a prosperous and powerful country.
Some Taiwanese people may be surprised when they first see simplified characters. The Chinese characters have changed so much, especially the veterans who have been away from home for decades. When they see that their hometown has changed, the characters have also changed. Some people hate reading simplified Chinese characters, and when they see it, they say it is "bandit writing" or "bandit writing". Some people compare the movement of character simplification to the reform of the Manchurian Communist Party, saying that the Communist Party forced people to read simplified Chinese characters in order to transform the people. In fact, this was not the case.
Since ancient times, Chinese characters have been written in two ways: traditional and simplified. In oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions, traces of simplified Chinese characters can be found. For example, "Che" can be written in multiple ways. Later, after the seal script became official, more and more characters coexisted in the two writing methods. From the Six Dynasties to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Chinese characters gradually became regular script. At that time, perhaps for the sake of aesthetic symmetry, many ancient characters added strokes, while simplified characters began to be called "vulgar", "lowercase", "broken characters", etc., which were still used in civil society. spread widely.
However, sometimes words are simplified and complicated. There are borrowed words in Zuo Zhuan and Oracle Bone Inscriptions. When something we want to express is very abstract and we cannot create words at first, we find a Words with similar pronunciation to it are used as substitutes. Later, when the word can be coined, the original word of this abstract concept will be available. Sometimes it is still impossible to create a word later, so a radical is added to a word to indicate that it is different from the original borrowed word. Sometimes a character becomes more complex as it is written, and people find it troublesome, so they simplify it. So in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, there was vulgar philology, that is, vulgar style characters. Some characters are becoming simpler and simpler, and it is difficult to see the original meaning clearly, so I add strokes to them, so they become complicated.
Therefore, the characters written with more and more complex strokes are definitely no less beautiful than the characters written with more and more simple strokes.
Traditional and simplified characters have existed since ancient times. Some new words were created and later became commonly used. For example, during the Northern Zhou Dynasty, Yang Jian assisted his relatives in government and was granted the title of "Sui Wang". However, he thought that "Sui" meant "to go", so he changed "Sui" to "Sui". Wu Zetian loved making characters the most, and she made more than ten characters in her life. One of the characters for "国" was changed to "□" with "武" in the middle, but later she felt that she was under siege and stopped using it. After Qin Shihuang unified the Chinese characters, as the times changed, traditional, simplified, vulgar, variant and other characters appeared. Official documents are all written in traditional Chinese, and other characters are difficult to read. During this period, most folk characters were used in a conventional way. It was not until the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom that the simplification of characters began.
Modern Chinese Character Simplification Movement
“The modern Chinese character simplification movement originated from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. In order to improve the literacy rate, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom’s jade seals and official documents were written in simplified Chinese. According to informal statistics, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom’s total The Communist Party of China used more than one hundred simplified characters, 80% of which were adopted by later Communists” (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 by 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 improve the literacy rate and increase...>>
Question 4: How to write Taiwan in traditional Chinese characters?
In Taiwan, the word "Taiwan" is divided into formal writing (used in official documents or government agencies, etc.) and ordinary daily writing. Both are acceptable. The first one in the attached picture is Formal writing, and the second is ordinary daily writing
Question 5: Why do Taiwan use traditional Chinese characters?
Because Taiwan and Hong Kong have not carried out campaigns to simplify Chinese characters.
Question 6: Why does Taiwan use traditional Chinese characters?
Traditional Chinese characters used to be used. After the civil war, *** went to Taiwan. In the 1950s, the mainland decided to simplify Chinese characters in order to better use the Chinese language, so two types of Chinese characters appeared
Question 7: Why does Taiwan use traditional Chinese characters
You should ask why the mainland uses N Simplified Chinese characters. Simplified Chinese characters are a type of characters that were created after "reform". Taiwan just follows the tradition, which is the most normal situation~
Question 8: Why are the traditional Chinese characters prescribed by the mainland different from those in Taiwan?
The traditional Chinese characters used in Taiwan are traditional Chinese characters, and the standards are the "Standard Font List of Commonly Used Chinese Characters", the "Standard Font List of Less Commonly Used Chinese Characters" and the "List of Rarely Used Fonts", while those in Mainland China use the "General Simplified Chinese Characters" Table" and "Xinhua Dictionary" (traditional Chinese version) shall prevail. The standard writing methods are indeed different. I can’t say why. It’s normal for traditional Chinese characters to differ in different regions. There are also differences between Taiwan and Hong Kong. Another reason is that after the reform of Chinese characters and the adoption of simplified characters, the standard writing methods of traditional characters will be organized similar to simplified characters, so they are not so similar to Taiwan's traditional characters and are not very consistent with the etymology.