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Today traditional characters are used in Taiwan , Hong Kong , Macau , and by some Overseas Chinese communities, especially those originating from the aforementioned countries/regions or who emigrated before the widepspread adoption of simplified characters in the People's Republic Of China . In contrast, simplified characters are used in Mainland China , Singapore , and in some Overseas Chinese communities; especially those from aforementioned countries who emigrated after the widespread adoption of simplified Chinese characters. Debate over Traditional and Simplified Chinese is a long running debate among Chinese communities. CONTROVERSY OVER CHINESE NAME Among Chinese speakers, traditional Chinese characters are referred to by several different names, each with different implications. The government of the : lǎozì), with the implication that traditional Chinese characters have been replaced and are obsolete. Traditional character users argue that traditional characters cannot be called "complex" as they were never made more complex; the characters were preserved the way they were. Conversely supporters of simplified Chinese characters object strongly to the description of these characters as "standard," since they view the new simplified characters as the contemporary standard. They also point out that traditional characters are not truly traditional as Chinese characters have changed significantly over time. Curiously, although the character which is generally translated as "complex" is itself comprised of numerous, if not complex strokes, the character has not undergone simplification; this is perhaps intentional as it demonstrates the ''relative'' complexity of the Traditional characters in contrast to the Simplified versions. Additionally, while "complex" bears somewhat of a negative connotation in English, the Chinese character per se does not imply anything to the extent that it might be construed as "complex" or "troublesome"; rather, the meaning is rather vague and remains neutral unless coupled with other characters. Some older people refer to traditional characters as proper characters (正字; , both pronounced jiǎn). PRINTED TEXT When printing text, people in Mainland China and Singapore mainly use the simplified system, which was developed by the People's Republic of China government in the 1950s . However, the PRC also prints material intended to be read outside of Mainland China using traditional characters. In handwritten text, most people use informal, sometimes personal simplifications. In most cases, an alternative character (異體字) would be used in place of one with more strokes, such as 体 for 體. Contrary to popular belief, most of these are still part of the set of traditional Chinese characters, but informally and confusingly called simplified form (簡寫). Though not standard, these are usually accepted outside schools, and some are extremely widespread, notably the 台 ''tái'' in 台灣 ''Táiwān'' as opposed to the standard character (臺). COMPUTER CHARACTER ENCODING In the past, Traditional Chinese was most often rendered using the Big5 character encoding scheme, a character encoding scheme that favors Traditional Chinese. Unicode , however, has become increasingly popular as a way to render Traditional Chinese. Unicode gives equal weight to both simplified and traditional Chinese characters and does not favor either over the other. There are various IME s (Input Method Editors) available to Input Chinese Characters . USAGE IN OTHER LANGUAGES Traditional characters are also used in Korean Hanja , and moderately simplified traditional characters are used in modern Japanese Kanji . EXTERNAL LINK Learn Traditional Chinese Characters SEE ALSO |
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