Concept
Traditional Chinese characters
Overview
Traditional Chinese characters are one of two standardized character sets used to write the Chinese language, with the other being simplified characters. Traditional characters predominated in written Chinese, the historical lingua franca of East Asia, until the mid-20th century. Today, they are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, as well as in most overseas Chinese communities outside of Southeast Asia.
In the mid-20th century, People's Republic of China (PRC) began standardizing simplified Chinese, mostly with characters that existed before as variants, sometimes merging previously distinct character forms. "Traditional" as such is a retronym applied to non-simplified character. As for non-Chinese languages using Chinese characters, Japanese kanji include many simplified characters known as shinjitai standardized after World War II, sometimes distinct from their simplified Chinese counterparts. Korean hanja remain virtually identical to traditional Chinese characters. Despite the debates on traditional and simplified Chinese, the two scripts are mutually intelligible to most native speakers, and many Chinese-language platforms allow users to switch between them.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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This process of composition is sometimes found in its incipient stage—a stage in which the component words are temporarily united to signify some unnamed object, and do not (from lack of frequent use) permanently cohere. But in the majority of inferior languages, the process of “agglutination,” as it is called, has gone far enough to produce considerable stability in the compound words: there is a manifest…
Herbert Spencer, First Principles
States what Traditional Chinese characters is.
The third and fourth images, where Yin constitutes the basis, are imperfect matter, which has again the two determinations of youth and age, strength and weakness. These lines are further united in sets of three, and thus eight figures result, which are called Kua, ☰, ☱, ☲, ☳, ☴, ☵, ☶, ☷.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy
States what Traditional Chinese characters is.
A._ Esq; R. S. S. to the Publisher, with a Paper of Mr. _S. Flowers_, containing the Exact Draughts of several unknown Characters, taken from the Ruins at _Persepolis_._
Royal Society, Miscellanea Curiosa, Vol. 3
Close in meaning to Traditional Chinese characters; the term itself is not named.
Philosophers who discussed Traditional Chinese characters
Related ideas
- Hong Kong
- Korean language
- Macau
- Mao Zedong
- East Asia
- Xi Jinping
- North Korea
- Taiwan
- Simplified Chinese characters
- South Korea
- Malaysia
- Han dynasty
- China
- Chinese language
- Lingua franca
- Retronym
- Northern and Southern dynasties
Place in the tradition
Part of Chinese philosophy.
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