{"id":7033,"date":"2025-09-27T10:32:46","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T17:32:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/troubadourworks.com\/tiandi\/meotw\/?p=7033"},"modified":"2025-09-28T22:31:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T05:31:34","slug":"jianti%e2%80%90zi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/troubadourworks.com\/tiandi\/meotw\/2025\/09\/27\/jianti%e2%80%90zi\/","title":{"rendered":"ji\u01cent\u01d0\u2010z\u00ec"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\t\t\tji\u01cent\u01d0<\/span>\n(ji\u01cen\u00b7t\u01d0\nsimplified \u00b7 {body \u2192 [style] \u2192 [typeface; font]} \u2192<\/span> [simplified Chinese]<\/span>\n\u7b80\u4f53\n\u7c21\u9ad4<\/span>)<\/span>\u2010z\u00ec<\/span>\n(characters<\/span>\n\u5b57)<\/span> \ud83d\udc48\ud83c\udffc Tap\/click to show\/hide the \u201cflashcard\u201d<\/span><\/h3>\n\n

[This is a reposting of a post<\/a> that was originally posted on December 7, 2020. I took the opportunity to flesh out the original post and this repost with additional material.]<\/p>\n

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> (a second round of Chinese character simplification<\/a> was later attempted and ultimately rescinded), and official simplified<\/em> Chinese characters came into the world. (Some characters had been unofficially simplified and used for various purposes, both everyday and artistic, before that.)<\/p>\n

On the matter of what simplified Chinese characters are called in Mandarin, Wikipedia<\/a> provides this summary:<\/p>\n

Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above [(\u7b80\u5316\u5b57; ji\u01cenhu\u00e0z\u00ec<\/i>)[source]<\/a><\/sup>] or colloquially (\u7b80\u4f53\u5b57; ji\u01cent\u01d0z\u00ec<\/i>). In its broadest sense, the latter term refers to all characters that have undergone simplifications of character “structure” or “body”[source]<\/a><\/sup>, some of which have existed for millennia alongside regular, more complicated forms. On the other hand, the official name refers to the modern systematically simplified character set, which (as stated by then-Chairman Mao Zedong in 1952) includes not only structural simplification but also substantial reduction in the total number of standardized Chinese characters.[source]<\/a><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For reference, this is the term used on jw.org<\/strong><\/a> when referring to Mandarin written using simplified Chinese characters:<\/p>\n

\"jw.org<\/p>\n

jw.org<\/strong><\/a> refers to simplified Chinese characters as \u201cji\u01cent\u01d0<\/i><\/span>\n(ji\u01cen\u00b7t\u01d0\nsimplified \u00b7 {body \u2192 [style] \u2192 [typeface; font]} \u2192<\/span> [simplified Chinese]<\/span>\n\u7b80\u4f53\n\u7c21\u9ad4<\/span>)<\/span>\u201d<\/i> characters.<\/p>\n

The Great Simplified vs. Traditional Debate<\/h4>\n

While it seems obvious that simpler is generally better, there is actually much, much debate about the pros and cons of simplified characters vs. traditional characters, as discussed in these articles:<\/p>\n