When did simplified characters first appear?

Simplified characters originated from cursive script and began to spread among the people as early as the Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui and Tang Dynasties. They are called "vulgar characters" because they are different from normal characters, just for the convenience of writing. On formal occasions, people still use regular characters, so people at that time could know two or more ways to write a word at the same time. It's like when we work at home, we like to wear casual coarse clothes for convenience, but when we go out to meet guests, we will still change into formal and decent silk clothes. This situation lasted for thousands of years, but after the founding of New China, X only allowed people to wear coarse clothes and burn silk clothes forever.

1956, 1 At the end of the year, Chinese mainland published the Simplified Scheme of Chinese Characters, and 1964 published the Simplified Outline of Chinese Characters in May. If you use traditional Chinese characters again, it's a typo. There are three tables in the summary table of simplified words: the first table is 352 simplified words without radicals, the second table is 132 simplified words with radicals and 14 simplified words, and the third table is 1754 simplified words with radicals; In other words, 2238 new words have been completely created.

So how big is this word-making ratio? At present, there are 2,500 commonly used words in Chinese mainland, 1000 commonly used words, which is 3,500 words. Together with the professional vocabulary used in all walks of life, there are 7000 words in the general word list, which means that you can read ordinary books of all majors by mastering 7000 words. Of course, some words are not within this 7000, but we can roughly describe that the proportion of Chinese characters is very large. No wonder people who haven't studied simplified Chinese characters find it difficult to understand Chinese mainland's Chinese characters.

Why compare simplified characters to coarse clothes and traditional characters to fine silk robes? Because Chinese characters have simplified strokes, they have paid a heavy price. Because the strokes are simplified, many words are similar in shape, and the recognition rate is greatly reduced, so the reading speed is slow. Because people spend countless times more time reading words than writing, even writers are generally counterproductive. At the same time, simplified characters add many radicals, which increases the learning burden of students. In the eyes of calligraphers, these newly created radicals and Chinese characters are much more vulgar and ugly than traditional Chinese characters. In addition, because many homonyms are merged into a simplified word, it often leads to semantic confusion, loss of etymological relationship within Chinese characters, and structural disorder of the whole Chinese character system. Everyone who has used a computer knows that the input speed of traditional Chinese characters and simplified Chinese characters is a little lower, but because of the addition of a new simplified Chinese character system, a search system has been artificially added, and the trouble has doubled. Wouldn't it be great if we didn't simplify Chinese characters and followed the practice of thousands of years in history, and we could use vulgar style for handwriting and normal style for printing? Why ask for trouble? In the words of ordinary people, tofu has really become the price of meat.

The theoretical basis of simplified Chinese characters is that, throughout the evolution of Chinese characters, from Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscriptions to seal script, official script, regular script, running script and cursive script, the general trend is from complexity to simplicity. However, if we carefully study the evolution of Chinese characters, we can easily find that the development of Chinese characters follows the dual laws of simplification and simplification. Because people's life and thinking are becoming more and more complicated, and there are more and more contents to be expressed, it is necessary to create new words, while Chinese characters will be simplified and complicated, and strokes are needed to create a large number of new words; On the other hand, if too many strokes are allowed without simplification, it will become more and more complicated, so people will seek simple writing methods. However, the research shows that, on the whole, from Oracle Bone Inscriptions to modern times, there are more characters from simplicity to complexity than from complexity to simplicity.

Another reason for promoting simplified characters is to eliminate illiteracy and enable working people to read and write. In fact, simplified characters have been practiced in Chinese mainland for more than 40 years, but there are still more than 1 100 million illiterates and countless semi-illiterates. On the contrary, in Taiwan Province Province, simplified Chinese characters are still very complicated. However, due to the government's emphasis on education and helping the children of ordinary people, illiteracy was eliminated in the 1970s. From the comparative experiment between Taiwan Province Province and Chinese mainland, we can see that the key to universal education lies not in the number of strokes, but in the number of government intentions.

Those who favor simplified Chinese characters think that Chinese characters are just code names. Isn't the code name as simple as possible? Instead of spending so much time learning to read, it is better to spend more time learning real culture. Actually, this is a misunderstanding. Every word of Chinese characters is itself a concentrated culture and a solidified information module. While learning to read and write, I am also learning the culture of China. For example, simplifying word division simplifies the middle word defense. What is Wei? It is a migratory bird, and the field below represents its habitat. This word shows that migratory birds can only complete the north-south migration by struggling to spread their wings. If they move their wings, the most essential information will be lost.

In 1960s, the simplified scheme reduced the average number of strokes of Chinese characters from 16 to 10.3. By 1977, X wanted to implement the second simplification scheme, and wanted to reduce the number of strokes to less than 10, but it stopped because of strong public opposition. This reminds me of a joke. Many words in English are too long to remember. Can we simplify them? Is the complexity the most important thing in writing? Wouldn't it be better to abolish writing for simplicity? Of course, this is a joke, but it also illustrates a problem. In the world, I'm afraid only X can be used against the words of ancestors.

China people have a proverb: it runs in the family. It means that the cultivation of a person's cultural temperament is a long and arduous task, and it takes three generations of efforts to cultivate a person with noble temperament, which is exactly the case. No matter a person or a nation, the inheritance of culture needs a process of inheritance. Only by inheriting the predecessors and standing on the shoulders of the giants in front can we see further and develop. Therefore, we say that the biggest drawback of simplified characters is that they split the culture and cut off the cultural lifeline that lasted for thousands of years. With the emergence of so many new words and the abolition of so many traditional Chinese characters, it is difficult for people born after the 1960s, even college students, to read newspapers and periodicals 40 years ago, not to mention the ancient books before that. China culture has been cut off. One of the most vivid examples is that Peking University, the highest institution in China, issued a limited number of "Centennial Bookmarks" on the centenary celebration, which was beautifully printed and became a treasure of alumni at home and abroad. Who knows there are many typos in it. For example, "peach and plum fragrance" is mistaken for "peach and plum fragrance"; "and set my cloudy sail straight and bridge the deep, deep sea" is mistaken for "hanging Yun Fan directly to save the sea"; "Sitting in the book city, the rich side" is mistaken for "sitting in the book city, the rich side". Scholars at Peking University make such jokes, which shows that there is no successor to China culture.

In the history of China, apart from the fact that Qin Shihuang burned books to bury Confucianism and ruined the teachings of the pre-Qin emperors, and a hundred schools of thought contended during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, this simplified word was the most harmful to culture. Living, the descendants of the Yellow Emperor broke away from the long river of ancestral culture, and the people born in New China became "cultural rootless people", people in the cultural desert. Some people say that the New Culture Movement does not advocate learning western culture or engaging in utilitarianism. What is the fact that you can learn to learn? Many times, I was a toddler in Handan. I didn't learn from others, but I lost my old good things.

As we know, history will never forgive those who destroy culture, because their sins far exceed murder and arson.

Yang Liqi February 4, 2006

Random thoughts, Chinese character reform

Ba Jin

Ms. Sato of the Japan-China Cultural Exchange Association handed it over to Mr. Maruya Saiichi, a Japanese writer who is "active in the field of pure literature"

198 1 met Mr. Wang in Shanghai in the summer of, and we spent it together.

A very pleasant evening; In particular, Mr. Wang sincerely answered my question about text reform.

Answer, and allow me to introduce this dialogue in my book ... His Book criticizes the reform of Japanese Mandarin.

The book was published and sent to me, thanking me for agreeing with him to quote my opinion.

I read the original book sent by Mr. Maruya, which quoted our Q&A, simple and clear, and

My exact words. Regarding the reform of Chinese characters, I said, "It is necessary to simplify Chinese characters, but we should do it slowly and carefully."

Do it hard. "He also asked if he ever thought about abolishing Chinese characters. I smiled and replied: "In this way, we even lost Li Bai and Du Fu.

I dropped it. "He said he would quote my point of view in the new book, and I agreed.

I have no research on the reform of Japanese Mandarin, so I can't comment. But when it comes to the reform of Chinese characters, I am from China, and the same is true.

I have a personal relationship, an idea, and I have thought about it many times. What I said to Mr. Maruya is true. I think Han

Words cannot be discarded. I only give one reason: we have so many excellent cultural heritages that no one has the right to put them away.

The children threw them into the dustbin.

When I was young, my thoughts were extreme. I once advocated burning all the thread-bound books. It's ridiculous to think back today. calendar

If an ancient civilization with a long history loses the splendid cultural treasures accumulated in the past, it will rely on simplification.

Pinyin will not achieve anything in creating a new civilization. I remembered the famous saying of a country's leader.

Thirty years ago, when he saw me, he said, "You can only read pinyin, but you can't read." His words

It is worth pondering. Some people think that if Chinese characters are abolished and pinyin is used instead, it only takes a few days to learn the letters.

Writing letters can solve everything. In fact, he just drew a line with his ancestors and became an illiterate without culture.

It's already started.

I have another reason. We are a big country with many nationalities, dialects and a population of one billion, which closely unites us all.

What comes up is Chinese characters. I have been impressed so far. 1927, I went to France and stayed in Saigon.

I met an overseas Chinese teacher on a small train on the shore. We made friends by writing Chinese characters. The ship stopped in Saigon for three days. male

Accompany me ashore for two days. Looking back today, if there were no Chinese characters, we two people in China could not get along.

Solution.

I have one more thing to say. The Truth Collection was published in Hong Kong Sanlian Bookstore. I received a sample book and gave it to Xiao.

Granddaughter, because there are articles about her. I didn't expect this book to be printed in traditional Chinese characters.

If you don't know each other, you can't read together. This reminds me of a problem. The Chinese characters used by Hong Kong compatriots are mainland children.

I can't understand it. The more simplified characters are used, the greater the gap between us and our compatriots in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. because

We must simplify Chinese characters carefully. In any case, we can't forget that Chinese characters are an important tool to unite the people of the whole country.

Everyone has his own opinion. I'm just talking about my personal opinion. But I have been dealing with Chinese characters for more than 70 years.

I also have a say. I have memorized hundreds of Tang poems, Song lyrics, Yuan songs and so on since I was a child, and most of them still remember. deep

What people like printed in their minds cannot be abolished by any order.

I won't say anything stupid about burning thread-bound books. I remembered what I said three years ago: as long as language is a genus.

For a living nation, it is always developing, becoming complex and rich, in order to be more accurate and beautiful.

Expressing people's complex ideas clearly will never become more and more simplified, just for easy learning.

We have plenty of people who eat the same pot, and we have plenty of time to play poker and drive trolleybus. According to me personally,

Experience shows that learning Chinese characters is no more difficult than learning European and American languages. Westerners are learning more and more Chinese characters day by day.

In recent years, many people want to know about our country through modern literature. Our literature is respected, and so is our writing.

Be valued. They belong to human beings, and no one can destroy them, whether it is you, me or anything else.

People.

The above words can be used as a supplement to my reply to Mr. Maruya.

1July 9, 983

********

……

Return to the study in the western suburbs of Shanghai from the venue of the International Esperanto Congress, and spread out thick Esperanto characters in the quiet night.

Canon, I have many feelings. Thinking about our writing reform, I can't help but have some questions: Am I?

Do you really want to abolish Chinese characters and replace them with Chinese Pinyin? Do we really want to close our glorious and rich cultural heritage?

Get up and keep young people out of touch? I'm not totally opposed to the simplification of words, so let's eliminate all the ones that should be eliminated! But literally.

Development is always to express people's complex thoughts more accurately, not just to make them easier to learn. exist

Sweden, Europe, Japan ... people have two days off every week. Are we China people always too busy to study?

No time! Too busy to even recognize one or two more words! Too busy to even have complicated ideas! ? we

What is needed now is to improve the people's cultural level, or to make our writing simple and clear. We must fight.

Anyway, the face is the same. I don't understand. In a country with a population of 900 million, the reform of writing is everyone's business, so we should be cautious.

Point, listen to your opinion, there is no harm.