Traditional Chinese
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| Traditional Chinese | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type: | logographic | |
| Languages: | Chinese | |
| Time period: | since 5th century AD | |
| Parent writing systems: | Chinese Traditional Chinese |
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| ISO 15924 code: | Hant | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
Traditional Chinese (Traditional Chinese: 正體字/繁體字, Simplified Chinese: 正体字/繁体字) refers to one of two standard sets of printed Chinese characters. 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 the 1950s.
Today traditional characters are used in 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 (in official publications, though many names are still written in traditional characters), 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 long-running among Chinese communities.
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[edit] 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 (Traditional Chinese: 正體字,Simplified Chinese: 正体字 Hanyu Pinyin: zhèngtǐzì; Tongyong Pinyin: jhèngtǐzìh ), which implies that traditional characters are the full and correct forms of the characters. It should be noted, however, that the same term ("Standard characters", 正体字) is used in mainland China to distinguish standard, Simplified and Traditional characters from variant and idiomatic characters (异体字).[1]
Users of traditional characters may also call them "complete-bodied characters" (Traditional Chinese: 全體字, Simplified Chinese: 全体字 Hanyu Pinyin: quántǐzì; Tongyong Pinyin: cyuántǐzìh ), which also has the same implication.
In contrast, other Chinese who use mainly simplified characters call them complex characters (Traditional Chinese: 繁體字, Simplified Chinese: 繁体字 Hanyu Pinyin: fántǐzì; Tongyong Pinyin: fántǐzìh ), or, informally, "old characters" (Chinese: 老字; Hanyu Pinyin: lǎozì; Tongyong Pinyin: lǎozìh ), 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. Many characters since the Han Dynasty had been made more elaborate than the original standard.
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 something 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" (Chinese: 正字; Hanyu Pinyin: zhèngzì; Tongyong Pinyin: jhèngzìh ) and simplified characters as "simplified-stroke characters" (Traditional Chinese: 簡筆字, Simplified Chinese: 简笔字 Hanyu Pinyin: jiǎnbǐzì; Tongyong Pinyin: jiǎnbǐzìh ) or "reduced-stroke characters" (Traditional Chinese: 減筆字,Simplified Chinese: 减笔字 Hanyu Pinyin: jiǎnbǐzì; Tongyong Pinyin: jiǎnbǐzìh ) (simplified- and reduced- are actually homonyms in Mandarin Chinese, both pronounced jiǎn).
In China's north-east, a local word for traditional characters is "real characters" (Chinese: 真字; Hanyu Pinyin: zhēnzì; Tongyong Pinyin: jhēnzìh ).
[edit] 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[citation needed], 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 Táiwan as opposed to the standard character (臺). Additionally, there were two main usages of alternative characters in the old days. First, alternative characters were used to avoid using the characters of the formal name of an important person in less formal contexts as a way of showing respect to the said person by preserving the characters of the person's name. This act is called "offence-avoidance" (避諱) in Chinese. Secondly, alternative characters were used when the same characters were repeated in context to show that the repetition was intentional rather than an editorial mistake (筆誤).
[edit] 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. There are still some characters that cannot be written using most IMEs; one example would be the character used in the Shanghainese dialect instead of 嗎, it is 伐 with a 口 radical.
[edit] Web pages
The World Wide Web Consortium recommends the use of the zh-Hant language attribute value and Content-Language value to specify web pages contents in Traditional Chinese.[1]
[edit] Usage in other languages
Traditional characters are also used in Korean Hanja, and moderately simplified traditional characters are used in modern Japanese Kanji.
[edit] See also
- Kanji
- Hanja, almost identical to traditional Chinese characters
- Kaishu
- Chinese character
- Simplifications to written Chinese in Hong Kong
[edit] External links
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This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters. |
