It has been suggested that Multiple association of converting Simplified Chinese to Traditional Chinese be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)
This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2009)
Simplified Chinese
Type Logographic
Spoken languages Chinese
Time period since 1956
Parent systems
Sister systems Kanji, Chữ Nôm, Hanja, Khitan script, Zhuyin
ISO 15924 Hans
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.
This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters.

Simplified Chinese Characters (simplified Chinese: 简体字; traditional Chinese: 簡體字; pinyin: Jiǎntizì) are one of two standard sets of Chinese characters of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the People's Republic of China has promoted them for use in printing in an attempt to increase literacy. They are officially used in the People's Republic of China (Mainland China) and Singapore.

Traditional Chinese is currently used in the Republic of China or Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally use traditional characters, but simplified characters are often used among mainland Chinese immigrants.

Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications are based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms. 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.

In August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters.[1] [2][3][4]

Chinese characters
Precursors
Traditional Chinese
Variant characters
Simplified Chinese
Simplified Chinese (2nd-round)
Traditional/Simplified (debate)
Kanji _(Japanese)

• Man'yōgana

Hanja _(Korean)

• Idu

Hán tự _(Vietnamese)

• Chữ Nôm

Sawndip _(Zhuang)
East Asian calligraphy

• Oracle bone script
• Bronze inscriptions
• Seal script
• Clerical script
• Standard script
• Semi-cursive script
• Cursive script

Input methods

Extent

Jianhuazi zong biao (简化字总表), "Complete List of Simplified Characters" or the final list of simplified characters announced in 1986, contains the following:

• Chart 1, which contains 350 singly simplified characters, whose simplifications cannot be generalized to other characters
• Chart 2, which contains 132 simplified characters and 14 simplified radicals, which can all be generalized to other characters
• Chart 3, a list of 1,753 characters which are simplified in accordance with Chart 2. This list is non-exhaustive, so a character that can be simplified in accordance with Chart 2 should be simplified, even if it does not appear in Chart 3.
• Appendix, which contains:
  • 39 characters that are officially considered to be cases where a complicated variant character has been abolished in favour of a simpler variant character, rather than where a complicated character is replaced by a newly-created simpler character. However, these characters are commonly considered to have been simplifications, so they are included here for reference purposes.
  • 35 place names that have been modified to replace rare characters with more common ones. These are not character simplifications, because it is the place names that were being modified, not the characters themselves. One place name has since been reverted to its original version.

Di yi pi yitizi zhengli biao ("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:

• 1,027 variant characters deemed obsolete as of the final revision in 1993. Some of these are obsolete in Taiwan and Hong Kong as well, but others remain in use.

Comparison with Japanese simplification

After World War II, Japan also simplified a number of Chinese characters (kanji) used in the Japanese language. The new forms are called shinjitai. 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. Further, the list of simplifications was exhaustive, unlike Chinese simplification – thus analogous simplifications of not explicitly simplified characters (extended shinjitai) are not approved, and instead standard practice is to use the traditional forms.

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. 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).

One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lufei Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China. Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. 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). Lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, “If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die.” (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.[5]

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.[6] Three-hundred and twenty-four simplified characters collected by Qian Xuantong are officially introduced in 1935 as the table of 1st batch simplified character (第一批簡體字表) and suspended in 1936. In many world languages, literacy has been promoted as a justification for spelling reforms.

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. 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.

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. Intellectuals like Chen Mengjia, who opposed the reform, was labeled a rightist and committed suicide.[7] 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. In 1986 the authorities retracted the second round completely. 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. After the retraction of the second round of simplification, the PRC stated that it wished to keep Chinese orthography stable. Years later in 2009, the Chinese government released a major revision list which included 8300 characters. No new simplifications were introduced. However, six characters previously listed as "traditional" characters that have been simplified, as well as 51 other "variant" characters were restored to the standard list. In addition, orthographies (e.g., stroke shape) for 44 characters were modified slightly. Also, the practice of simplifying obscure characters by analogy of their radicals is now discouraged. A State Language Commission official cited "over-simplification" as the reason for restoring some characters. The language authority declared an open comment period until August 31, 2009 for feedback from the public.[8]

Singapore and Malaysia

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

The first round, consisting of 498 Simplified characters from 502 Traditional characters, was promulgated by the Ministry of Education in 1969. The second round, consisting of 2287 Simplified characters, was promulgated in 1974. The second set contained 49 differences from the Mainland China system; those were removed in the final round in 1976. In 1993, Singapore adopted the six revisions made by Mainland China in 1986. 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. Chinese-language schools use these.

Traditional characters are still often seen in decorative contexts such as shop signs and calligraphy in both countries.

Hong Kong

A small group called Dou Zi Sei (導字社) / Dou Zi Wui (導字會) attempted to introduce a special version of simplified characters using romanizations in the 1930s. Today, however the traditional characters remain

Method of simplification

There are several methods in which characters were simplified:[9]

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 printed forms of cursive shapes (simplified Chinese: 草书楷化; traditional Chinese: 草書楷化; pinyin: cǎoshūkǎihuà):
   • 書 → 书; 長 → 长; 馬 → 马; etc.
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; 曆 & 歷 → 历; etc.
10. Systematically simplifying character components, so that all characters that use a given component are simplified in the same way:
    • 門 → 门; 閉 → 闭; 問 → 问; etc.
    • 馬 → 马; 騎 → 骑; 駕 → 驾; etc.
    • 鳥 → 鸟; 鴨 → 鸭; 鴕 → 鸵; etc.
      • Note that there are exceptions to the rules that simplify character components. Using the 門 → 门 rule given above as an example, the exceptions include 開 → 开 and 關 → 关.

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.