Second round of simplified Chinese characters

The second round of Chinese character simplification was officially promulgated on 20 December 1977 by the People's Republic of China, and replaced the existing (first-round) simplified Chinese characters that were already in use. The complete proposal contained a list of 248 characters that were to be simplified immediately, as well as another list of 605 characters that were open to discussion.

Following widespread confusion and opposition, the second round of simplification was officially rescinded on 24 June 1986 by the State Council. At the same time, the retraction declared that further reform of the Chinese character should henceforth proceed with caution. Today, second-round simplified characters, while considered nonstandard, continue to survive in informal usage.

History

In 1956, the People's Republic of China promulgated the first round of character simplifications. The plan was adjusted slightly in the following years, eventually stabilizing in 1964 with a definitive list of character simplifications. These are the simplified Chinese characters that are used today in Mainland China and Singapore. (Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau did not adopt the simplifications, and the characters used in those places are known as traditional Chinese characters. In 1946, Japan implemented its own simplifications; many of the characters used in Japan are less extremely simplified than the Chinese ones.)

In 1975, a second round of simplifications was submitted by the Script Reform Committee of China to the State Council for approval. On 20 December 1977, major newspapers such as the People's Daily, the Guangming Daily, the PLA Daily, and official province-level newpapers promulgated the second-round simplifications. The People's Daily began to use the second-round simplified characters on the following day.

As early as mid-1978, the Ministry of Education and the Central Propaganda Department were asking publishers of textbooks, newspapers and other works to stop the usage of second-round simplifications. Over the next few years, confusion and disagreement ensued. Second-round simplifications were taught inconsistently in the education system, and people were using characters at various stages of official or unofficial simplification.

As a result, the second round of simplifications was retracted by the State Council on 24 June 1986. The State Council's retraction also emphasized that further reform of the Chinese character should henceforth proceed with caution, and that the forms of Chinese characters should be kept stable. On 10 October of the same year, a final list of simplifications was promulgated, which was identical to first-round simplifications promulgated in 1964 except for six changes, and no further change has been made since.

Singapore, which followed the People's Republic of China in adopting the first round of simplifications, waited out the second round without making any changes. It was thus spared the ordeal of adopting and then rescinding the second round of reforms.

Methods of simplification

The second round of simplification continued to use the methods used in the first round. For example:

In some characters, the phonetic component of the character was replaced with a simpler one, while the radical was unchanged. For example:

• 菜 > 艹 + 才
• 酒 > 氿
• 稳 > 禾 + 文

In some characters, entire components were replaced by ones that are similar in shape:

• 幕 > 大 + 巾
• 整 > 大 + 正
• 款 > 牛 + 欠

In some characters, components that are complicated are replaced with a simpler one not similar in any way:

• 鞋 > 又 + 圭
• 短 > 矢 + 卜

In some characters, the radical is simply dropped, leaving only the phonetic. This results in mergers between previously distinct characters:

• 稀 > 希
• 彩 > 采
• 帮 > 邦
• 蝌蚪 > 科斗
• 蚯蚓 > 丘引

In some characters, entire components are dropped:

• 糖 > 米 + 广
• 停 > 仃
• 餐 > top left corner of 餐

Some characters are simply replaced by a similar-sounding one:

• 萧 > 肖
• 蛋 > 旦
• 泰 > 太

Effects

Today, second round characters are officially regarded as incorrect. However, some have survived in informal contexts; this is because many people who were in school between 1977 and 1986 received their education in second-round characters. For example, eggs at markets are often advertised as "鸡旦" rather than "鸡蛋", and parking venues may be marked "仃车" rather than "停车". Another example is handwritten license plates from Hebei province, which often use 北 + 一 as opposed to 冀 to represent that province.

In one case, the second round has split one family name into two. Originally, the surname 蕭 (Xiāo) was rather common while the surname 肖 (Xiào) was extremely rare, if not non-existent (it is mentioned only sporadically in historical texts). The first round of simplication simplified 蕭 into 萧, while keeping the two characters distinct. The second round, however, merged 萧 into 肖. Despite the retraction of the second round, some people have kept 肖 as their surname, so that there are now two separate surnames, 萧 and 肖.

Techical information

In general, second-round characters are not supported by Unicode, GB18030, or any other system of Chinese character encoding.