Tag: Cruft

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Culture History Language Learning Names Technology

fántǐ‐zì

fĂĄntǐ (fĂĄn·tǐ complicated; complex; difficult · {body → [style] → [typeface; font]} → [traditional Chinese] çčäœ“ çčé«”)‐zĂŹ (characters 歗) đŸ‘ˆđŸŒ Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

[This is a reposting of a post that was originally posted on November 30, 2020. I took the opportunity to flesh out the original post and this repost with additional material.]

For a long, long, long time, Chinese characters were just Chinese characters. Then, in 1956, the Communist government of mainland China issued what came to be known as the First Chinese Character Simplification Scheme (a second round of Chinese character simplification was later attempted and ultimately rescinded), and official simplified Chinese characters came into the world. (Some characters had been unofficially simplified and used for various purposes, both everyday and artistic, before that.)

Name?

To distinguish these newfangled official simplified Chinese characters from the Chinese characters that had existed before, and that continue to be used by many people in many parts of the world, retronyms were coined to refer to these pre-existing Chinese characters, just as the term “acoustic guitar” was coined to refer to a regular non-electric guitar after electric guitars came along.

In the English-speaking world, the pre-official simplification characters have come to be called “traditional Chinese characters”, as opposed to the “simplified Chinese characters”. In the Chinese-speaking world, as is true of many things regarding Chinese characters, the situation is
complicated. Wikipedia summarizes the situation thusly:

Traditional Chinese characters (the standard characters) are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world. The government of Taiwan officially calls traditional Chinese characters standard characters or orthodox characters (traditional Chinese: æ­Łé«”ć­—; simplified Chinese: æ­Łäœ“ć­—; pinyin: zhĂšngtǐzĂŹ; Zhuyin Fuhao: ă„“ă„„Ë‹ ㄊㄧˇ ㄗˋ).[source] However, the same term is used outside Taiwan to distinguish standard, simplified and traditional characters from variant and idiomatic characters.[source]

In contrast, users of traditional characters outside Taiwan, such as those in Hong Kong, Macau and overseas Chinese communities, and also users of simplified Chinese characters, call them complex characters (traditional Chinese: çčé«”ć­—; simplified Chinese: çčäœ“ć­—; pinyin: fĂĄntǐzĂŹ; Zhuyin Fuhao: ㄈㄱˊ ㄊㄧˇ ㄗˋ). Users of simplified characters sometimes informally refer to them as “old characters” (Chinese: è€ć­—; pinyin: lǎozĂŹ; Zhuyin Fuhao: ㄌㄠˇ ㄗˋ).

Users of traditional characters also sometimes call them “full Chinese characters” (traditional Chinese: 慚體歗; simplified Chinese: ć…šäœ“ć­—; pinyin: quĂĄntǐ zĂŹ; Zhuyin Fuhao: ㄑㄩㄹˊ ㄊㄧˇ ㄗˋ) to distinguish them from simplified Chinese characters.

In my experience in the Chinese fields in Canada, I have always heard traditional Chinese characters referred to using this week’s MEotW, “fĂĄntǐ (fĂĄn·tǐ complicated; complex; difficult · {body → [style] → [typeface; font]} → [traditional Chinese] çčäœ“ çčé«”)‐zĂŹ (characters 歗)”. For reference, this is also the term used on jw.org when referring to Mandarin written using traditional Chinese characters:

jw.org referring to Mandarin written using traditional Chinese characters

jw.org refers to traditional Chinese characters as “fĂĄntǐ (fĂĄn·tǐ complicated; complex; difficult · {body → [style] → [typeface; font]} → [traditional Chinese] çčäœ“ çčé«”)” characters.

Beloved by Traditionalists and Purists, But Complicated

Many feel that traditional characters are the best characters of all, since, in their estimation, the official simplified characters have lost some of the heart and soul of characters. As a symbolic example, some point to how the simplified character for “love”, “爱”, omits the “heart” radical (“濃”), which is appropriately in the traditional character for “love”, “愛”.

Yes, as the above post mentions, the obvious, glaring issue with traditional characters is—aggravated by the fact that there are tens of thousands of them—their extreme, extraordinary complexity, the result of their problematically complex basic nature, along with thousands of years of accumulated occasionally arbitrary design decisions and developmental cruft. For example, note the below excerpt from p. 82 of the book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, by John DeFrancis:

In the case of the rendition for the huáng meaning “sturgeon” we have two variants, one written with the “yellow” phonetic and the other with the “emperor” phonetic, both combined with the semantic element for “fish”:

魚 “fish”
鱑 “fish” + huĂĄng “yellow” = huĂĄng “sturgeon”
鰉 “fish” + huáng “emperor” = huáng “sturgeon”

While etymological research might succeed in clarifying the basis for some of the variation, in many cases, as one specialist in Chinese paleography concludes, “it is simply a matter of the whim of the writer” (Barnard 1978:203).

Scribal whim goes far to explain a diversity bordering on chaos in the forms of the Chinese characters as they evolved in the Shang dynasty and during the long years of political and administrative disunity in the Zhou dynasty (ca. 1028–221 B.C.). The situation was aggravated by the fact that characters were created by writers living in different historical periods, which inevitably meant changes in sounds over the years, and speaking different dialects, which inevitably affected their choice of phonetic elements in the creation of new characters.

Their inherent extraordinary complexity, exacerbated by an accumulated millennia-long history of design decisions made on a whim, out-of-date phonetic elements, etc., causes especially the traditional characters, and even the (moderately) simplified characters, to be extremely difficult for us imperfect humans to learn and to remember. This has lead to character amnesia and the Great Wall of unfamiliar characters being real things, even among those who have been studying characters for decades. How complex can traditional characters get? Theoretically, there is no upper limit!

The extreme, extraordinary complexity of traditional characters undoubtedly contributed greatly to illiteracy having been widespread in China for much of its history. Even for those who are privileged to be able to devote the extraordinary amount of time and effort needed to learn traditional characters, it’s a long, hard slog, compared to learning a comparatively simple and compact alphabetical writing system. It’s little wonder, then, that there have been serious, concerted efforts to simplify and even replace traditional Chinese characters.

Categories
Culture History Language Learning Names Technology

fántǐ‐zì

fĂĄntǐ (fĂĄn·tǐ complicated; complex; difficult · {body → [style] → [typeface; font]} → [traditional Chinese] çčäœ“ çčé«”)‐zĂŹ (characters 歗) đŸ‘ˆđŸŒ Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

For a long, long, long time, Chinese characters were just Chinese characters. Then, in 1956, the Communist government of mainland China issued what came to be known as the First Chinese Character Simplification Scheme (a second round of Chinese character simplification was later attempted and ultimately rescinded), and official simplified Chinese characters came into the world. (Some characters had been unofficially simplified and used for various purposes, both everyday and artistic, before that.)

Name?

To distinguish these newfangled official simplified Chinese characters from the Chinese characters that had existed before, and that continue to be used by many people in many parts of the world, retronyms were coined to refer to these pre-existing Chinese characters, just as the term “acoustic guitar” was coined to refer to a regular non-electric guitar after electric guitars came along.

In the English-speaking world, the pre-official simplification characters have come to be called “traditional Chinese characters”, as opposed to the “simplified Chinese characters”. In the Chinese-speaking world, as is true of many things regarding Chinese characters, the situation is
complicated. Wikipedia summarizes the situation thusly:

Traditional Chinese characters (the standard characters) are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world. The government of Taiwan officially calls traditional Chinese characters standard characters or orthodox characters (traditional Chinese: æ­Łé«”ć­—; simplified Chinese: æ­Łäœ“ć­—; pinyin: zhĂšngtǐzĂŹ; Zhuyin Fuhao: ă„“ă„„Ë‹ ㄊㄧˇ ㄗˋ).[source] However, the same term is used outside Taiwan to distinguish standard, simplified and traditional characters from variant and idiomatic characters.[source]

In contrast, users of traditional characters outside Taiwan, such as those in Hong Kong, Macau and overseas Chinese communities, and also users of simplified Chinese characters, call them complex characters (traditional Chinese: çčé«”ć­—; simplified Chinese: çčäœ“ć­—; pinyin: fĂĄntǐzĂŹ; Zhuyin Fuhao: ㄈㄱˊ ㄊㄧˇ ㄗˋ). Users of simplified characters sometimes informally refer to them as “old characters” (Chinese: è€ć­—; pinyin: lǎozĂŹ; Zhuyin Fuhao: ㄌㄠˇ ㄗˋ).

Users of traditional characters also sometimes call them “full Chinese characters” (traditional Chinese: 慚體歗; simplified Chinese: ć…šäœ“ć­—; pinyin: quĂĄntǐ zĂŹ; Zhuyin Fuhao: ㄑㄩㄹˊ ㄊㄧˇ ㄗˋ) to distinguish them from simplified Chinese characters.

In my experience in the Chinese fields in Canada, I have always heard traditional Chinese characters referred to using this week’s MEotW, “fĂĄntǐ (fĂĄn·tǐ complicated; complex; difficult · {body → [style] → [typeface; font]} → [traditional Chinese] çčäœ“ çčé«”)‐zĂŹ (characters 歗)”. For reference, this is also the term used on jw.org when referring to Mandarin written using traditional Chinese characters:

jw.org referring to Mandarin written using traditional Chinese characters

jw.org refers to traditional Chinese characters as “fĂĄntǐ (fĂĄn·tǐ complicated; complex; difficult · {body → [style] → [typeface; font]} → [traditional Chinese] çčäœ“ çčé«”)” characters.

Beloved by Traditionalists and Purists, But Complicated

Many feel that traditional characters are the best characters of all, since, in their estimation, the official simplified characters have lost some of the heart and soul of characters. As a symbolic example, some point to how the simplified character for “love”, “爱”, omits the “heart” radical (“濃”), which is appropriately in the traditional character for “love”, “愛”.

Yes, as the above post mentions, the obvious, glaring issue with traditional characters is—aggravated by the fact that there are tens of thousands of them—their extreme, extraordinary complexity, the result of their problematically complex basic nature, along with thousands of years of accumulated occasionally arbitrary design decisions and developmental cruft. For example, note the below excerpt from p. 82 of the book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, by John DeFrancis:

In the case of the rendition for the huáng meaning “sturgeon” we have two variants, one written with the “yellow” phonetic and the other with the “emperor” phonetic, both combined with the semantic element for “fish”:

魚 “fish”
鱑 “fish” + huĂĄng “yellow” = huĂĄng “sturgeon”
鰉 “fish” + huáng “emperor” = huáng “sturgeon”

While etymological research might succeed in clarifying the basis for some of the variation, in many cases, as one specialist in Chinese paleography concludes, “it is simply a matter of the whim of the writer” (Barnard 1978:203).

Scribal whim goes far to explain a diversity bordering on chaos in the forms of the Chinese characters as they evolved in the Shang dynasty and during the long years of political and administrative disunity in the Zhou dynasty (ca. 1028–221 B.C.). The situation was aggravated by the fact that characters were created by writers living in different historical periods, which inevitably meant changes in sounds over the years, and speaking different dialects, which inevitably affected their choice of phonetic elements in the creation of new characters.

Their inherent extraordinary complexity, exacerbated by an accumulated millennia-long history of design decisions made on a whim, out-of-date phonetic elements, etc., causes especially the traditional characters, and even the (moderately) simplified characters, to be extremely difficult for us imperfect humans to learn and to remember. This has lead to character amnesia and the Great Wall of unfamiliar characters being real things, even among those who have been studying characters for decades. How complex can traditional characters get? Theoretically, there is no upper limit!

The extreme, extraordinary complexity of traditional characters undoubtedly contributed greatly to illiteracy having been widespread in China for much of its history. Even for those who are privileged to be able to devote the extraordinary amount of time and effort needed to learn traditional characters, it’s a long, hard slog, compared to learning a comparatively simple and compact alphabetical writing system. It’s little wonder, then, that there have been serious, concerted efforts to simplify and even replace traditional Chinese characters.