Gourt Home::Gourt :: Traditional Chinese character
Traditional Chinese characters are one of two standard character sets. The modern shapes of Traditional Chinese characters first appeared with the emergence of the clerical script during the Han Dynasty, and have been more or less stable since the 5th century during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The term "traditional" is used to contrast Traditional characters with another standardized set — simplified Chinese characters, standardized by the government of the People's Republic of China since 1950s.
Today traditional characters are used in Republic of China on Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and by some overseas Chinese communities, especially those originating from the aforementioned regions/countries or who emigrated before the widespread adoption of simplified characters in the People's Republic of China. In contrast, simplified characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, and in some overseas Chinese communities; especially those from aforementioned countries who emigrated after the widespread adoption of simplified Chinese characters. Debate over Traditional and Simplified Chinese is a long running debate among Chinese communities.
Controversy over Chinese name
Among Chinese speakers, traditional Chinese characters are referred to by several different names, each with different implications. The government of the Republic of China on Taiwan officially calls traditional Chinese characters Standard characters or orthodox characters (), which implies that traditional characters are the full and correct forms of the characters. Users of traditional characters may also call them complete-bodied characters (), which also has the same implication.
In contrast, users of simplified characters call them complex characters (), or, informally, old characters (), with the implication that traditional Chinese characters have been replaced and are obsolete.
Traditional character users argue that traditional characters cannot be called "complex" as they were never made more complex; the characters were preserved the way they were. Conversely supporters of simplified Chinese characters object strongly to the description of these characters as "standard," since they view the new simplified characters as the contemporary standard. They also point out that traditional characters are not truly traditional as Chinese characters have changed significantly over time.
Curiously, although the character which is generally translated as "complex" itself comprises numerous, if not complex strokes, the character has not undergone simplification; this is perhaps intentional as it demonstrates the relative complexity of the Traditional characters in contrast to the Simplified versions. Additionally, while "complex" bears somewhat of a negative connotation in English, the Chinese character per se does not imply anything to the extent that it might be construed as "complex" or "troublesome"; rather, the meaning is rather vague and remains neutral unless coupled with other characters.
Some older people refer to traditional characters as proper characters () and simplified characters as simplified-stroke characters () or reduced-stroke characters () (simplified- and reduced- are actually homonyms in Mandarin Chinese, both pronounced jiǎn).
Printed text
When printing text, people in Mainland China and Singapore mainly use the simplified system, which was developed by the People's Republic of China government in the 1950s. However, the PRC also prints material intended to be read outside of Mainland China using traditional characters. In handwritten text, most people use informal, sometimes personal simplifications. In most cases, an alternative character (異體字) would be used in place of one with more strokes, such as 体 for 體. Contrary to popular belief, most of these are still part of the set of traditional Chinese characters, but informally and confusingly called simplified form (簡寫). Though not standard, these are usually accepted outside schools, and some are extremely widespread, notably the 台 tái in 台灣 Táiwān as opposed to the standard character (臺).
Computer character encoding
In the past, Traditional Chinese was most often rendered using the Big5 character encoding scheme, a character encoding scheme that favors Traditional Chinese. Unicode, however, has become increasingly popular as a way to render Traditional Chinese. Unicode gives equal weight to both simplified and traditional Chinese characters and does not favor either over the other. There are various IMEs (Input Method Editors) available to input Chinese characters.
Usage in other languages
Traditional characters are also used in Korean Hanja, and moderately simplified traditional characters are used in modern Japanese Kanji.
External link
See also
Chinese language | Logographic writing systems
Langzeichen | Chino tradicional | Txinera tradizionala | Sinogrammes traditionnels | 정체자 | Hanzi tradisional | Caratteri cinesi tradizionali | Traditioneel Chinees | 繁体字 | ئاددىيلاشتۇرۇلمىغان خەت | Tradycyjne pismo chińskie | Traditionell kinesiska | อักษรจีนตัวเต็ม | 繁体字
"Traditional Chinese character"