10 defects of Chinese simplified characters
"Xie Mon Aug 24, 2009 4:26 pm GMT
The problem of simplified characters, like the problem of the straits, is the responsibility of the mainland, not Taiwan or Hong Kong or anywhere where you still find traditional characters and Chinese societies not dominated by undemocratic political systems. Unfortunately, both issues coincide so perfectly that the discussions often go needlessly political, especially among my Taiwanese counterparts, many of which who blame the commies for simplified characters.
But, as another coincidence, both simplified characters and commies suck. End of my post. "
I think they are "Wai-sheng-ren", not "Taiwanese" who blame the simplification of Chinese characters.
In fact, we Taiwanese people have already discussed the simplification of Chinese characters before the rule of KMT but unfortunately stopped by KMT.
Even though China doesn't simplify Chinese characters, Taiwan will still simplify Chinese characters by their own and create the easy form of Chinese characters - Characters with Taiwanese characteristics which may be easier than simplified Chinese.
Taiwan will create "the most simplified Chinese characters" by their own and about over 10,000 characters should be simplified!
Neither speak nor write Chinese would be the most simplified method for you. Just speak and write English, Japanese, or which else you like. Just forget who you are and make yourself more stupidly and ignorantly.
"ssss Tue Aug 25, 2009 2:30 am GMT
Neither speak nor write Chinese would be the most simplified method for you. Just speak and write English, Japanese, or which else you like. Just forget who you are and make yourself more stupidly and ignorantly. "
English - Its orthography is too complicated. Not the best to write it.
Japanese - Its Kanjia, be honest, too complicated than Simplified Chinese. Its strokes are more than Chinese one.
I'm a foreigner living in Taiwan for learning Chinese, and I have to tell you the true thing:
The Simplification of Chinese characters is not invented by CCP. Both KMT and CCP ever brought up the issue for the simplification of the Chinese characters. But KMT faced the strong opposition when she had attempted to simplify Chinese characters for twice. The first time was in the year of 1935, but half a year, this simplification program stopped because Dai Ji-Tao opposed it and China faced Japan's invasion.
After KMT withdrew to Taiwan, Chiang Kai-Sheik himself brought up the issue for the simplification of Chinese Characters in 1952, but this time , it faced the opposition by Hu Qiu-Yuan. After 3 years (1955), China began the simplification of Chinese characters, KMT began using political ideology to destroy the reputation of Simplification of Chinese characters.
簡化字並非共產黨所發明，歷史上國共兩黨都曾主張漢字簡化。但是國民黨兩次企圖推行都遇到了強大的阻力，沒有成功。第一次是在1935 年，推行不到半年就因為戴季陶等人的堅決反對而擱寢；在當時的國民黨中常會上，提起漢字簡化的議題，戴季陶忽然當場下跪，告誡與會者，漢字乃中華民族根本，決不能輕言改革。再加上日軍大兵壓境，內憂外患，無暇兼顧有關的討論，簡化運動便草草收場。
國民黨敗走台灣以後，1952年再度提起漢字簡化問題。蔣介石又曾動議，旋即遇到以胡秋原為代表的反對派強烈抵制，終於再一次擱寢。三年後，大陸推行簡化漢字運動，國民黨當局開始將簡化漢字斥為“共黨陰謀”、“忘本賣國”等等。
Well, Qian Xuantong was exactly the same person who made up simplified characters back in the 30s when Chiang was still ruling the mainland. He submitted the proposal but for some reasons it was not given attention. Chiang may have been busier with the war with the Japanese.
And yes, indeed, people mix too much politics into the whole discussions. That goes without saying.
But that doesn't change my negative opinion of simplified characters, and what's more, I'm now disappointed that some of my Taiwanese counterparts actually support simplification. In the case of characters with multiple writing, I can accept the switch, especially spontaneous, to simpler characters, as what it actually took place in Hong Kong and Taiwan, like the character itself for "Tai" in Taiwan. But for the most part, at least, Qian's 300 something characters look ugly and illogical. Life would still have been easy if simplified characters have one-to-one correspondence to their original counterparts, but in practice most of them do not. For most one-to-one, they look ugly; for most multiple-to-one, that just creates even more confusion. Even if you force us to "accept" illogical simplifications, at least the multiple-to-one characters should be somewhat changed.
Anyone with decent knowledge of Chinese, or is actually a Chinese speaker, should take a look at the three lists of characters I mention, the very lists released in 1956 or something by the PRC government, and the very lists that I used to learn simplified characters. And you'll see the main culprit I speak of lies in the first list. The other two are simply derivations and don't cause a lot of harm.
Suppose mainland China and Taiwan and Hong Kong all become GOOD FRIENDS (the political ideology that predominates is IRRELEVANT). Just suppose they become good friends and there is no more political antagonism than between the USA and CANADA.
WOULD either Taiwan or Hong Kong think about using simplified characters for economic reasons, or are they too entrenched? How much do the traditional characters form part of Hong Kong/Taiwan identity.
"Xie Tue Aug 25, 2009 5:17 am GMT
Well, Qian Xuantong was exactly the same person who made up simplified characters back in the 30s when Chiang was still ruling the mainland. He submitted the proposal but for some reasons it was not given attention. Chiang may have been busier with the war with the Japanese.
And yes, indeed, people mix too much politics into the whole discussions. That goes without saying.
But that doesn't change my negative opinion of simplified characters, and what's more, I'm now disappointed that some of my Taiwanese counterparts actually support simplification. In the case of characters with multiple writing, I can accept the switch, especially spontaneous, to simpler characters, as what it actually took place in Hong Kong and Taiwan, like the character itself for "Tai" in Taiwan. But for the most part, at least, Qian's 300 something characters look ugly and illogical. Life would still have been easy if simplified characters have one-to-one correspondence to their original counterparts, but in practice most of them do not. For most one-to-one, they look ugly; for most multiple-to-one, that just creates even more confusion. Even if you force us to "accept" illogical simplifications, at least the multiple-to-one characters should be somewhat changed.
Anyone with decent knowledge of Chinese, or is actually a Chinese speaker, should take a look at the three lists of characters I mention, the very lists released in 1956 or something by the PRC government, and the very lists that I used to learn simplified characters. And you'll see the main culprit I speak of lies in the first list. The other two are simply derivations and don't cause a lot of harm. "
I think if there is no political ideology, Taiwan will concentrate themselves on simplifying Chinese characters. To be honest, Japan's 1000 simplified characters and China's over 2500 simplified characters are not enough. Taiwan at least will simplify over 10,000 characters. Some ppl have noticed that the invention of "Zhuyin" is to used as a tool to simplify Chinese characters and Taiwan will use it to simplify at least 10,000 characters.
Taiwan has 2 goals to do:
1: To simplify Chinese characters more than both China and Japan did.
2: To abandon the learning of the classical Chinese stuffs and remove them from textbooks.
To Xie:
Chiang Kai-Sheik has always supported the simplification of Chinese characters. If China didn't simplify characters, Taiwan would be the first to simplify characters. In history, he was a simplification-enthusiast. In his diary , he revealed that he felt regretful for not simplifying Chinese characters in Taiwan.
To Xie:
For a foreigner like me, I may feel disappointed that "the second-run simplified Chinese characters" being abandoned.
I think it's too easy for we foreigners to learn that "Second-Run Simplified Chinese Characters"(二简方案）
The second-run was even worse. Totally crap. I wonder how people could have come up with such hideous stuff and claimed it was Chinese. I'd attribute this to that bitch called Jiang Qing. Apparently, the communists weren't that stupid after all, and when they could see how chaotic language use had become, they simply canceled this plan through the 80s and decided not to take further steps. That saved our language for the time being, until now.
To Xie:
Taiwan is a multilingual society like Singapore, not Hong Kong or China.
In this case, Taiwan has the need to make writing system more simpler.
In Taiwan,Mandarin,Hokkien,Hakka,Paiwan,A-mei etc (13 languages )are spoken, how about Hong Kong? Only Cantonese,Mandarin or English. Just 3 languages! So, we students here need to learn many languages, so the best way to require the knowledge of many languages is to make writing system more simpler. Taiwan is not in the past when only Mandarin should be spoken.
Singapore found out its need for simplifier characters because she has been multilingual. No, we Taiwan finds out our need for simplifier characters because we have become multilingual now.