Why do Hong Kong and Taiwan use traditional Chinese characters and mainland China use simplified Chinese characters?

"The modern Chinese character simplification movement originated from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. In order to improve the literacy rate, the imperial seals and official documents of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were simplified. According to informal statistics, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has been using more than 100 simplified characters, 80% of which were later adopted by Chinese characters "(P.38, The Reform of Contemporary China). The most famous word of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was to change the word "or" of "country" into "king", but after the demise of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the movement of simplified characters also stopped.

In the late Qing Dynasty, China faced a serious crisis of dividing up the powers. In this era of national turmoil and changing people's minds, many intellectuals are concerned about the country and the people and advocate reform and self-improvement. During the Reform Movement, some patriotic intellectuals believed that in order to save the country and strengthen the country, it was necessary to popularize education and cultivate talents, and to overcome the obstacles brought by traditional Chinese characters. Under this trend of thought, Chinese pinyin has developed. Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and Tan Sitong, the main figures of the Reform Movement, all advocated Pinyin, but the Reform Movement lasted only a hundred days, and the Pinyin Movement was stillborn. (Text Reform in Contemporary China, pp. 5-6)

The May 4th vernacular movement is well known. In fact, the simplification movement should be compared with the vernacular movement, because both of them are part of the new culture movement. During this period, many people put forward methods to improve the knowledge level of Chinese people. To improve the level of knowledge, we must first improve the literacy rate, and to improve the literacy rate, we must simplify complex Chinese characters. Simplified characters have been recognized by many intellectuals, and the vast majority of intellectuals who advocate the use of vernacular Chinese are in favor of simplified characters. Hu Shi, a famous sinologist, did not object.

1922, Qian put forward a plan to save the brushwork of Chinese characters at the preparatory meeting for the unification of Chinese language and writing by Beiyang government, arguing that "Chinese characters are a tool, and suitability is the primary criterion. Using pinyin is the fundamental method, simplifying Chinese characters is the palliative method, and the palliative method is the most important method at present. " At that time, it was also proposed that Chinese characters should be pinyin, and they could write if they could speak. However, there are many homophones in Chinese characters, and pinyin is not good at all, so I gave up.

1in the spring of 935, a large-scale Chinese character simplification movement was launched in Shanghai cultural circles, which was then called "Chinese character movement at hand". In other words, books are printed as ordinary people write, making words easier to write and identify, and more popular with the public. In August of the same year, the National Government published the first batch of 324 simplified characters, and the principle of simplification was: 1, saying but not doing. 2. Choose simplified characters that are more popular in society. 3. Simplified characters are no longer simplified. However, it was immediately opposed by Dai, a veteran of the Kuomintang. The result was abolished in February 1936. It was not until the Second World War that the movement of simplifying Chinese characters was popularized within the rule of the * * * production party. Newspapers and magazines in this area used existing or created simplified characters, also known as "liberation characters". (Contemporary China Character Reform P.4 1)

Character simplification movement in * *

1956 65438+1October 28th-* * * The first batch of simplified characters was released.

1949, the * * regime was established. 1952 In February, the China Character Reform Research Committee was established to collect suggestions from people and scholars who advocated simplification of Chinese characters since the Republic of China. At the end of 1954, the draft of Simplified Chinese Characters was put forward and published in People's Daily in February 1955. In July, the State Council was founded. 1Oct. 28th 1956+65438, the association adopted the simplified word 5 15 and the simplified word radical 54.

1977, just after the Cultural Revolution, the draft of the Second Generation Simplified Chinese Character Scheme was published. 1986 "two simplified schemes" was abolished by the State Council. In the same year, the State Language Committee, established by the China Language Reform Commission, re-published the summary table of simplified characters, and jointly issued a joint notice on simplified characters with the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education, unanimously stating that the glyphs of Chinese characters should be kept stable for a period of time to facilitate application. At this point, Chinese mainland's Chinese character simplification movement has come to an end temporarily. (Contemporary China Character Reform P. 105)

From June, 5438 to February, 2000, China * * * passed the National Law on Common Languages and Characters, which will be implemented on 200 1 year/month 1 day. * * * The central government will legally determine the status of Putonghua and standardized Chinese characters as the national common language, and at the same time protect dialects, traditional Chinese characters and variant Chinese characters as cultural heritage, allowing them to exist for a long time in certain fields and specific areas, but not to abuse them in Putonghua broadcasts and movies. Actors who play the leading role in movies and TV plays generally have to speak Mandarin. If the content requires it, it is not appropriate to use some dialects too much. The number of films and TV plays using dialects should also be controlled, but local operas are not included. (China Times 2000 65438+February 10)

There are nine principles for simplifying Chinese characters, which are described as follows:

1. Keep the outline of the original words: turtle (turtle) and worry (worry).

2. Retain some features of the original characters and omit others, such as voice and medicine.

3. Change simple strokes: such as hugging (hugging) and hitting (hitting).

4. Change pictophonetic characters into simple phonetic symbols, such as Beijing (Beijing) and Hu (Hu).

5. Combination of consecutive words: If "Li" and "Li" are used together, use the simpler "Li" as the combination word. "Yu" and "Yu" are interlinked, and the combined word is "Yu".

6. cursive script: such as special (special), east (east), car (car), turn (turn).

7. Use ancient hieroglyphics, explanations, and words: for example, three people form a crowd (crowd), two people follow (slaves), and the net (net). These ancient Chinese characters are simple and conform to the principle of word formation. At the beginning, these ancient characters may be complicated for the sake of beauty.

8. Replace complex radicals with simple symbols: for example, change the left radicals of chicken (chicken), joy (joy) and difficulty (difficulty).

9. Use ancient words: such as holiness, ceremony, nothing, dust, etc.

It is worth mentioning that Luo Jialun, one of the leaders of the May 4th Movement, strongly advocated the simplification movement after coming to Taiwan Province Province, and was criticized by the Party Congress as "propaganda for bandits". Hu Shi saw that simplified characters were practiced in mainland China in the United States, and he said it was very simple.

Implementation status of simplified Chinese

After the implementation of simplified Chinese characters, many people can't understand the paintings, ancient books and monuments of their predecessors, which will lead to the phenomenon of cultural fault. Therefore, today, we advocate "knowing the complexity must be simplified". In other words, we should encourage simplified Chinese characters, but we should know more about traditional Chinese characters. Just like reading classical Chinese after the implementation of vernacular Chinese. Many signboards in Chinese mainland often see traditional Chinese characters, such as Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Farmers Bank of China, China Southern Airlines and Acer Computer. At present, Christmas cards and New Year cards are mostly traditional Chinese characters, and plaques and calligraphy coexist.

In Beijing, the signboards of "China Haidian Bookstore" and "Art College" in Peking University are all embossed, and many signboards use traditional Chinese characters for beauty. But textbooks, publishing houses and televisions all use simplified Chinese characters, but ancient books publishing houses also use traditional Chinese characters. (Students from Taiwan Province Province, Peking University P. 108)

As a unique art, China's calligraphy is not restricted by simplified Chinese characters in Chinese mainland. Because calligraphy is an art, a unique art form in the world and a treasure of China culture. The function of art is not to convey information and record history, so there is no need to use simplified words. In fact, cursive art is a simplified word. Simplifying a multi-stroke word and then expressing a beautiful form is by no means an easy task, which is itself an artistic re-creation.

Changes of Chinese Characters in Hong Kong and Taiwan

1949 basically stopped after the founding of New China.

Therefore, the simplified characters used in Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan are basically the characters before 1949.