Re: Chinese language simplified or traditional
- From: ppp@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 06:38:36 GMT
On 15 Aug 2006 20:59:31 -0700, "Alex" <alex_kew@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In this computer age, is there a need for simplified Chinese ?
Develop the traditional Chinese language to all 9,000 and over words,
so old texts of scriptures and classics can be on the internet.
Phase out the simplified Chinese texts.
Just about everyone in China under 40 who has gone to school can read
pinyin. From WIKIPEDIA
[Pinyin is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and
transcription to Roman script) for Standard Mandarin, where pin means
"spell" and yin means "sound".
The most common variant of pinyin in use is called Hanyu Pinyin
(Simplified Chinese: ??????; Traditional Chinese: ??????; pinyin:
Hànyu Pinyin fang'àn), also known as scheme of the Chinese phonetic
alphabet ((Simplified Chinese: ????; Traditional Chinese: ????;
pinyin: Hànyu Pinyin).
Hanyu Pinyin was approved in 1958 and adopted in 1979 by the
government in the People's Republic of China. It superseded older
romanization systems such as Wade-Giles (1859; modified 1892) and
Postal System Pinyin, and replaced Zhuyin as the method of Chinese
phonetic instruction in mainland China. Hanyu Pinyin was adopted in
1979 by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as
the standard romanization for modern Chinese (ISO-7098:1991). It has
also been accepted by the Government of Singapore, the Library of
Congress, the American Library Association, and many other
international institutions. It has also become a useful tool for
entering Chinese language text into computers.
Pinyin is a romanization and not an anglicization; that is, it uses
Roman letters to represent sounds in Standard Mandarin. The way these
letters represent sounds in Standard Mandarin will differ from how
other languages that use the Roman alphabet represent sound. For
example, the sounds indicated in pinyin by b and g correspond more
closely to the sounds indicated by p and k in Western use of the Latin
script. Other letters, like j, q, x or zh indicate sounds that do not
correspond to any exact sound in English. Some of the transcriptions
in pinyin, such as the ang ending, do not correspond to English
pronunciations, either.
By letting Roman characters refer to specific Chinese sounds, pinyin
produces a compact and accurate romanization, which is convenient for
native Chinese speakers and scholars. However, it also means that a
person who has not studied Chinese or the pinyin system is likely to
severely mispronounce words, which is a less serious problem with some
earlier romanization systems such as Wade-Giles.]
With pinyin the computer can easily convert computer keyboard strokes
into traditional Chinese thus removing the advantage of simplified
Chinese that saves a few strokes for not that many characters. I
noticed that pinyin was rarely used in public billboards in China.
Simplified characters were used in many Government billboards but I
wasn't that alert to think of noticing if private billboards used
traditional characters more. Frankly simplified Chinese looked "ugly"
and visually unbalanced. Calligraphy developed along with traditional
Chinese writing and the visual appeal of calligraphy is lost with
simplified characters. I have a feeling that simplified will be used
only in handwritten essays. Traditional Chinese will be preferred
(unless you are a government official) by people who compose their
correspondence on a computer. Give it another 10 years and I think
traditional Chinese will be more common again.
.
- References:
- Chinese language simplified or traditional
- From: lizhangalexander
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