Simplified Chinese characters have a long history. Chinese characters changed from oracle bone script and bronze inscriptions to seal script, and then to official script and regular script.
Regular script began to appear in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and simplified characters were already seen in the inscriptions of the Southern and Northern Dynasties (4th-6th century). By the Sui and Tang Dynasties, simplified characters gradually increased and were quite common among the people, known as "vulgar characters".
Chinese characters have been in constant change, and simplification has always been the main trend. Oracle bone script, seal script, official script, and regular script all have simplified characters. The earliest relatively mature characters seen now are oracle bone scripts from the Shang Dynasty Wu Ding period (starting in 1250 BC), 3259 years ago. Before that, only individual symbols were recognized in pottery characters, and a sentence could not be read, so it could not be proved that it was already a symbol system or text for recording language. The Warring States Period and the Qin and Han Dynasties were an era of great changes in the shape of Chinese characters. The change from seal script to official script and then to regular script was completed during this period. The change from ancient seal script to modern Chinese official script is a qualitative leap. Regular script appeared in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, and the font became stable from then on. The shape of Chinese characters was finalized in the Han Dynasty and has been used until today. In this way, our characters are called "Chinese characters", and they have been used for about 1849 years.
The principle of simplification is convention. Most of the simplified characters officially promoted since 1956 have existed in ancient times, as evidenced by Yan Yuansun's "Ganlu Character Book", Liu Fu and Li Jiarui's "Song Yuan Dynasty Popular Character Chart" (1930), Qian Xuantong's "Simplified Character Chart" (1935), etc. The "General Table of Simplified Characters" has 350 characters in the first table and 132 characters in the second table, a total of 482 characters. Someone investigated the origins of 388 characters and found that 111 characters appeared in the Han Dynasty and before (accounting for 28.61%), 55 characters appeared from the Three Kingdoms to the Tang Dynasty (accounting for 14.17%), 166 characters in the Tang Dynasty and before (accounting for 42.78%), 175 characters appeared from the Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty (accounting for 45.1%), 341 characters in the Qing Dynasty and before (accounting for 87.88%), 46 characters appeared in the Republic of China (accounting for 11.86%), 387 characters in the Republic of China and before (accounting for 99.74%), and only 1 character appeared after 1949 (accounting for 0.26%).
Calligraphers and the public have created and used many simplified characters, so it is not true to say that simplified characters are not good-looking.
Simplified characters written by calligraphers are very beautiful. For example:
Regular script copybook: In the "Confucius Temple Monument" written by Yu Shinan (? -638) in the Tang Dynasty, there are: Zhuang, Mi, Jiang, Yu, Lai, Sui, Er, Yong, Mai, Ji.
In the "Yanta Shengjiao Xu" written by Chu Suiliang (? -658), there are: Gai, Mi, Jing, Xie, Gang, Sui.
Cursive script is an important source of simplified characters.
In the "Jijiu Zhang" written by Shi You in the Han Dynasty, there are: Shi, Dong, Chen, Sun, Jian, Zhang, Xiang, Lou, Lai, Jia, Jia, Xia, Xie, Bei, Xue, Jian, Wei, Wei, Chang, Zhang, Sui, Zhuang, Wen, Jue, Le, Du, Duan, Bian, Dan.
According to the Ming Dynasty Tuosufu version of Chunhua Ge Tie, the Jin Dynasty Wang Xizhi (303-361)'s post includes: Dong, Qi, Shi, Wei, Mian, Lin, Zhong, Zhang, Shi, Jiang, Jian, Dang, Sun, Yang, Shi, Er, Li, Yu, Yu, Yu, Zhao, Chang, Le, Chen, Lai, Cheng, Jue, Gu, Zai, Kuan, Yin, Xie, Yang, Xue, Wan, Fa, Wen, Chang, Yi, Shi.
Wang Xianzhi's post includes: Chang, Lin, Wei, Dang, Wen, Dun, Xu, Er, Wen, Mi, Jiang, Lai, Zhong, Tang, Jue, Sui, Men, Yu, Qi, Lao, Shen, Wei, Tang, Chang, Shi, Jing, Chuan, Xie, Chen, Jian, Gan, Shun, Dong, Xian, Hui, Yi, Qing.
In the running script copybook, Wang Xizhi used: 于, 将, 随, 终, 岂, 谁, 维, 侠, 棉, 绛, 结, 给, 料, 纺, 谓, 语, 为, 数, 谢, 败, 丧, 盖, 纸, 书.
Ouyang Xun (557-641) of the Tang Dynasty used: 来, 零, 余, 问, 盖, 维, 临, 终, 随, 隐, 将, 侠, 荣, 门, 闲, 墙, 凉, 顾, 纸, 纷, 随, 韵, 间, 丧, 辞, 结, 数, 状.
Yu Shinan (? -638) of the Tang Dynasty used: 来, 问, 礼, 绝, 维.
Su Shi of the Song Dynasty (1037-1101) used the following simplified Chinese characters: Gu, Gai, Lai, Fall, Yu, Hungry, Miu, Collect, Jiang, Please, Jue, Wan, Er, Jia, Wen, Pray, Xu, Que, Ji, Shi, Cheng, Kua, Na, Ji, Su, Jue, Yu, Yu, Yu, Ji, Xian, Zhong, Wei, Run, Debt, Zhuang, Ye, Jian ... The simplified characters used by Dong Qichang in the Ming Dynasty (1555-1636): record, for, will, accept, catch, in, ten thousand, certificate, cover, Xiao, look, building, fu, long, with, say, view, all, time, all, score, biography.
The following simplified characters were used by Zheng Banqiao in the Qing Dynasty (1693-1765): ask, wake up, all, dream, poem, come, silk, Miao, Wei, for, two, present, painting, hear, strong, sword, red, rice, Jia, see, language, shape, courage, you, read, word, slow, continue, should, give, certificate, lenient, interrogation, say, please, violate, wheat, follow, time, lesson, should, adjust, knot, about, to, detailed, sue, virtuous, dangerous, fu, Jiang, learn, strong.
Some simplified characters were created by the masses. The vulgar characters in the documents unearthed from Dunhuang are: love, trip, pen, entanglement, dust, insect, bed, pure, resignation, break, fall, you, cover, individual, care, hang, country, title, hungry, trace, continue, clamp, pod, cheek, firm, check, will, crimson, classics, neck, come, gift, courtesy, pity, grain, chaos, pulse, door, mulberry, ring, button, rely on, dwelling, uniform, start, abandon, stingy, wall, comfortable, box, light, teacher, follow, ten thousand, hear, ask, nothing, narrow, chivalrous, wise, hold, rise, smoke, itch, different, hidden, with, language, mountain, disaster, stain, crowd, instruct, dress, solemn, strong, shape.
Some of the simplified characters are ancient characters, some are created by calligraphers, and some are created by the masses, all of which are our cultural heritage. For a long time, simplified characters, traditional characters and variant characters have actually coexisted. Simplification is actually replacing the traditional characters with simplified characters. In a sense, simplification is to select simplified characters based on the spirit of "narrating but not creating". Originally, both simplified and traditional characters of many characters were in use. Simplified characters are used by people every day and have basically become a convention. They have many physical connections with traditional characters and are not difficult to learn. Therefore, the use of simplified characters will not cause a cultural gap, and there is no question of breaking off history. Simplified characters can be used to print ancient books and spread ancient culture. The 2,236 simplified characters in the plan have an average of 10.3 strokes, and the corresponding 2,259 traditional characters have an average of 15.6 strokes. On average, each character has 5.3 strokes less, which improves the clarity of Chinese characters and saves eyesight. The proportion of myopia in the mainland that implements simplified characters is lower than that in Taiwan and Hong Kong, which use traditional characters. It saves the burden of learning and memorizing, saves time in writing, and reflects the people-oriented approach.
The modern Chinese character simplification movement originated from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. In order to improve the literacy rate, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's jade seals and official documents were all written in simplified characters. According to informal statistics, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom used more than 100 simplified characters, 80% of which were adopted later (Contemporary Chinese Character Reform P.38). The most famous character of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was the change of "or" in "国" to "王", but after the demise of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the character simplification movement also stopped.
In the late Qing Dynasty, China faced a serious crisis of being divided by the great powers. In this era of national turmoil and people's minds changing, many intellectuals were concerned about the country and the people, and advocated reform and strengthening. During the Reform Movement, some patriotic intellectuals considered that if they wanted to save the country and strengthen it, they had to popularize education and cultivate talents, and they had to overcome the obstacles caused by complex Chinese characters. Under this trend of thought, the pinyinization of Chinese characters began. The main figures of the Reform Movement, such as Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, and Tan Sitong, all advocated the pinyinization of characters, but the Reform Movement lasted only 100 days, and the pinyinization movement was stillborn.
The vernacular movement of the May Fourth Movement is well known to everyone. In fact, the movement to simplify Chinese characters should be mentioned on par with the vernacular movement, because both are part of the New Culture Movement. During this period, many people proposed ways to improve the knowledge level of the Chinese people. To improve the knowledge level, we must first improve the literacy rate, and to increase the literacy rate, we must simplify the complex Chinese characters. Simplifying characters has won the support of many intellectuals. The vast majority of intellectuals who advocate the use of vernacular characters support the simplification of characters. The famous Chinese scholar Hu Shi did not object.
In 1909, Lu Feikui published a paper titled "Ordinary Education Should Use Popular Characters" in the inaugural issue of "Education Magazine". This was the first time in history that simplified characters were publicly advocated.
On February 1, 1920, Qian Xuantong published an article titled "Proposal to Reduce the Strokes of Chinese Characters" in "New Youth".
In 1922, Lu Feikui published another paper titled "Opinions on Sorting out Chinese Characters", suggesting the use of simplified characters that have been popular among the people and simplifying other characters with many strokes.
In 1922, Qian Xuantong and Li Jinxi and other well-known scholars proposed the "Proposal to Reduce the Strokes of Current Chinese Characters" to the Fourth Meeting of the National Language Unification Preparatory Committee, systematically expounding the reasons and methods for simplifying Chinese characters.
In 1923, Hu Shi said in the "Foreword" of the "National Language Monthly·Chinese Character Reform Issue": "The common people of China have not only made amazing grammatical innovations, but they have also made an equally amazing innovation: a major reform in the form of Chinese characters, that is, the creation and promotion of "broken characters". " The scholars' suggestions attracted the attention of Chiang Kai-shek. He asked Wang Shijie, the Minister of Education, about the feasibility of simplifying Chinese characters. And instructed to gradually promote simplified characters. Wang then entrusted Li Jinxi, a professor at Peking University and a famous linguist, to preside over this work. At the same time, all sectors of society responded strongly to simplified characters.
In 1928, Hu Huaishen's "Simple Characters" was published, which was the earliest data book serving the simplification of Chinese characters.
In 1930, Liu Fu and Li Jiarui's "List of Popular Characters Since the Song and Yuan Dynasties", Zhuo Dingmou's "Research on Zhangcao", Chen Guangyao's "Collection of Essays on Simplified Characters" and other works were published.
In 1931, Xu Zemin's "Research on Commonly Used Simplified Characters" was published.
In 1932, the "Common Chinese Characters in National Language" compiled by the National Language Unification Preparatory Committee was published, which included most of the commonly used simplified characters since the Song and Yuan Dynasties.
In January 1934, the 29th Standing Committee of the National Language Unification Preparatory Committee passed Qian Xuantong's "Proposal for Searching for Existing and More Applicable Simplified Characters" and submitted it to the Ministry of Education for implementation.
In 1934, Du Dingyou's "List of Standard Simplified Characters" was published. Xu Zemin's "List of 550 Popular Characters" was published.
In 1934, Qian Xuantong once again proposed the "Proposal for Searching for Existing and More Applicable Simplified Characters" to the National Language Unification Preparatory Committee.
On February 24, 1935, Shanghai's Shenbao first published a news report on "The Promotion of Handwriting", and at the same time published "The Origin of Promoting Handwriting" and "The First Dictionary of Handwriting". Other newspapers and periodicals in Shanghai reprinted "The Origin of Promoting Handwriting". The handwriting movement was jointly initiated by 200 well-known figures in the cultural and educational circles at the time, including Cai Yuanpei, Shao Lizi, Tao Xingzhi, Guo Moruo, Hu Yuzhi, Chen Wangdao, Ye Shengtao, Ba Jin, Lao She, Zheng Zhenduo, Zhu Ziqing, Li Gongpu, Ai Siqi, Yu Dafu, Hu Feng, Lin Handa, Ye Laishi, and 15 magazines including "Taibai", "Literature", "Translation", "New China", "Reading Life", and "World Knowledge".
On August 21, 1935, the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China issued the Ministry Order No. 11400, officially announcing the "First Batch of Simplified Characters". Most of the 300 characters collected in the "First Issue of Hand-held Characters" were adopted by the "First Batch of Simplified Characters" issued by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China in 1935. That is, 324 of the 2,400 characters in the "Simplified Characters" compiled by Qian Xuantong. This was the first time that the government promoted simplified Chinese characters on a large scale. However, cultural elders such as Dai Jitao strongly opposed it at the time.
On February 5, 1936, the Ministry of Education, under the order of the Executive Yuan, ordered that "the promotion of simplified characters should be temporarily suspended." The "First Batch of Simplified Characters" was withdrawn and abolished.
In October 1936, Rong Geng published the "Simplified Dictionary" and opened a simplified character course at Yenching University for trial.
In 1937, the first table of the "Simplified Chinese Character Table" published by the Peking Institute of Font Research Association had already included 1,700 simplified Chinese characters. However, the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War forced the simplification of Chinese characters to stop.
Later, Chiang Kai-shek, who retreated to Taiwan, proposed the reform of Chinese characters again in 1952. He also instructed Luo Jialun, the "Vice President of the Examination Yuan", to write some articles to create public opinion. At the same time, the "Ministry of Education" of the Kuomintang authorities in Taiwan organized experts and scholars to study the plan to simplify Chinese characters. Later, it was strongly opposed by the famous scholar Hu Qiyuan. Hu believed that Chinese characters are the carrier of Chinese culture and the root of Chinese culture. They have been used for thousands of years. There is no inconvenience in writing. There is no need to simplify them. Simplifying Chinese characters is to destroy Chinese culture. In 1956, the mainland promoted the simplified Chinese character movement, and the Kuomintang authorities began to denounce the simplification of Chinese characters as "Communist conspiracy", "forgetting the roots and selling out the country", etc. At that time, the Chinese character simplification plan in Taiwan was given a political color. It was shelved forever and eventually ended in nothing.
When the Second World War broke out, the Chinese character simplification movement was promoted within the Communist Party's rule. The newspapers and magazines in the area used existing or created simplified characters, which were also called "liberation characters". But people were more enthusiastic about creating new characters. Before the founding of New China, many new character schemes had been circulated in society. Among them, the "National Language Romanization Pinyin Method" (abbreviated as "Guo Luo") created by linguists Li Jinxi and Zhao Yuanren and the Latinized new characters (abbreviated as "Bei La") developed by Qu Qiubai and Soviet sinologists had the greatest influence. Under the advocacy of Wu Yuzhang, "Bei La" even achieved a status equivalent to Chinese characters in Yan'an. Many illiterate farmers got rid of blindness through this set of pinyin characters. They could not only read pinyin newspapers, but also write simple letters. This further strengthened the confidence of linguists in the new characters. However, due to years of war, the experiment and promotion of new characters have never been rolled out across the country.
In May 1949, Li Jinxi, a linguist who has been committed to reforming Chinese characters, together with language and writing experts from many universities, proposed to Wu Yuzhang, one of the "Five Elders" of the Communist Party of China, to establish a language reform research association to resume the language reform work that had been repeatedly interrupted by war.
In May 1949, Li Jinxi, a linguist who has been committed to reforming Chinese characters, together with language and writing experts from many universities, proposed to Wu Yuzhang, one of the "Five Elders" of the Communist Party of China, to establish a language reform research association to resume the language reform work that had been repeatedly interrupted by war.
On October 10, 1949, the Chinese Language Reform Association was established, and the organization and simplification of Chinese characters also became one of the research goals of the association. However, after the establishment of the association, people's enthusiasm for new characters was far higher than that for the simplification of Chinese characters. (Mainly refers to the creation of a new phoneticized character to replace Chinese characters.) Less than half a year after the establishment of the association, it received nearly 100 new character plans from all over the country. At the same time, new character research organizations were also established all over the country. According to statistics, in 1950 alone, 60 counties across the country carried out promotion activities for the new characters, more than 14,000 people participated in the study, and 6 universities and 3 middle schools listed the new characters as formal courses. But at that time, the central government had not had time to consider this issue. Liu Shaoqi wrote back to Wu Yuzhang and said: "You can organize this group, but it cannot be limited to the new characters. Simplified Chinese characters should also be studied and sorted out for public use."
In July 1950, Wu Yuzhang conveyed Mao Zedong's instructions at the National Association for the Reform of Characters Cadres Meeting: Character reform should first