Going from simplified -> traditional really isn’t all that difficult, either. I can muddle through just about any traditional text given enough time (and assuming relatively light density).
And twocs really shouldn’t get so worked up about this plot to isolate Taiwan, eliminate freedom, and retrieve the Ring for Sauron. The capitalist war machine long ago started their counter-attack against the enemies of mankind… probably 4/5 of all popular karaoke lyrics on the mainland are still in traditional form.
[quote]But a statement released yesterday by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs poured cold water on the advocates’ efforts by saying the U.N.'s Web sites and publications were already limited to simplified Chinese characters.
When Taiwan’s representative office in New York checked on the report with the U.N., officials from the Department of the U.N. Secretariat said they were not informed of the report and felt puzzled by it, the statement said.[/quote]
The most shocking thing about the whole thing is that it seems someone in the government actually thought to check the facts before joining the chorus of outrage
There are two issues here: conversion of character sets (simplified/traditional) and localization.
Conversion is not that big a deal for a native speaker of Chinese. The majority of the characters are recognizable anyway, and many simplified forms evolved from shorthand forms that are commonly used in Taiwan and elsewhere anyway. I had classmates in Taiwan forced to read a lengthy and boring tome on the history of translation in simplified characters, and they managed to do it without any problems due to the simplified characters. A few bought a little “conversion table” available in any bookstore; most didn’t bother.
Localization is another matter – making the Chinese in the document fit with what is in common usage in a certain place (for Chinese translation, usually a choice between worldwide/Mainland/Taiwan/Singapore/Hong Kong). But for a formal document from a source like the UN, there would be very little variation in how it was written for these different places. If you’re talking something that’s highly vernacular, there would be considerable differences (try getting past the Cantonese vernacular characters in a casual Hong Kong document if you don’t speak Cantonese – or many times the Minnan references in Taiwanese newspapers! I still remember being stumped by a statement that a candidate was going to be “frozen garlic” in a certain election – they meant “dang suan” which was the “same” sound as “dang xuan” in Taiwanese – sheesh!)
In a parallel situation, I don’t see anyone demanding that there be a separate version of UN docs produced for all the various Arabic-speaking nations, even though the colloquial forms of the language are quite different in different places. It’s just not a big deal in Chinese (can’t speak for Arabic but since no one is complaining…)
So should we have separate versions translated into British English, or perhaps English English, Scots English, Australian English, Indian English…??? Because that is more or less what’s going on with Traditional and Simplified Chinese. They ARE mutually intelligible, unlike Tibetan and Chinese.
[/quote]
You are missing the point entirely. The reason for this change has nothing whatsoever to do with linguistics or saving money and everything to do with politics.
I enjoy eTaiwan’s line on “simplified characters were introdced to improve literacy”. Yeah right. There’s not a single scholar of Chinese history worth a damn who believes that. Control the language and you control the people. (To improve literacy you build schools and train teachers.)
Simplified characters were not “introduced in 1949”. Who writes this drivel?
So all this hoopla about the UN’s documents being in Simplified Chinese is just part of the PRC propaganda machine! In actuality, there have been no changes and there are not going to be any changes made. Comments by CCP party members to the contrary can be swept under the rug.
I agree that it’s not in the interest of the UN to spend money on translating documents into Traditional Chinese, but I feel that if someone was to volunteer to translate a document for free, such as the UN Declaration of Human Rights, it should be in the best interest of people around the world to have that document on the UN website next to the other 300 languages that it has been translated into.
[quote=“ironlady”]
In a parallel situation, I don’t see anyone demanding that there be a separate version of UN docs produced for all the various Arabic-speaking nations, even though the colloquial forms of the language are quite different in different places. It’s just not a big deal in Chinese (can’t speak for Arabic but since no one is complaining…)[/quote]
That’s because while spoken Arabic may have many different dialects, written Arabic is the same all over. Totally different situation.
?! I’d have to disagree there, and think you should reconsider your position. There are numerous, numerous scholars of Chinese history who argued for a simplified character set as a way of spreading Chinese literacy. Building schools and training teachers is a capital-intensive luxury that doesn’t happen with the snap of the finger.
[quote]
One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lu Feikui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement, many Chinese intellectuals began to propose reform of the Chinese writing system, either by simplification or complete abolishment. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the “writing of ox-demons and snake-gods” (牛鬼蛇神的文字). Lu Xun, one of the most influential Chinese writers of the 20th century, also declared, “If Chinese characters aren’t destroyed, then China will be.” (漢字不滅，中國必亡。)
In the 1930s and 1940s, discussions on character simplification took place within the Kuomintang government, and a large number of Chinese intellectuals and writers have long maintained that character simplification would help boost literacy in China. In many world languages, literacy has been promoted as a justification for spelling reforms.[/quote]
The Chinese Wikipedia has more along the same lines.
I don’t think it’s quite that dramatic. Even Taiwanese frequently use the simplified versions of some characters. For example I always see 什 instead of the traditional 甚. Heck, they even use the simplified version of 台 here.[/quote]
Sadly very common misunderstanding. 台 is not the simplified form of 臺.
Not to mention most traditional characters of today are simplfied forms comparing to their “very very old” versions…
I agree its not dramatic, not for those reasons though. The only legal language inside the UN or elsewhere of some value is french anyways (I’m not french).
[quote=“cctang”][quote=“hexuan”]
I enjoy eTaiwan’s line on “simplified characters were introdced to improve literacy”. Yeah right. There’s not a single scholar of Chinese history worth a damn who believes that. Control the language and you control the people. (To improve literacy you build schools and train teachers.)
[/quote]
?! I’d have to disagree there, and think you should reconsider your position. There are numerous, numerous scholars of Chinese history who argued for a simplified character set as a way of spreading Chinese literacy. [/quote]
Note my use of “worth a damn”. Yeah I’ve read all that clap-trap that was fashionable in the Wenyanwen/Baihua transition period and it’s not exactly what I would call scholarly linguistics. Lu Xun was particulary amusing, and the history and development of Hong Kong and Taiwan give the lie to all that anyway. No seriously, I have read it in English and Chinese and there a damn sight more to it than is contained in those Wikipedia entries. And it didn’t start with the May Fourth Movement, it was being talked about during the Self-strengthening Movement when it was part of a huge discussion on how to modernize China. I have no doubt there were people who thought simplified characters would make learning Chinese easier, just as at the time there were people who advocated abandoning the Chinese language altogether, let alone merely switching to pinyin. However, there was at the time no scientific evidence (nor much theory either) that simplified characters are easier to learn, and I don’t believe there is any today. Look at the rate of literacy in Taiwan.
The debate on the evolution of simplified characters is possibly off topic here if you accept my proposition that the move by the UN is entirely political and motivated by China’s efforts to further isolate Taiwan and assimilate/neutralise Hong Kong.
Hexuan, I’m a little confused. I accept that you can control and reinforce the language that people use and therefore in a Orwellianishly* way, control thought. But how does changing 東 to 东 accomplish this? Doesn’t the simplified character stand for the same meaning as a traditional character, barring a few exceptions where two traditional characters have been amalgamated into one simplified character? I’m not saying you’re wrong, I just don’t get it.
first of all… I dont know if anyone in UN understand the value of traditional characters… and how could they have the right to abolish traditional characters…? I dont know what their intention doing this is… but for all the Han people(including people in China, Taiwan, HongKong, Singapore… or other countries where there are people whose mother tongues are …Chinese—am talking about the language…but not anything political…)traditional characters is a very important part in our history… no matter which country we are in… no matter which government is ruling the country we live at… it’s the truth that traditional characters really mean a lot for us! I dont know if UN will really do it or not… but I will keep using traditional characters… because each character means something for a part of our history. It’s all about culture… shouldn’t get involved with any political issues~ it’s just my personal viewpoints. And of course everyone who reads it has the right to agree or disagree~ cheerz
Hexuan, I’m a little confused. I accept that you can control and reinforce the language that people use and therefore in a Orwellianishly* way, control thought. But how does changing 東 to 东 accomplish this? Doesn’t the simplified character stand for the same meaning as a traditional character, barring a few exceptions where two traditional characters have been amalgamated into one simplified character? I’m not saying you’re wrong, I just don’t get it.[/quote]
It’s not the mere simplification of a few hundred characters into forms with less strokes which really matters - indeed many of the simplified forms are based on shortcuts used in handwriting and were around long before the CCP. However, there is no short answer to your question. The entire process by which Mao and the CCP took control of the public language of China and reduced it to absolute gibberish is the subject of much writing and debate. It is, IMHO, almost as if Mao had read Orwell’s 1984. Uncanny. So I suppose it is what simplified characters, innocuous enough by themselves, have come to represent which is objectionable. There are many very good arguments in favour of them, and indeed in favour of a phonetic element to Chinese a la Japanese and the question of what the hell to do about the “enslavement of the Chinese by the learning of their own language” is a hot topic for debate* - in another thread, probably - but the UN move, if indeed the story is true, would be nothing but politics.
(*to which my answer is basically “teach it better, there’s nothing wrong with it”)
PS. The debate ranges from “abolish Chinese” to “do nothing, Taiwan and HK are okay”, but my favourite commentary is in chapter 11 of Bill Jenner’s The Tyranny of History which is sadly out of print. If you can get a copy it’s a very interesting book. Cranky Laowai has a list of books on his site, I think.
Next they’ll abolish “Long form English” and all UN documents will be in aim slang. ROTF, LOL! omg! Fight for the superior Complex characters in terms of history, culture and meaning. That and I can’t stand the simplified Horse radical, must be the ugliest thing crapped out of a Communist committee since. . . . ever.
