On December 6, in response to the “Proposal on Carrying out Traditional Chinese Character Literacy Education in Primary and Secondary Schools Nationwide,” the Ministry of Education responded: School teaching should use Chinese simple words in accordance with the law.
At present, classic reading and calligraphy education in primary and secondary schools already involves traditional Chinese character education. （如果還想了解更多關於中文學習的信息，那就快點擊這裡吧!）
Although there is no clear “yes” or “no” answer in the reply, the topic “should students learn Chinese simple words” is not new, so it has caused another discussion.
I saw the news and thought of a joke – how to drive a Taiwanese or Hong Kong primary school student crazy? The method is to ask him to write “A Melancholy Taiwan Turtle” 100 times.
You know, these simplified Chinese characters that add up to 51 drawings, written in traditional Chinese, look like this——
壹隻憂鬱的臺灣烏龜。
The key argument of the proposal is that simplifying Chinese characters “hurts their meaning because of simplicity” and “damages the artistic beauty and regularity of Chinese characters, and is not conducive to cultural inheritance.”
This has always been the view of most people who support reading or using traditional Chinese characters.
Speaking of which, as a Chinese language student who has already graduated, Mr. Gong can’t help but be a teacher.
The traditional Chinese characters used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and other regions of our country today are actually only “Chinese characters” used in the middle and early Qing Dynasty. Before that, ancient China had small seal script, bronze inscriptions, and. When it comes to complexity, Xiaozhuan is much more complicated than today’s traditional Chinese characters;
When it comes to ancientness, no one can compare with the oracle bone inscriptions which have a history of more than 3,000 years.
If we want to preserve the beauty of Chinese characters, do we still have to write them back in Xiaozhuan?
If this is used as the standard, then native English speakers should also be able to read Latin. After all, the English alphabet comes from Latin.
The so-called simplified Chinese characters did not come with a gust of wind after the founding of New China. Since the creation of Chinese simple words, simplification has been the direction of change.
The famous “Preface to the Lanting Collection” has 324 characters, 102 of which are now so-called “simplified characters”. I don’t know if people who support traditional Chinese characters will feel panicked when they see “一秞一 chant” instead of “一觞一裹歌”?
Also, in today’s “Simplified Character List”, of the 521 most commonly used characters, only 101 appeared after the founding of New China, and the other 420 are inherited from history.
In this way, although some current Chinese characters in mainland China are indeed difficult to express their original pictographic meaning due to simplification, it seems to be an exaggeration to say that “simplification harms meaning”.
As for “simplified Chinese characters are not conducive to cultural inheritance” – in the long term, simplified characters have made great contributions to literacy after the founding of New China;
In the near term, as one of the most difficult languages to learn in the world, if you have a choice, There should be very few foreign students who prefer to learn traditional Chinese characters to increase the difficulty of learning Chinese.
In this way, and with the reputation of “breaking the cultural thread”, Mr. Gong would have wanted to be killed if he were using simplified Chinese characters.
Of course, just because it’s not good to be complicated doesn’t mean that it’s good to just simplify things.
After tasting the benefits of simplified characters, the “Second Chinese Character Simplification Plan” was announced in 1977.
However, because it deviated from the original development rules of Chinese characters and simplified in pursuit of simplification, it was criticized by famous linguist Zhou Youguang and others as “out of proportion. “It’s extremely ugly” and was soon abolished because it could not be promoted.
Traditional and simple are just relative terms. Traditional Chinese characters or simplified Chinese characters are, in the final analysis, a carrier. As long as they adapt to the needs of most people, they are playing their due role.
Cultural confidence, as far as Chinese characters are concerned, is confidence in the meaning they carry. In this regard, Wang Xizhi is definitely a role model. The “mixing of traditional and simplified” has not affected the classics and spread of “Preface to the Lanting Collection” at all.
Whether it is traditional Chinese or simplified Chinese, when we can focus on the information it conveys and use this information to communicate and discuss smoothly with people who speak different languages and have different cultural backgrounds without bias, it is a self-evident confidence. .
Just like those university professors who have studied ancient Chinese all their lives but write gracefully on the blackboard in simplified characters. If you ask them about their attitude, they will probably imitate Kong Yiji and say with a smile: “How many ways can you write the word fennel for fennel beans?”
Overseas Chinese may encounter this question when their children reach the age of learning Chinese: Is it better for their children to learn simplified characters or Chinese simple words?
As for this issue, Taiwanese people may be more entangled. Because Taiwan has always used traditional Chinese characters, which is traditional Chinese. However, the mainland has been using simplified characters in teaching since the 1950s, and the mainland’s economic influence is growing.
If you go to the mainland to do business or find a job, you will have a lot of trouble if you don’t understand the simplified characters. There are also American parents who want their children to learn Chinese, and they also face confusion in this regard.
Mainlanders have learned simplified characters since they were in primary school, so it is generally easier for their children to learn simplified characters.
I didn’t pay much attention to this issue in the past. But recently I went to Huaxia Chinese School to teach eighth-grade Chinese. I like to introduce some language forms that are not found in textbooks, but are popular with ordinary people, or have Chinese simple words, in addition to the content in the textbooks.
For example, couplets, cross talk, difficult passwords, children’s songs, Song-style characters, three-character classics, hundreds of family surnames, multi-character idioms (such as “A long road will tell you a horse’s power, but time will tell you a person’s heart”, “A son will never think his mother is ugly, and a dog will not think the family is poor”) wait.
Practice shows that students and parents like it very much and Chinese simple words effect is good.