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General List of Simplified Chinese Characters

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The General List of Simplified Chinese Characters (simplified Chinese: 简化字总表; traditional Chinese: 簡化字總表; pinyin: Jiǎnhuàzì Zǒngbiǎo) was the first standard list of Simplified Chinese characters in China mainland, and a main reference for the "Table of General Standard Chinese Characters" published in 2013. [1] [2]

The "General List of Simplified Chinese Characters" was first published in 1964 as an improvement to the "Chinese Character Simplification Scheme" announced earlier in 1956. After the Second round of simplified Chinese characters draft was announced in 1977 and abolished later, the "General List of Simplified Chinese Characters" was released again in 1986, with some revision. It includes three sub-lists with a total of 2,274 simplified characters and 14 simplified pianpang components. [1] [3]

History[edit]

Publication of "General List of Simplified Chinese Characters"[edit]

On January 7, 1964, the Chinese Character Reform Committee submitted a "Request for Instructions on the Simplification of Chinese Characters" to the State Council, mentioning that "due to the lack of clarity on analogy simplification in the original Chinese Character Simplification Scheme (汉字简化方案), there is some disagreement and confusion in the application field of publication”. [4]

On February 24, 1964, the State Council instructed: "The simplified characters listed in the "Chinese Character Simplification Scheme" should be similarly simplified when used as pianpang components in other characters; the components listed in the scheme, except for '讠、饣、糸、钅', should also be simplified when used as independent characters." In May 1964, based on this instruction and on the basis of the "Chinese Character Simplification Scheme", the Chinese Character Reform Committee edited and published the "General List of Simplified Chinese Characters". [1] [5]

Second Chinese Character Simplification Scheme (Draft)[edit]

In December 1977, the Chinese Character Reform Committee issued the "Second Chinese Character Simplification Scheme (Draft)". The draft was not discussed by members of the Chinese Character Reform Committee before it was released. After it was released, all parties in the society expressed many opinions. It was generally believed that the number of simplified characters was too large and that some simplified characters were not mature enough. The Chinese Character Reform Committee made many revisions, but never satisfactory. [6]

On February 25, 1986, the State Language Commission submitted to the State Council the "Request for Instructions on Abolition of the 'Second Chinese Character Simplification Plan (Draft)' and Correcting the Confusion of Chinese Characters in Society". In June 1986, the State Council approved the abolition of this draft and instructed: "In the future, we should be cautious about the simplification of Chinese characters, so that the forms of Chinese characters can remain relatively stable for a period of time, so as to facilitate social application." [5] [3]

Re-publication of "General List of Simplified Chinese Characters"[edit]

In October 1986, the State Language Commission re-published the "General List of Simplified Chinese Characters" with some improvement. On June 5, 2013, the State Council of the People's Republic of China announced the "Table of General Standard Chinese Characters" (通用规范汉字表), which was built upon and replaced the "General List of Simplified Chinese Characters" among some other related character lists as the new standard. However, the General List remain a milestone in Chinese language history and a useful reference for simplified Chinese education. [3] [7] [2]

Contents[edit]

The "General List of Simplified Chinese Characters" published in October 1986 is the latest edition. It is still divided into three sub-lists: [3]

List 1[edit]

Simplified characters not used as simplified pianpang components.

This table contains 350 simplified characters, arranged in Pinyin alphabetical order. The simplified characters in this table cannot be used as simplified components in other characters.





List 2[edit]

Simplified characters and pianpangs that can be used as simplified components.

This table contains 132 simplified characters and 14 simplified pianpangs. Simplified characters are arranged in Pinyin order, and simplified pianpangs are arranged by the number of strokes.



List 3[edit]

Simplified characters obtained by applying the simplified characters and simplified pianpangs in List 2

This list contains a total of 1,753 simplified characters (excluding repeating characters. For example, "缆" is under the radicals of "纟、、见", and is only counted as one character). The simplified characters and simplified pianpangs are used as radicals and arranged in the order of Table 2. Simplified characters in the same radical are arranged by their number of strokes.


















Regarding the content of List 3, the "Instructions for the General List of Simplified Chinese Characters" states: "The range of simplified Chinese characters in List 3 is basically based on the "Xinhua Dictionary" (the third edition in 1962, containing about 8,000 Chinese characters). For characters that are not included in List 3, they should be simplified accordingly if they contain the simplified characters or pianpangs in List 2. [1]

The State Language Commission pointed out in the "Instructions on Re-Publication of the Simplified Character List": "We require the society to use the Simplified Character List as the standard. Simplified characters should be used instead of traditional Chinese characters; any simplified characters that do not comply with the "General List of Simplified Chinese Characters", including the simplified characters of the "Second Chinese Character Simplification Scheme (Draft)" and various simplified characters popular in society, are all irregular and should not be used.” [3] [8]

Controversy[edit]

  • Paleophilologist Chen Mengjia: "Writing needs to be simple, but not confusing. The most common problems with these simplified characters are homophone substitution and pianpang omission. After simplification, some characters are confused. For example, "回（迴", the character "迴" is the differentiated character produced by "回" plus "辶", which means "whirlwind", this is the result of development. Du Fu's poem "渚清沙白鳥飛迴" is written in simplified Chinese characters as "渚清沙白鸟飞回", where "飞回" will inevitably make people misunderstand as "flying back".[9]
  • In addition, some simplified characters are more controversial. For example, "罴" is a kind of bear. According to the etymology, it is "罒+熊" (the character "熊" is not simplified), in the list, it was simplified to "罴" based on the analogy of "罢（罷）", resulting in unclear meaning. Other examples: "聖" is simplified to "圣", "僅" is simplified to "仅", "鳳" is simplified to "凤", "風" is simplified to "风", etc., among which "乂" and "又" tend to be "symbolized". [10]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d Chinese Character Reform Committee (1964). "General List of Simplified Chinese Characters (简化字总表)". Chinese Character Reform Press.
  2. ^ a b "国务院关于公布《通用规范汉字表》的通知" [Notice of the State Council on the publication of the "General Standard Chinese Character List"]. Gov.cn (in Chinese). State Council of the People's Republic of China. 5 June 2013.
  3. ^ a b c d e State Language Commission (1986). "General List of Simplified Chinese Characters (简化字总表)". Language Press.
  4. ^ Fu, Yonghe 傅永和 (1994). 规范汉字 [Standardizing Chinese Characters] (in Chinese). Beijing: 语文出版社 (Chinese Language Press). p. 20.
  5. ^ a b Su, Peicheng (苏培成) (2014). 现代汉字学纲要 [Essentials of Modern Chinese Characters] (in Chinese) (3rd ed.). Beijing: The Commercial Press. p. 126. ISBN 978-7-100-10440-1.
  6. ^ Su 2014, p. 126.
  7. ^ Li, Dasui 李大遂 (2013). 简明实用汉字学 [Concise and Practical Chinese Characters] (in Chinese) (3rd ed.). Beijing: Peking University Press. pp. 301–302. ISBN 978-7-301-21958-4.
  8. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20091202125634/http://www.china-language.gov.cn/wenziguifan/managed/002.htm Instructions on Re-Publishing the Simplified Character List
  9. ^ "中国青年报：繁体字和简体字都是"国字"". 中国新闻网. 2009-03-23.
  10. ^ "裴钰：从17个角度看汉字繁体字和简体字之争". 中国新闻网 (in Chinese (China)). 南方报网. 2009-03-18. Retrieved 2013-10-06.
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