Debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters

The debate on traditional Chinese characters and simplified Chinese characters (繁簡之爭, more recently: 正簡之爭; a.k.a. 漢字簡化爭論) is an ongoing debate concerning Chinese orthography among users of Chinese characters. It has stirred up heated responses from supporters of both sides in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and among overseas Chinese communities with its implications of political ideology and cultural identity. Simplified characters here exclusively refer to those characters simplified by the People's Republic of China, instead of the concept of character simplification as a whole. The effect of simplified characters on the language remains controversial decades after their introduction.

Split orthography: a problem?

The sheer difficulties posed by having two concurrent writing systems hinders communications between mainland China and other regions. For those who know both systems well, translating an entire document written using simplified characters to traditional characters, or vice versa, is a trivial but laborious task. However for machine and computer translation, translation from simplified to traditional is not straightforward because there is not a one-to-one mapping of a simplified character to a traditional character. As a result a computer can be used for the bulk of the translation but will still need final checking by a human.

The writer Ba Jin, in his essay "Thoughts: Reform of Chinese characters" (随想录·汉字改革), urged caution in any reforms to the written Chinese language. He cited the inability of those educated in Hong Kong or Taiwan to read material published on the mainland, and vice versa, as a great disadvantage of simplified Chinese. He also cited the ability to communicate, not just with Chinese peoples of various regions, but also with people from across the Sinosphere - countries such as Japan and Vietnam - as a great advantage of the written Chinese language that should not be undermined by excessive simplification.

Others claim that it is not difficult for a person educated in one system to become familiarized with the other system quickly through exposure and experience. For computer automated translation, one simplified character may equate to many traditional characters, but not vice versa. Some knowledge of the context of the word usage is required for correct mapping, but it has been difficult for computers to work with word usage perfectly. As a result, direct computer mapping from simplified to traditional is not trivial and requires sophisticated programming. (This line of reasoning is used both by traditional Chinese advocates opposed to simplification, and simplified Chinese advocates opposed to the continued use of traditional characters.)

Cultural legitimacy

Pro-Simplified characters

• Proponents say that the Chinese writing system has been changing for millennia: it has already passed through the Oracle Script, Bronzeware Script, Seal Script and Clerical Script stages. Moreover, some simplified characters are drawn from conventional abbreviated forms that have been in use for centuries such as the use of 礼 instead of 禮 , and some simplified characters are in fact restorations of ancient forms that had become more complicated over time. For instance, the character for "cloud" was originally 云, but the character was borrowed to write a homophonous word meaning "to say". To disambiguate the two uses of the character, the "rain" radical (雨) was added on top when it meant "cloud", forming the current traditional character 雲. The homophonous word meaning "to say", however, has become archaic in modern Chinese, though 雲 continues to be used for "cloud". The simplified version simply restores 云 to its original use as "cloud".

Pro-Traditional characters

• While some simplified characters were adopted from conventional abbreviated forms that have existed for a long time, the vast majority of the changes made by PRC were "unnatural" such as the removal of the symbol for heart (心) from the word love (愛) into the new character (爱).
• Pro-Traditional commentators claim that the so-called "changes" through the history is merely alteration in writing styles, not in the structure of the characters, especially after the Qin standardization. They also claim many other simplified characters were arbitrarily designed by the government of the PRC to pervert traditional Chinese culture for political reasons in order to carry out what the PRC viewed as modernization. Despite the fact that character simplification began in 1956 and had origins going back to the early 20th century before the founding of the PRC, and that character simplification was not a part of the Old Fours nor the Cultural Revolution (both starting in the mid 1960s), they claim character simplification, "Anti-Four Olds" and the Cultural Revolution were all treacherous acts of destruction of traditional Chinese culture. As a result of such "unnatural" evolution, many characteristics underlying various Chinese characters, including radicals, etymologies and phonetics were ignored and destroyed in their simplified form. One frequently-cited example of this argument is found in the character for "sage" or "holy", 圣 in simplified and 聖 in traditional. The simplified character removed the king radical (王), replacing it with soil (土). Opponents of simplification claim that the PRC government was politically motivated to simplify this character, to devalue religions and China's imperial past ("The kings and holy men are still just soil now"). Supporters of simplification note that 圣 (literally meaning holy) is an ancient component used in characters like 怪(literally meaning crazy), and that 圣 was used as a variant of 聖 before the Chinese Communist government even existed.

Literacy

Pro-Simplified characters

• Proponents feel that Simplified characters having fewer strokes makes it easier to learn. Literacy rates have risen steadily in rural and urban areas since the simplification of the Chinese characters, while this trend was hardly seen during 30 years of KMT rule and 250 years of Manchurian rule before them, when the traditional writing system was dominant, though this rise in literacy may not necessarily be due to simplification alone.
• Although Taiwan, which uses Traditional Chinese characters, has a better literacy rate, proponents point out that with a population 50 times larger and landmass 260 times bigger, the illiteracy in mainland China is much more difficult to eradicate. In 2004, the only provinces of China where the illiteracy rates were lower than Taiwan's were Guangdong at 3.84%, and Guangxi at 3.79%.

Pro-Traditional characters

• Historically, the two provinces noted by simplification proponents (Guangdong and Guangxi) had been affluent provinces and enjoyed exceptionally lower illiteracy rate decades before the communist takeover. Further, Taiwan underwent a period of Japanese rule and not only did Taiwanese people need to learn Chinese but also learn Japanese, yet they still achieved high literacy rate learning traditional Chinese. The same argument also goes for Hong Kong and Macau residents, who had to learn two languages at once.
• Interestingly, in 2007, Beijing sources continued to publish articles about the improvement in literacy, and in all cases, the credit was given to better education systems, more training schools, and better management of rural areas. The communist party does not mention the literacy improvement was due to simplified characters at all.
• A more reasonable argument for literacy is that the literacy rates are quite simply determined by the level of access to affordable public education, and the literacy rates of Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan all compare favorably to this common sense when researchers graph the literacy rate in conjunction with accessibility and affordability rate of public education.
• It could also be argued that implementing a simplified form of Chinese has in fact made things even more complicated. Those who are now studying Chinese must become at least familiar with both forms of many words, as there is not, and there probably will never be, a true consensus on which one to use. This makes the world's most difficult modern writing system even more difficult for foreign learners.

Simplification was meant to be a stepping stone

Pro-Traditional characters

• The earliest members of the Communist Party of China including intellectuals like Lu Xun were convinced alphabetization was necessary to improve literacy. The suggestion was that changes should begin with Simplified characters first, then eventually make way to an alphabet system. In fact, the members continued to pledge that an alphabet system was the "ultimate objective". In 1936 Mao told American journalist Edgar Snow that the Latin alphabet was a good instrument to promote literacy. At the height of Communist party victory in July 1950, the possibility of continuing with an alphabet system was dissolved when Mao Zedong brought up Chinese nationalism. He suggested Latin alphabets were "too foreign". The original plan of using alphabets to improve literacy has since faded. The change from an alphabet reform to a simplified reform is considered a U-turn in Mao's policy.

Destruction of traditional Chinese culture

Pro-Simplified characters

• Neutral observers point out that Karlgren's quote (below) is possibly being misused and quoted out of context. At that time the concept of traditional and simplified characters did not exist, they were simply Chinese writing. Given the context, Karlgren may have meant abolishment of Chinese characters, rather than specific modifications. If Karlgren was not specifically arguing against character simplification, then this is a misuse of his quote.

• Neutral observers also point out that characters have not been replaced with an alphabet, and that character simplification began in 1956 and had origins going back to the early 20th century before the founding of the PRC, and that character simplification was not a part of the Four Olds nor the Cultural Revolution (both began in the mid 1960s). They also note that whether traditional characters were "destroyed" or not is a matter of opinion, others might say they were "modified".

Pro-Traditional characters

• Sinologist Bernhard Karlgren suggested early in 1929 that "the day Chinese discard it (Chinese characters), they will surrender the very foundation of their culture."

• Some users of traditional characters hold the view that the PRC's character simplification in itself was a destruction of traditional characters, and claim that character simplification, "Anti-Four Olds" and the Cultural Revolution were all treacherous acts of destruction of traditional Chinese culture. They claim that Mao began character simplification in 1956 and in the mid 1960s launched the Four Olds and the Cultural Revolution to destroy "Old Chinese Culture", despite the fact that Mao had earlier raised the need to preserve Chinese culture and characters for Chinese nationalism, when core Communist party members advocated to replace characters with an alphabet.

Disambiguation

Pro-Simplified characters

• Proponents feel that some traditional characters are too similar in appearance, such as 書 (shū) "book", 晝 (zhòu) "daytime" and 畫 (huà) "drawing": the simplified forms are 书, 昼, and 画, which look much more distinct.

Pro-Traditional characters

• Opponents claim the reverse: simplifications make distinct characters more similar to each other in appearance, giving the "shape recognition" mechanism of the reading part of the brain ambiguous clues. An example is 無 (wú) "none", simplified into 无, which looks very similar to the existing character 天 (tiān) "sky". Another instance is 設 (shè) "designate" and 沒 (méi) "without", which are quite similar in their simplified forms 设 and 没 and can result in confusion in rapid handwriting. Another example of the same kind is 活 (huó) "to live" and 話 (huà) "talk," which in simplified are 活 and 话 and can be misinterpreted in rapid handwriting.

Speed of writing

Pro-Simplified characters

• Simplified characters have fewer strokes; for example, the common character 邊 (biān, meaning "side") has 18 strokes in traditional form, while its simplified form 边 has only 5. Proponents of simplification claim this makes them easier to write. Characters with more than 15 strokes are especially difficult to write.

Pro-Traditional characters

• Opponents say that the speed advantage of simplified Chinese becomes less relevant in the computer age. With modern computing, entering Chinese characters is now dependent on the convenience of input method editors or IMEs. Some IMEs use phoneme-based input, such as pinyin romanization or bopomofo, while others are grapheme-based, such as cangjie and wubi. These have mainly sidelined the speed issues in handwritten Chinese, as traditional and simplified Chinese often have the same input speed, especially with phoneme-based IMEs. Furthermore, even when it comes to handwriting, a majority of people resort to semi-cursive script to reduce strokes and save time. Cursive script is also commonly seen in personal notes as shorthands, which is even more simplified than simplified characters, though in this case readers other than the writer themselves may have a hard time understanding the content.

Phonetics

Pro-Simplified characters

• Proponents: Chinese characters are most often made up of a pronunciation-indicating part (called the phonetic) and a part that indicates the general semantic domain (called the radical). During the process of simplification, there are some attempts to bring greater coherence to the system. For example, the shape of 憂 (yōu), meaning "anxious", is not a good indicator of its pronunciation, because there are no clear radical and phonetic components. The simplified version is 忧, a straightforward combination of the "heart" radical to the left (indicating emotion) and the phonetic 尤 (yóu) to the right.

Pro-Traditional characters

• Opponents point out that some simplified forms undermine the phonetics of the original characters, e.g. 盤 (pán, plate) has the phonetic component 般 (bān) on top, but the simplified form is 盘, whose upper part is now 舟 (zhōu). 盧 (lú, a family name) and 爐 (lú, "furnace") shares the same component 盧 in their original forms, but they were inconsistently simplified into 卢 and 炉 respectively, so that 炉 now has the less helpful 户 (hù) as its phonetic. Some characters were radically stripped of all phonetic elements. Perhaps because of its common recurrence in political vocabulary, the second character in 主義　(zhǔyì), doctrine, had its phonetic element 我 (wǒ) reduced, and was turned into the unrecognizable 义 .

Radicals

Pro-Simplified characters

• Proponents say that the radical system is imperfect in the first place. For example, 笑 (smile, laugh) uses the "bamboo" radical.

The 律管 bamboo tubes used by the ancients to set the pentatonic scale pitches were made out of fine bamboo, and the tones they made when blown across the end were sweet, thus the association with smiling and laughing with bamboo.

Pro-Traditional characters

• Some argue that simplification results in a broken connection between characters, which makes it more difficult for students to expand their vocabulary in terms of perceiving both the meaning and pronunciation of a new character. For example, 鬧 (din, fuss) is now 闹, with a door radical that is not indicative of its meaning. Another instance is the simplification of 愛 (love) to 爱, where the simplified version removes the radical 心 (heart).
• The round of characters simplified by the Communist party was not systematic. Extensive studies have been conducted among different age groups, especially children, to show that reducing the strokes loses the radical and phonetic relationships between the characters. This actually makes it more difficult for simplified character readers to distinguish the characters, since they now rely heavily on memorization.
• Some traditional characters are very distinct. Such as electricity 電, rope 繩 and turtle 龜. After the simplification process all three characters appear to have the same components even though they have no relationship at all. Respectively electricity 电, rope 绳, turtle 龟 can be easily confused. The simplification of the word electricity 電 to 电 also took it out of the natural context. It no longer belongs with snow 雪, thunder 雷 and clouds 雲.

Merger of characters

Pro-Simplified characters

• Proponents claim the amount of spoken and written deviation of Classical Chinese and the modern vernacular is a greater factor, and has already brought about incompatibility with ancient texts. They also claim that the ambiguity brought about by the merger of characters is minimal.

Pro-Traditional characters

• Simplified Chinese characters frequently include merged characters, which opponents view as baseless and arbitrary: 後 (hòu, "behind") and 后 (hòu, "queen") are both simplified into 后. Likewise, 隻 (zhī, a measure word) and 只 (zhǐ, "only") are merged into 只; 發 (fā, "happening") and 髮 (fà, "hair") are merged into 发; 穀 (gǔ, "crop") and 谷 (gǔ, "valley") are merged into 谷, and so on. An interesting point is also one regarding how God is referred to with simplified characters. The traditional writing system has special 袮 (nǐ) "you" and 祂 (tā) "he/she" characters, different from those used for people, to show respect to the deity, with the God radical (the first half of each character). The simplified, however, uses the normal "you" character (你) as used for people, and the "he/she" character (他) used is actually either the normal "he/she" (for humans) or the one used for inanimate objects or animals.
• Opponents say that such mergers make Classical Chinese texts in simplified Chinese characters difficult to understand. They discourage the proliferation of such homographs. Also, it makes Chinese much more easily mistranslated in foreign languages. In Mainland China, signs such as "dried goods" (Traditional Chinese: 乾貨, Simplified Chinese: 干貨) are often mistranslated into English as "fuck goods". The reason is that the Traditional Chinese characters 乾 (dry), 幹 (to carry out, which also use in Mandarin to mean "fuck") and 干 (to intervene) are all merged into to character 干 in Simplified Chinese.

Aesthetics

Pro-Simplified characters

• Traditional Chinese Character look very well in large size calligraphy but a number of very complex characters are much harder to identify when smaller fonts are used and complex character components can merge together. Simplified Chinese characters look more appealing when small fonts are used. It is much harder to see details and individual components in characters with a large number of strokes when small fonts are used. It is especially an issue if the quality of print is low. Some people even claim reading a large number of complex characters in small fonts strains their eyes. The recognition issue applies to some OCR software as well. Such software handles easier hanzi with less details.

• Some well known simplified characters are generally accepted to be more appealing than their traditional counterparts. About 30% of simplified Chinese characters match simplified kanji (see shinjitai).

Pro-Traditional characters

• Traditional Chinese Characters are often used as the de facto standard characters set in Chinese calligraphy in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and even in the People's Republic of China (mainland China), presumably because of its aesthetic value or partly thereof. This is one of the very few exceptions that the PRC government permits the use of traditional Chinese Character in mainland China.

Symbolism conflict

Pro-Simplified characters

• Materials published outside China in traditional characters can often be identified as not belonging to China and against the Chinese government in its contents, which arguably may attract some readers.

• The source of texts in simplified characters is far from belonging to mainland China only, as overseas communities now produce newspapers in both scripts, some continue in traditional and some new choose simplified. Chinese newspapers in Singapore and Malaysia mainly publish in simplified. Besides, simplified characters are often used when targeting the population of the PRC.

• It's no longer the case that everything in simplified Chinese is made in mainland China. A number of websites offer an easy switch between the 2 versions, the major multilingual non-Chinese news web-sites offer the Chinese version in the simplified Chinese script.

• Generally traditional character users may have a political sensitivity based on which script is used.

Pro-Traditional characters

• Cultural nationalists proclaimed that simplified characters are the creation of the CCP, therefore it is socialist or communist, whereas traditional characters represent capitalism or nationalism. The political symbolism makes it difficult for the CCP to restrict traditional characters. Especially in the Special Administrative Regions, where the temporary solution is seen as the One country two system. Hong Kong and Macau are perceived as capitalist. Another association made is that simplified characters represent the conservative forces of social state. Whereas traditional characters represent the pre-Revolutionary China, one with Confucian literature, history and the newest and most modern Chinese life in Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas.

Government Enforcement

Pro-Traditional characters

• The mainland Chinese government have also enforced a law, where a fine of 1000 yuan can be imposed if traditional characters are used in place of the legally sanctioned simplified characters.

Late recognition of flawed process

Pro-Simplified characters

• Neutral observers note that the below paragraph merely states that there will be no more large scale simplification schemes, and that the KMT's proposed simplification in the 1930s was not not carried out. It does not present evidence to support, or even argue, that there is a "late recognition of flawed process".

Pro-Traditional characters

• On May 20, 1980 the Committee of Script Reform publicized via New China News Agency in the People's Daily and Guangming Ribao that they would recommend revision of the Second-round simplified Chinese character. After lengthy consultation, the SCCSS was set up, and recommended a list of simplified characters. By 1986 the group was terminated, and the characters withdrawn, since it failed to win support by the State Council. The conference stated that no more large scale simplification schemes on the order of the first and second schemes would ever be attempted. In comparison the first major public withdrawal by the Communist party came 50 years after the first withdrawal by Kuomintang. In 1934/1935, KMT attempted to simplify just 324 characters in the "First Set of Simplified characters". It was thought of as a continual step toward alphabetization. They used the three principles of (1) adopt existing ones and do not create new ones. (2) select those that circulate relatively widely in society. (3) do not simplify characters that originally did not have too many strokes. Still, characters by the KMT never reached the public.

Social

Pro-Simplified characters

• Proponents argue that many minds link simplified characters with the idea of communism and traditional characters with anticommunism or at least "non-communism". Thus the political implications and affiliations of the writing systems are seen by some as the emotional impetus for the debate. This view interprets most of the back-and-forth debate on the merits of the system, ultimately, as rationalizations.

Pro-Traditional characters

• Some teachers in areas where traditional Chinese characters are used often scold students who use simplified characters, even to the extent of calling them "uneducated". This, in addition to other matters, has enforced a prejudice held by some traditional Chinese character users that traditional Chinese is for the educated and cultured, while simplified Chinese is for the illiterate, dumb, even the barbaric. In Taiwan, simplified characters have been regarded as "Communist" and are studiously avoided.

Political Implications

Pro-Traditional characters

• The simplified characters have been referred to by Taiwan and refugees from China as a "Communist plot", a deliberate attempt to cut off traditional Chinese culture and values. Simplified characters were banned in Taiwan. In the past it was a variation only learned by specialists doing intelligence work at the height of the Communist China era. Over time, many immigrants who left the PRC quickly learned traditional characters and have found simplified character materials from the PRC to be propagandistic.
• Splitting simplified characters and traditional characters allow the Communist party to selectively censor. An example is the sex trade book Whispers and Moans serialized in Hong Kong's Literary Century magazine during 2000 and 2001. The book was sold out in Hong Kong including a popular Japanese version. Beijing's Central Bureau of Censorship claimed the book about sex industries contained too many "unhealthy words". The book conflicted with mainland's Marriage Law of 2002, which claim topics outside marriage as "controversial" or "spiritual pollution". They were able to censor this book by the simplified characters edition in 2003 without affecting other regions.

See also

• History of China
• Timeline of Chinese history
• Sino-Tibetan languages