Talk:Traditional Chinese characters/Archive 1

Move
Recommendation: Move to Traditional Chinese character (to clarify and to demonstrate that it is just a type of Chinese character) and keep Traditional Chinese as a useful redirect that we all end up using (which doesn’t matter – using redirect or direct links, that is). --Menchi 20:50 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Complete. (Page moved from Traditional Chinese.) --Jiang — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jiang (talk • contribs) 21:17, 16 July 2003 (UTC)

Names
Don't Hong Kongers call Trad. char "Complicated char" as well? (See &) --Menchi 23:21, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)


 * Yeah. I count Hong Kong as part of China. Maybe I simply delete "Within China". BTW, it happens among overseas Chinese also. wshun 23:27, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yes, we Hong Kongers call it "Complicated char", but most people consider it to be the one and only one standard form of Chinese. How we call it is just how the government want us to. By the way, Hong Kong is undoubtedly part of China, just as Taiwan and Macau, but these regions are not part of Mainland China.

Which China are you talking about? Taiwan is a part of China. "China" is the Republic of China on Taiwan. Taiwan is in no way part of the Communist regime in Peking nor will it ever be. (Chiang Kai-shek 22:36, 2 June 2006 (UTC))

Chinese as known, is Traditional Chinese. Only after the creation of Simplified Chinese in mainland China (to help the less forturnate and illiterated), we are forced to call the Traditional Chinese the Complicated Chinese so as to distinguish the two. SIGH. Xaaan5 14:26, 5 May 2006 (UTC)


 * For anyone who is getting confused, the standard established English terms are "simplified characters" and "traditional characters" or "simplified Chinese characters" and "traditional Chinese characters". "Complex/complicated characters" is a translation of the Chinese term(s). "Simplified Chinese" and "traditional Chinese" are both wrong, and are not even the translations of the Chinese terms. LDHan 17:34, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok i will settle this...


 * Traditional Chinese= The ture chinese characters


 * Simplified Chinese= The characters mao and his buddies pull out of their asses. It is also PRC's Newspeak.

--SoldierOfColbert 04:44, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

About this sentence in the Chinese Names section:
 * They also point out that traditional characters are not truly traditional as many Chinese characters have been made more elaborate over time.

Shouldn't it read "less elaborate over time" and not "more elaborate"? Phlar (talk) 22:07, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Revival of Traditional Chinese
If one day, there is the United States of China, undoubtedly, Traditional Chinese will best suited to demonstate our long history and rich culture.

I would like United Nation and Wikipedia to respect Traditional Chinese and allow the 2 versions of Chinese text to co-exist.

I believe that given some time, after getting rich materialistically and culturally, the PRC people can catch up and adopt Traditional Chinese again.

We who preserve the Traditional Chinese are happy to wait for that day. But it is necessary to allow us to preserve it while those who can not are trying to catch up. Do not get UN to marginalize or minorize or corner the tradition. I would love to see Traditional Chinese be adopted as THE writen form of Chinese language for the Nation called China. I definitely do not want to let other countries see that we had to use simplified stuff : a humiliation to our intelligence and ability. Xaaan5 14:18, 5 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Though much of your speaking is a big POV... A reasonable hope for you is that if one day China and Japan and Korea probably decide they would like to form a tighter cooperation and unify the writing system, the most possible resolve is to readopt Traditional Chinese, as neither China or Japan would hope to convince each other to use their own simplified forms. -- G.S.K.Lee 12:29, 13 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Wow, that's a big block of ludicrous. Michael.Niemann 17:46, 6 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Why should China, Japan and Korea agree on one set of characters? That's like asking languages using the Latin alphabets to ditch their diacritics and special symbols. --2.245.125.41 (talk) 14:58, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Trend, Development, Spread & Future of Traditional Chinese (sic)
This section appears to be one person's own view regarding simplified characters and traditional characters, and should be deleted as it is POV, also it contains many factual errors. LDHan 17:41, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, and done. This section was one big POVed rant filled with factual errors. Just curious, IS the UN trying to "eliminate" Traditional CCs? Sjschen 02:38, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Since I am the one who deleted the section, I am obligated to give my own reasons. Note, I usually try to re-phrase or repair a section instead of resorting to deletion but the section was too fraught with 1)factual errors, 2)uncited material not of "general knowledge", 3)opinions, and 4)"non-encyclopedic" language for saving. For example: Sjschen 04:07, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * "...as the ruling party, the best tradition should be adopted as the leading unifying written form, not using a sub-standard written form created for the illiterates..." An opinion followed by a complete factual error.
 * "...behind-the-scene forces had influenced United Nation..." Citation? Can't find this..
 * "...facilitate the communication between people from PRC, ROC, Hong Kong..." Maybe, but you should cite the studies that show that it WILL
 * "Some people must have been pretty misled or ignorant..." Your opinion.
 * "When China as a nation become rich and strong, and when the number of illiteracy fall below a certain percentage, it is likely that Traditional Chinese will be revived." Your opinion.
 * "How can 3 versions be replaced by one - Simplified Chinese? To help UN save paper and money? To help UN to please the ego of PRC?" No rhetorical questions. Facts please
 * "...it is illogical to force the more advanced and progressed users of the language to adopte the lower standard of the fall-behind." ...uh...

Wikipedia
Are there two Chinese language Wikipedias - for Simplified and Traditional, or just one? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.161.208.238 (talk) 06:20, 10 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Just one. Chinese Wikipedia has the unique technics of converting between two glyphs, though sometimes it does give wrong mappings. -- G.S.K.Lee 12:24, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Article name changed from "Traditional Chinese characters" to "Traditional Chinese"
I've just noticd the article's been moved to "Traditional Chinese" with "Naming conventions mandate to name articles according to what the thing is known as to most people" as the justification. I think this should be discussed before such a move. I would dispute that most people know these characters as "traditional Chinese". I think the terms "traditional Chinese characters" and "traditional characters" are much more common. Not only is "traditional Chinese" less common, it is also inaccurate and ambiguous. LDHan 15:44, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * See discussion at Simplified Chinese. --Sumple (Talk) 12:14, 3 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Sumple was talking about Talk: Simplified Chinese, the talk page, not the main article. --Neo-Jay 10:19, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

United Nations
"As of January 2009, traditional Chinese characters will not be recognized by the United Nations as an official script[citation needed]."

Where's that from? I can't find it on Google! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.237.248.131 (talk) 06:00, 3 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I've read about it in the papers. I don't see anything about it on the UN website, but the UN GA page only uses simplified Chinese and not traditional Chinese: . --Sumple (Talk) 10:50, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Notice to Benjwong re Ba Jin
I added the material about Ba Jin to the debate page as follows:
 * Venerable writer Ba Jin, in his essay "Thoughts: Reform of Chinese characters" (随想录·汉字改革), urged caution in any reforms to the written Chinese language. He cited the inability of those educated in Hong Kong or Taiwan to read material published on the mainland, and vice versa, as a great disadvantage of simplified Chinese. He also cited the ability to communicate, not just with Chinese peoples of various regions, but also with people from across the Sinosphere - countries such as Japan and Vietnam - as a great advantage of the written Chinese language that should not be undermined by excessive simplification.

referencing the original source with more accurate details and proper spelling. The statements on this page were irrelevant to the section to which they had been added, and they sit better with the relevant section on the debate page. Your cryptic edit summaries baffle me ("True Chinese does not even exist on that page"?? What on earth does that mean??)

Your continued unwarranted hostility is bizarre. I don't know what I did to offend you, but your behaviour in gratuitously reverting my edits to the Chinese orthography articles is really pissing me off. I suggest you read WP:OWN and WP:AGF before you revert my edits again. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 21:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This is NOT debate material. It never was. This is a historical fact.  Ba Jin worried that people could no longer write "True Chinese".  The source said it loud and clear.  This is a historical fact and a reason for his protests.  You are practicing CENSORSHIP. Benjwong (talk) 04:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * See what I mean about your unwarranted hostility? Why on earth would I be practicing censorship? You seem to think that I am a partisan participant here without a shred of evidence. I don't even know which side you think I lean towards!
 * I say again, read WP:OWN and WP:AGF before you revert again. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 08:15, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't understand your reasoning for the deletion. In fact the history behind this topic is 10x more horrifying than what's on wikipedia now.  The guy inspired protesters by declaring traditional chinese as the true version.  Can you explain what is so wrong about this statement?  I suggest you read Wikipedia is not censored. Benjwong (talk) 22:58, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Err... protesters?? "true version"?? Where are you getting all this from? Do you know who Ba Jin is, and have you read the primary source? I have, and I have no idea what you are going on about. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 05:46, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I am trying to see why you consider Random thoughts (随想录) to be the primary and "only" source. What if he wrote articles published in magazines and newspapers as a member of the writer association to inspire protesters?  Benjwong (talk) 23:51, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It's a very famous article. It was a big deal that Ba Jin (who is revered by the Chinese government) came out and criticised Simplified Chinese - "protests", if I understand correctly, here means the intellectual debates it roused about simplification, rather than actual street demonstrations. Before Ba Jin came out and criticised it, most people in mainland China were too cowed to raise any objections. That's why I'm quite sure this is the article the authors refer to. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:00, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * What I know is that the 2nd round simplified characters is where the complaints really heat up, but it is very complex. Everything in the mainland moved slow in the 70s. A piece of news like Mao dying took some places years before they heard of the news.  There is a joke that said some parts of China now still thinks Mao is alive (please don't be offended). So how did Pa kin write something in 1978 and have people respond so quickly?  Unless people were protesting well into the late 80s, which I doubt.   Basically I can't be sure Random thoughts was the only source, but I have little to no info on the protests.  Other than saying, yes there were protests. To be fair I have to drop this one because I am not a historian.  Just someone interested in the topic. Benjwong (talk) 03:06, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

About standards and Traditional


Ok, so someone might read the beginning and think wtf? So I'll elaborate here.

There isn't just one standard Traditional Chinese. Traditional Chinese is a concept born from the creation of Simplified Chinese. Before Simplified Chinese, there was no Traditional Chinese. However, there were orthodox characters and vulgar characters. Orthodox characters are basically the most conservative form of a character (without being weird, e.g. 萅 is not orthodox). Vulgar characters are what you may call "simplifications" based on orthodox characters, e.g. for the orthodox character 來, a vulgar character is 来. (That one's pretty old and common, used since the Han Dynasty, perhaps even more popular than 來). Other examples are 隂 for orthodox 陰, and 青 for orthodox 靑. When the Kangxi Dictionary was written, it served as a sort of standard. When Chinese characters were modified for Simplified Chinese, some new characters were created. These were so different from preexisting orthodox and vulgar characters that they got a new name, 簡體字, and other characters were called 繁體字. Since and before then, regions outside mainland China have standardized their characters sets. They were, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Japan's standard also contains newly created characters, so it is not considered a "Traditional Chinese" character set, but Hong Kong's and Taiwan's standard, in additional to the Kangxi standard are considered "Traditional Chinese." These three Traditional Chinese standards are all different. For example, for the grapheme 青, Taiwan's standard is 青, Hong Kong's is 青, and Kangxi's is 靑. (These might not display correctly unless you're one of the few who has typefaces installed and browser configured.)

Furthermore, what makes one character "Traditional" and another "simplified"? If Taiwan's standard adopts 為 when the orthodox character is 爲, they could have easily adopted 来, yet they did not. That alone doesn't make 來 Traditional and 来 simplified. If it were the case that the PRC adopted 為 while Taiwan adopted 爲, then laypeople might call 為 a simplified character. Therefore, the definition of Traditional Chinese is dependent on standards and which characters make it into the standards. However, there is a special characteristic that the Japanese and Mainland Chinese standards share that is not shared by the Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Kangxi standards. In other words, there is something that makes the Japanese and Mainland Chinese standards identifiable as having simplified characters and the Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Kangxi standards as having traditional characters. That is that the Japanese and Mainland Chinese standards contain newly created characters that are less than 70 years old. Therefore, one valid definition of Traditional Chinese is Chinese without these new characters. That isn't the only defining characteristic of a simplified Chinese standard. The Japanese and Mainland Chinese standards also substitute many characters for others. However, if you say that at the beginning of the article, it isn't as elegant as just saying that Traditional Chinese is not the Mainland or Japanese standard. Asoer (talk) 16:37, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * On second thought, it might be more direct to say it that way, as there aren't just the 現代漢語常用字表 and Toyo Kanji. There are also Japan's Joyo Kanji which replaced Toyo Kanji, and also Singapore's 1969 and 1974 simplifications. All of these were standards. It would be troublesome to list them all. I will edit the article and add a note that explains the wording.Asoer (talk) 02:51, 24 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I added a new Euler diagram to the article here showing where the Traditional Chinese characters fit in the process of character simplification. Fred Hsu (talk) 03:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Sigh.......... Please: It's not "a Euler diagram". It's an Euler diagram. "Euler" is pronounced like "oiler". To most people who know who Euler was, his name is something heard every day (he was the most famous person to live on earth in the 18th century, except for non-mathematicians, and one of the most prolific writers of all time). Michael Hardy (talk) 22:24, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for making this correction. I fixed the image page on Wikimedia accordingly. Fred Hsu (talk) 03:25, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Actual number of people who use traditional Chinese characters
I think the article would be improved with the addition of an estimate of the number of people who use traditional chinese characters. I have not had much luck finding such a number so I thought I'd see if you guys might know where to look. I have found only the following article on eTaiwanNews.com that says there are 50million. That sounds a little high and they don't give any clues about how they came up with that number. If we could just confirm the number I'd love to use it. Metal.lunchbox (talk) 00:19, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Move to/Merge with Regular Script
"Traditional Chinese" is retronym for Regular Script when Simplified Characters were invented. --79.68.235.102 (talk) 21:27, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
 * And it is overwhelmingly the common name for this topic in English so it's an appropriate title. Wikipedia has no policy of only using old names for things, from before the current situation came about. see WP:COMMONNAME. - Metal lunchbox (talk) 11:22, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Overseas Chinese
This is not absolutely correct. I think nowadays there are more people from mainland China around the world and they use simplified Chinese. Their children are usually sent to Kongzi Xueyuan which also teaches simplified Chinese. However, this isn't never noted, making people think all overseas use traditional. --2.245.77.134 (talk) 18:07, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Obviously it may be different elsewhere, but here in Australia I have noticed that even 95% of businesses ie restaurants owned by Mainland Chinese immigrants will use Traditional Chinese for their menus/signs, etc. This was also something I observed among recent Mainland immigrants in other parts of the world. It seems like the Mainland immigrants come to live in a city with an already long-established Chinese population, observe that traditional characters seem to be the "norm" or "lingua franca" among the Chinese community in that city, and adapt themselves accordingly. Even in a city such as Sydney, where there is an extremely high proportion of mainland immigrants as opposed to the old Taiwan/HK etc immigrants, at least 9 times out of 10 the mainland immigrants adjust their own style accordingly, at least when the writing will be viewed publicly in the community. Therefore to say that overseas communities are straight traditional chinese would be wrong, but to say that traditional chinese dominates would be correct. --Saruman-the-white (talk) 01:19, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

There's a variety of situations, around the world, but in many places where recent mainland immigrants are far more numerous, the standard is to use simplified, in other places it's traditional characters. Either way, we should not base the information in the article on our own anecdotal experience, or on reliable sources reporting about small areas. We need a reliable source which says to what extent use of traditional characters predominates in overseas chinese communities and we can use that. My personal experience is that there are more mainlanders (who tend to use simplified) moving around in the world, but that traditional characters still predominate in most overseas communities. This situation is changing and at different rates in different places and the world is a big place. - Metal lunchbox (talk) 03:56, 31 August 2014 (UTC)