It has been more than one hundred years since the Westernization Movement and the Reform Movement of 1898. Over the past 100 years, great changes have taken place in China, from a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society to a socialist society. This great change affects all aspects of society, and naturally it also affects language and writing. In old China, the main problems of Chinese characters were complexity and confusion. There are many strokes in numerous fingers, and the fingers are different and mixed. Complexity and confusion have brought great difficulties to the study and use of Chinese characters, and affected the popularization of education and the development of culture. In order to solve the complexity and confusion of Chinese characters, the simplification and standardization of Chinese characters began in the Republic of China, but the results were limited. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, under the leadership of communist party and the People’s Government, remarkable achievements have been made in the simplification and standardization of Chinese characters, which has changed the face of complexity and chaos to a considerable extent and formed a new standard of Chinese characters. Vigorously promoting standardized Chinese characters is an important content of the Law of People’s Republic of China (PRC) on National Common Languages and Characters, and the promulgation of the List of Universal Standardized Chinese Characters has effectively promoted the development of this work.
Let’s talk about the simplification of Chinese characters first. The original Chinese characters mainly come from pictures, and the shapes of many characters can be complex and simple. In Oracle Bone Inscriptions, "A" is a traditional car, and "B" is a simplified car. Both traditional and simplified cars are used at the same time, which shows that the history of simplified Chinese characters is as long as that of traditional Chinese characters. After the Qin dynasty unified the world, it replaced the ancient prose of the six countries with Xiao Zhuan, and realized the same writing. Xiao Zhuan has evolved into regular script through official script, and many of its characters have complicated strokes. For example, there are more than 30 paintings in each character, which makes it difficult to learn and use. For the convenience of use, the people created corresponding simplified forms for these complicated characters, but the rulers in feudal times rejected simplified forms, which were only allowed to be used in folk contracts, prescriptions, account books and songbooks, and were not allowed to be used in Chinese character teaching and various official documents. If simplified forms were used in imperial examinations, they were doomed to fall into Sun Shan. In the 20th century, this concept has been impacted by the drastic changes in society. In 1909, Lu Feikui, an educator, published a famous paper on "Common Style Characters should be Used in General Education", arguing that the strokes of common style characters are simple and easy to learn and remember. "It is beneficial and harmless to use common style characters in general education, which not only saves the brains of scholars, but also increases the number of literate people, that is, it is more convenient to write and engrave words." During the May 4th Movement, with the development of the New Culture Movement, some linguists clearly put forward the idea of simplifying Chinese characters, with Qian Xuantong, a master of Chinese studies, at the forefront. In 1920, he published "Proposal to Save Chinese Characters" in New Youth magazine. In 1922, at the preparatory meeting for the unification of Mandarin, he put forward the "Stroke Case of Saving Current Chinese Characters", which was passed.In 1930s, the movement of simplified Chinese characters entered the stage of practical implementation. In the spring of 1935, Chen Wangdao, editor-in-chief of the semi-monthly magazine Taibai, organized a Committee for the Promotion of Handwritten Characters with the help of Chinese character reformers in Shanghai, and selected the first batch of 300 Handwritten Characters, which began to be used in Taibai, The Analects of Confucius and Reading Life. The characters in hand are simplified characters. Driven by the mass movement to simplify Chinese characters, the Ministry of Education of Nanjing National Government published the First List of Simplified Chinese Characters in August 1935, which contained 324 simplified Chinese characters, and stipulated in the Measures for Promoting Simplified Chinese Characters Issued by the Ministry of Education in Provinces and Cities that "all textbooks, short-term primary schools and public schools, children’s and public reading materials should adopt simplified Chinese characters issued by the Ministry". This move was generally welcomed by the educational circles and progressive cultural circles, but it was also strongly opposed by conservative forces. The National Government led by the Kuomintang succumbed to the pressure of conservative forces and instructed the Ministry of Education in February 1936 that the implementation of simplified Chinese characters should be suspended. Unfortunately, the work of promoting simplified Chinese characters, which benefited the country and the people, died halfway.
Shortly after the founding of New China, the relevant government departments began to simplify Chinese characters. In 1951, the Social Education Department of the Ministry of Education drew up the First List of Simplified Chinese Characters (the first draft), and received 555 simplified Chinese characters. In February, 1952, the China Character Reform Research Committee made additions and deletions on the basis of the First List of Simplified Chinese Characters (First Draft), and drew up the first draft of the Simplified List of Commonly Used Chinese Characters, with 700 simplified Chinese characters. After many discussions and revisions, the fifth draft of Simplified List of Commonly Used Chinese Characters was formed in September 1954. In November, 1954, the Cultural Reform Commission revised the fifth draft again, forming the Draft Scheme for Simplifying Chinese Characters. In February, 1955, the Draft Scheme for Simplifying Chinese Characters was published in the newspapers at the central level to solicit opinions from the whole society. By July of the same year, the Cultural Reform Commission had received 5167 opinions from people from all walks of life, 97% of which were in favor. In October 1955, a national conference on Chinese character reform was held in Beijing. The conference approved that the policy of Chinese character simplification was "established practice and steady progress" and adopted the Revised Draft of Chinese Character Simplification Scheme. The revised draft has been examined and approved by the Examination and Approval Committee for Simplified Chinese Characters in the State Council. On January 28th, 1956, the 23rd meeting of the State Council adopted the Resolution on Promulgating the Simplified Scheme of Chinese Characters. On January 31st, People’s Daily published the State Council’s Resolution and Simplified Chinese Characters Scheme. This scheme includes 515 simplified words and 54 simplified radicals. After the publication of "Simplified Chinese Characters Scheme", it was implemented in four batches, and the implementation was very smooth.In January 1958, Premier Zhou Enlai pointed out in his report "The Task of Current Character Reform": "After the announcement of the plan, simplified characters have been widely used in newspapers, periodicals, textbooks and general books for two years, and they have been welcomed by the masses, and everyone is pleased, especially for children and adults who are just beginning to learn Chinese characters." In 1964, according to the spirit of the State Council’s instructions, the Cultural Reform Commission edited and published the Summary of Simplified Chinese Characters, which included the simplified Chinese characters in the Chinese Character Simplification Scheme and the simplified Chinese characters obtained by radical analogy within the scope of Xinhua Dictionary, as a unified standard for the use of simplified Chinese characters. According to the data obtained from the survey on the use of languages and characters in China published in 2004, 95.25% of them usually write simplified characters, 0.92% write traditional characters, and 3.84% write both traditional and simplified characters. Simplified characters have taken root among the people, and Chinese characters have entered the era of simplified characters. The General Specification Chinese Character List adheres to the direction of simplification of Chinese characters, and everything that should be simplified is simplified according to the provisions of the Simplified Chinese Character List.
Regarding the standardization of Chinese characters, the language as a communication tool must have a unified and clear standardization; Without even the minimum norms, they can’t become communication tools and lose their value of existence. Kangxi Dictionary, published in the fifty-fifth year of Kangxi (1716), is an official book edited by the emperor. It is a Chinese character standard established by the Qing Dynasty. In the late Qing dynasty, the imperial examination was abolished and the school was established, and great changes took place in education; During the May 4th Movement, vernacular Chinese replaced classical Chinese, and the written language changed greatly. The standard of Chinese characters established by Kangxi Dictionary can’t adapt to the rapidly changing China society. In 1913, the government of the Republic of China held a unified pronunciation meeting, and approved more than 6,500 "national sounds" of Chinese characters, which were called old national sounds. The Dictionary of Guoyin published in 1919 adopted the old Guoyin. In 1923, the standard of Guoyin was revised and changed to Beijing pronunciation as the standard pronunciation, which was called the new Guoyin. In 1932, the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China promulgated the Common Glossary of Guoyin, which initially realized the four definitions of Chinese characters (quantitative, definite shape, definite sound and definite order). After the founding of New China, the people’s government sorted out Chinese characters and formed a new orthography. The arrangement of Chinese characters mainly does the following things: 1. Arrange variant characters. Variant characters refer to groups of words with the same sound and meaning but different forms. Heterogeneous hybridity is the main confusion of Chinese characters in old China. Finishing variant forms is to determine one word from each group of variant forms as the optional word, that is, the standard word, and stop using other forms according to the principle of following the custom and simplifying.On December 22, 1955, the Ministry of Culture and the Cultural Reform Commission jointly issued the First List of Variant Characters to collect 810 groups of variant characters, from which 810 characters were selected as standard characters and 1055 characters were eliminated. For example, the word "reward" is determined as the optional word in "reward" and the word "window" is determined as the optional word in "window C". The Chinese Character List of General Specification has adjusted the variant characters, and the identification of variant characters in the future will be subject to the Chinese Character List of General Specification. Second, sort out and print the font. There are serious differences in the typography of old China. In January, 1965, the Ministry of Culture and the Cultural Reform Commission issued the Printing General Chinese Character Font Table. The Font Table determines the structure, stroke number and stroke order of 6196 common Chinese characters, which is used as a model for unifying the font styles. The glyphs specified in the word list are called new glyphs, and the glyphs used before this are called old glyphs. For example (the old font in brackets), Lu (Lu), Zheng (Zheng), Hu (Hu), Wu (Wu) and Lang (Lang). Third, change the words used in uncommon place names. For example, Kun County was changed to zhouzhi county, Yulin County was changed to Yulin County, and Yishui County was changed to Xishui County. Four, unified part of the unit of measurement name words. For example, the word "Li" is changed to "Hai Li", the word "pan" is changed to "kW", the word "foot" is changed to "inch" and so on. After the above arrangement, a modern orthographic standard has been formed, and the glyphs in the General Standard Chinese Character Table conform to this standard. Modern orthography requires: the standardized characters in the General Standardized Chinese Character List should be vigorously promoted in the use of Chinese characters in society; Conditionally use traditional Chinese characters and variant Chinese characters;Do not use nonstandard words. According to the National Law on Common Languages and Characters, traditional Chinese characters and variant Chinese characters can be kept or used in the following situations, namely: (1) cultural relics and historic sites; (2) Variants in surnames; (3) works of art such as calligraphy and seal cutting; (4) The calligraphy of inscriptions and signboards; 5] Need to be used in publishing, teaching and research; [6] Special circumstances approved by relevant departments of the State Council. Non-standard words are typos first. A typo refers to a word that has been wrongly written in such a way. For example, the word "Zhan" is mistaken for "D" and the word "Xiao" is mistaken for "E". The word "don’t" refers to the misuse of the word "A" for the word "B". For example, the word "defending the motherland’s prosperity" is mistaken for "shaking". Followed by two simplified characters, old glyphs, words used for uncommon place names that have been abolished and words used for the names of old units of measurement. The publication and implementation of "General Standard Chinese Character List" will certainly further enhance the standard level of Chinese characters and promote the development of various construction undertakings.
(Su Peicheng, male, Professor Peking University. )
