10 defects of Chinese simplified characters

Northern Chinese Thu Aug 27, 2009 11:19 am GMT
"当年如果没有秦始皇的「书同文」，中国的汉字不一定会有多少种写法呢。"

Qin the Conqueror (秦始皇) burnt the written languages of other kingdoms in ancient China and promoted the new Language Policy of Qin Empire: "book wrote in the same written system and writing in the same script of characters" (书同文). This language policy stopped the Thinking Freedom of peoples in China more than two thousand years.

Samson: "While past two thousand years, the Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese were using wunyen (文言); an written language and character script, so they lost their own native languages and traditionary cultures."

What do you think happened inside China?

The Chicanos/Mexicans in the U.S.A. have a saying: "we did not cross the border, the border crossed us." The same thing is true with China. The Chinese government still tries its best to hide these facts. Ethnic history do not make it into the textbooks.

Since the movie Avatar is in fashion, let us talk about comparison. The Chinese South is the Pandora that the Chinese coveted. So in year 221 B.C. they send a half-million-strong invading force, and annexed this vast territory into China. Do you know that elephants and rhinos used to roam free in these lands? Where are the elephants and rhinos in China, today?

Here is another movie parallel. Hopefully more Chinese people will realize one day where they actually came from, and what languages their ancestors actually spoke.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1wcMvBcqW0

ནི་ཀོའོང་ཤི་ཀྲོང་རིགས་རང་སྐྱོང་ལྗོངས་དུ་བེད་སྤྱོད་བྱེད།

"Ethnic history do not make it into the textbooks."

Dear Little Tadpole,

Your question may be a theological problem. The peoples of western are taught about the reasons of Babel in Old Testament, and so they know the concepts about confuse the languages / dialects, scattered nationalities / ethnicities, etc, and etc. They also know all these are come from a Blessing of the Creator of the World.

In eastern, the peoples are taught in the teachings of Confucianism that emphasized: "Inside the Four Sea (our living world), every person are brothers belong to one family (Zhou Kingdom)." The teachings of Confucianism encourages the peoples of eastern and let them seek to rebuild a one people, one society and then one language which existing before Babel.

>> Little Tadpole Wed Jan 20, 2010 4:09 pm GMT
>> So in year 221 B.C. they send a half-million-strong invading force, and annexed this vast territory into China.


So in year 221 B.C. the King of Qin Kingdom send a half-million-strong invading force, and annexed this vast territories of modern south China into Qin Kingdom.

In year 221 B.C. send the force to invade the modern South China and annexed this vast territories into Qin was the King of Qin Kingdom, not the China or Chinese.

Qin: a state name; ancient Qin kingdom, after several conquered and annexed territories from other states in North and South China, then it become an Qin empire laterly.
China: a western place name.
Chinese: a western name means the peoples living in modern China.

"Tionghoa Mon Jul 20, 2009 11:29 am GMT
十、簡化字并不是經濟發展、科技進步、社會民主的催化劑。好多同胞至今仍未理解“文化”和“科技”的區別，誤以為“簡體字”等於“搞科研”，“簡體字”等於“ 生產力”，“簡體字”等於“新社會”，故此，才有“偽學者”評價“正體字”是塊臭“裹腳布”，一旦提到“簡體字”，這些人就會誤認為“經濟繁榮”、”科技發展“、“社會穩定”、“人文進步”都是拜“簡體字”所賜。而繁體字代表著“封建的制度”、“落後的科技”、和“倒退的人文”，看來文革的餘毒未消，貽害了無數中國人。反觀日本、韓國、台灣、香港，都在用著中華的正體字（日本有少量“和製漢字”），且台灣和日本的國語辭典依然維持“豎排版”的模式。改用簡體字的大陸不是應該比他們更發達、更輝煌，更進步嗎？還有當年廢止“二簡字“又說明什麽？

1. traditional character (繁體字), logo writing system (script in original characters).

2. simplified character (簡化字), syllabic writing system (script in homophone characters).

Don't expect too much from Little Tadpole. It lives in a tiny pond after all.

> Little Tadpole Sun Aug 30, 2009 2:33 am GMT
"I can't comment about Cantonese. But as for my language, Hoklo/Minnan, I can see very clearly that Chinese characters are just no good."
> Tionghoa Sun Aug 30, 2009 5:38 am GMT
"For example, in Cantonese (佢俾本書我), if you know what 渠 & 畀 exactly means in classical Chinese, you won't use the borrowed homophone 佢 & 俾 any more ( 渠畀本書我). So, as a native Chinese, I'm strongly against "homophone substitutions" that almost have nothing to do with their origin (classical Chinese) or context. I really hope you can understand what I said."

Although "佢俾本書我" or "渠畀本書我" are the same sentence. But they are written in different "writing systems".

a. "渠畀本書我" is a sentence in logo writing system (original characters) .
b. "佢俾本書我" is a sentence in syllabic writing system (homophones).

The characters "渠" and "佢", "畀" and "俾" are two pairs of homophones in Cantonese pronunciation. The characters "渠" and "畀" are words of written Classical Chinese, not of spoken Cantonese, they are different two languages. Just as different as Sanskrit and Hindi. A Sanskrit word can tell you some things about the derivation of Hindi words, but Classical Chinese word isn't the Cantonese words. And there are some more cases about the derivation such as Latin and French, Spanish and Tagalog, etc.

You must be a native Cantonese or a learner of Cantonese, then you can read the Cantonese sentence that wrote in "syllabic writing system" (homophones "佢俾本書我").

When the Cantonese sentence was written in "logo writing system" (original characters "渠畀本書我"), the non-native Cantonese speakers as Mandarins, Wunese, Gans, Foochownese, Japanese can read the meaning from the sentence easily because the Chinese characters are a kind of logo symbols such as 1, 2, 3. The speakers of English, Spanish, Russian, Hindi, or any language can read the meanings from logos of 1, 2, 3.

The syllabic writing system (homophones) can keep the Cantonese pronunciation under the pressure of Mandarinization Policy, but logo writing system (original characters) can't. Therefore, as those native Cantonese speakers, they may be strongly against "original characters".

> Tionghoa, Tadpolenese,

A. Syllabic Writing System (script in homophone characters)

e.g.
Classical Chinese (古文, in script of homophone characters),
Written Mandarin in script of simplified character,
Written Cantonese in script of homophone characters.


B. Logo Writing System (script in original characters)

e.g.
Literary Chinese (文言文, in script of original characters),
Written Mandarin in script of traditional character,
Written Cantonese in script of original characters.

>> Swedish Girl Tue Aug 25, 2009 2:13 am GMT
In fact, only about 2500 Chinese characters have been simplified. But I think it's not enough for we foreigners. I think it should be that over 13,000 characters need to be simplified! <<

The Spoken Mandarin have 1,334 syllables. If Written Mandarin adopt the form of "Syllabic Writing System", it only requires 1,334 characters.

Swedish Girl, Tionghua,

Spoken Mandarin only have 1,334 syllables.
written Mandarin just requires 1,334 characters.

You just require 1,334 characters that can write down the Mandarin in written form. The original goal of simplified character at 1950s which is to reduce the "Everyday Chinese Character" (常用漢字) from 7,000 characters to 3,500 characters, and reduce to 1,334 characters at the end.

『康熙字典』收漢字40,000餘。
『說文解字』收漢字9.000餘。
台灣 "常用漢字" 收漢字4,800個。
大陸 "常用漢字" 收漢字3,500個。
"簡化漢字" 收漢字2,200餘。
"漢語專業者" 識漢字7,000左右。

40,000 characters pronounce in Mandarin that just need 1,334 syllables.

>> "While past two thousand years, the Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese were using wunyen (文言); an written language and character script, so they lost their own native languages and traditionary cultures." <<

You're exaggerating quite a bit.

以下個人觀點:

首先漢字不是為外國人學習而設的, 如果他覺得中文太難而抱怨的話, 我建他可以去學韓文, 筆畫很少, 又非常系統化, 很易學。外國人學中文當然想越少筆劃越好, 但越少是否就是越好呢。當然不是啦, 正如貨幣幣值大不等於其價值高。簡體字雖然筆劃少, 但質量較正體字差是事實。 漢字不是表音文字, 而是表意文字(大部份), 每個字都是一幅圖晝。打個比喻, 一幅油晝 與 一幅素描, 兩者都可以很好看, 但一般油畫的內容會比較豐富, 一般人會比較偏愛油晝, 論價值, 價值連城的畫都是油畫。所以正體字的價值會比較高, 因為它表達的內容更豐富, 更美觀。

我個人是接受漢字簡化, 但是是要有質素的以及循序漸進。
現代的簡體字, 大部份都是在20世紀初出現。一套沿用上千年的系統, 在很極短的時間內, 被很少數的一群人去修訂, 那個年代, 戰事連連, 民不聊生, 連興隆的唐宋時代, 漢字都從未有如此大的改變, 可見質素是非常有問題。

從質素的根本出發, 漢字是應該沿用正體中文。

臨崖勒馬, 既可以推行, 亦可以收回, 事在人為。錯而能改, 善莫大焉。

> Tionghoa
> Tadpolenese

The Alphabetic Writing System:
Latinxua Sin Wenz (拉丁化新文字) is just using 409 Mandarin syllables.
(initials + finals)

The Syllabic Writing System:
Hanyu Pinyin (漢語拼音) is using 1,334 Mandarin syllables.
(initials + finals + tones)

> "While past two thousand years, the Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese were using wunyen (文言); an written language and character script, so they lost their own native languages and traditionary cultures."
> You're exaggerating quite a bit.

The Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese adopted the sinification in the two periods of Great Han Empire (206 bc - 220 ad) and Great Tang Empire (618 ad -907 ad).

The sinification (language and culture) of Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese that including they borrowed the Literary Chinese (文言文 wenyenwen) as their Written Language and the culture of Confucianism, etc.

The degree of sinification happening in that Asian nationalities were probably Korean 80% to 90%, Vietnamese 60% to 70% and Japanese 50% to 60%.

The modern "native written language" of Japanese, Vietnamese and Korean which were adopted by their governments that were about as the times: Written Japanese 1850s, Written Korean 1940s, and Written Vietnamese 1950s.