In 2014, an ordinary exhibition of calligraphy and painting at the Jiangxi Provincial Museum actually caused a lot of controversy on the Internet, the main contradiction was that the Qing Dynasty calligrapher Su Tingyu actually appeared in simplified characters in modern times in the four flat pages of the book.
The character "chaos" on this calligraphy work originally stored in the Xiamen Museum is simplified, while its traditional character writing should be "亂". According to this, many netizens believe that:
Netizen comments
Published on the web in 2014
"Simplified characters have only appeared in modern times, and there are simplified characters in Qing Dynasty works, which is definitely false."
This situation is not an isolated case, and the characters "東" and "horse" in Wang Xizhi's cursive "Seventeen Theses" are no different from the simplified characters used in modern times.
Most of the simplified Chinese characters we use now were introduced after the State Council officially announced the "Chinese Character Simplification Plan" in 1956. Then the answer is clear:
Simplified characters were only available after the founding of the People's Republic of China
There were no simplified characters before the founding of the People's Republic of China
Artifacts written in simplified characters are all fake
The above argument is logical and reasonable, and the case can be declared closed here, but if you look at the progress bar of the article, you will know that things are not so simple.
The calligraphy works of Su Tingyu and Wang Xizhi are all authentic, not fake or written by people who have crossed, and even many simplified characters appear in the Han Tomb Bamboo Jane and Shu Shu Books, which have been used by people in all dynasties, so just by virtue of the appearance of simplified characters in the calligraphy and paintings of the ancients, they are regarded as fakes without thinking, which is too arbitrary.
Wang Xizhi's book "Lanting Collection" has 324 words,
102 of them are simplified words,
One-third of the total word count
However, new problems have emerged, and the promotion and simplification of Chinese characters in modern times is to make it easier and more convenient to spread culture and teach knowledge, thereby reducing the illiteracy rate.
Why did the ancients use simplified characters?
The answer to this question rises directly to the heights of human nature – laziness.
01 Laziness is a common trait of human beings
From oracle bones and gold scripts to small seals, lishu, calligraphy, calligraphy, and xingshu, Chinese characters have formed a complete structural system and beautiful artistic glyphs after more than 2,000 years of development, which is not only the bearer of Chinese culture, but also a part of culture.
However, traditional characters have a very obvious disadvantage, that is, there are many strokes and writing troubles. Take the Chinese character "dragon" as an example,
There are a total of 16 paintings in traditional Chinese, while there are only 5 paintings in simplified Chinese, which means that the time to write a traditional "dragon" can write three simplified "dragons" and one more stroke.
Therefore, in ancient times, in order to save time for writing convenience, people created a more brief glyph called "vulgar character".
It is a spontaneous design and creation of Chinese characters in the folk, and for reasons such as convenience of writing or avoidance, some conventional Chinese characters have been simplified.
The late Ming scholar Lü Liuliang once said, "I like to use vulgar characters to copy books, and Yun can save half the work." ”
To put it bluntly: copying books in colloquial characters is a hassle-free, and half the time spent every day touching fish.
However, the reason why the vulgar word is called "vulgar" is because it is a set of concepts opposite to the orthography, and it does not belong to the canonical word.
In the "Book of Ganlu Characters" compiled by Yan Yuansun in the Tang Dynasty, the vulgar characters were interpreted as not in line with the rules of the six books of character creation, and were limited to the shallow glyphs used by the common people.
Therefore, vulgar words generally only exist in letters, ledgers, novels and other less formal popular documents.
Cao Xueqin's manuscript of "Dream of the Red Chamber"
In the twenty-fifth year of the Qianlong Dynasty (1760), the manuscript of "Dream of the Red Chamber" used simplified characters (iron, over, this, bad, listening, exhorting, body, treasure, difficult, ceremony, grandfather, side, question, etc.).
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the literary scholar Feng Menglong officially printed the "Cautionary Commentary" and found many simplified characters.
Although the official advocates the use of orthography, it is a common trait of human beings to be lazy to touch fish, so the "Ministry of Internal Affairs" token issued by the Qing Dynasty government actually writes simplified "service".
Although it is informal, everyone can understand it, so don't worry about it so much.
02 Simplification is not simple
The simplified characters we use now are all promoted by the unified provisions of the state, and there are very few cases of controversy over variant characters, but the vulgar characters are spontaneously created by the ancients, because everyone's posture of touching the fish is different, so the vulgar characters that appear in different eras and different regions are also different.
A variety of glyphs of the "guo" colloquial character
According to the "Genealogy of Common Characters since the Song and Yuan Dynasties", as many as 6240 simplified characters are used in the 12 folk inscriptions of the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, and they correspond to a total of 1604 traditional characters, which means that there are 3.9 different simplified characters per traditional character on average.
The same word is written in four different ways... Where do you seem to have heard such familiar words?
Although homophones do not affect writing and communication, the chaotic situation of the text must ultimately rely on powerful means to achieve unification. (This truth was understood by Qin Shi Huang more than 2,000 years ago)
In modern times, there is a lot of controversy about the source of the formal implementation of simplified character activities, one is that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom first gave the simplified characters legal status, in the seals and announcements, books, etc., a large number of popular simplified characters were adopted, but also created a lot of new simplified characters, most of these characters were later included in the "Chinese Character Simplification Program".
In 1909, lu Feikui, an educator in the late Qing Dynasty, published "Ordinary Education Should Adopt Vulgar Characters" in the inaugural issue of the "Education Magazine", advocating the simplification of Chinese characters.
During the Period of the New Culture Movement, many scholars not only promoted the vernacular, but also vigorously promoted simplified characters. At that time, Lu Xun said an astonishing famous saying: "Chinese characters do not perish, China will die", and he, Qian Xuantong, Liu Bannong and other members of the Republic of China even proposed to completely simplify Chinese characters into pinyin. Of course, this idea did not come to fruition in the end.
In 1935, the Nationalist government promulgated the Decree on the Implementation of Simplified Characters on the basis of the Simplified Character Spectrum compiled by Qian Xuantong, and the Ministry of Education promulgated the First Simplified Character List. Unfortunately, due to the strong opposition of conservative forces, it was soon declared invalid.
The First Simplified Chinese Character List published by the National Government
Later, after the founding of New China, the 23rd meeting of the plenary session of the State Council on January 28, 1956 adopted the "Resolution on Promulgating the "Chinese Character Simplification Plan", and gradually implemented the simplification of Chinese characters through newspapers and magazines and other publications on a trial basis.
In the following years, many revisions were discussed, and finally the common canonical Chinese characters that we saw and used this year were formed.
These simplified Chinese characters are actually the screening and collation of the existing glyphs in ancient times, and the more appropriate one of its various glyphs is selected. In fact, more than 80% of the simplified words we commonly use have been widespread since ancient times.
Ye Lishi, an expert on writing reform, made statistics on the 521 simplified characters most commonly used, and found that 101 new characters appeared in the Liberated Areas and after the founding of the People's Republic of China, accounting for less than 20%, while the remaining 420 simplified characters have existed since ancient times or have been popular before liberation: 68 in the pre-Qin period, 96 in the Qin and Han dynasties, 32 during the Three Kingdoms and the Two Jin Dynasties, 29 during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, 82 in the Song and Liao Jin Dynasties, 53 in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and 60 in the Republic of China.
So in the future, when your friends see the simplified characters shouting "this is a fake" on ancient cultural relics, you can calmly find out the post zhuangbility, cough, for him science popularization.
In short, the simplification of Chinese characters has gone through a very long, iterative and tortuous process. This process can be said to have been accompanied by the development of Chinese characters since modern times, and it can also be said that it has always been the result of people's will and political promotion.
The simplification of Chinese characters is not the simpler the better the strokes, and the "Second Chinese Character Simplification Scheme" launched in 1977 was discontinued because of social chaos.
Regardless of the background of the times, the purpose of transforming Chinese characters cannot bypass more convenient writing, easier reading, and more effective popularization of education.
Guo Moruo's opinion on partial reform.
Ye Shengtao's opinion on simplified characters.
Lao She's opinion on simplified words.
Note: The above collection pictures are provided by Mr. Fang Jixiao. This batch of precious materials related to the reform of chinese characters that he treasured provides important clues and basis for studying the historical process of simplification of Chinese characters after the founding of the People's Republic of China.
In recent years, there have been some voices in society that "simplify and return complexity". This view is a matter of opinion and is not commented upon here.
But as the most important tool of Chinese civilization, Chinese characters are sharp? What's in it? The general public has the best say.
The transformation of Chinese characters will not be terminated, on the contrary, it is precisely because it can conform to the requirements of the times and constantly innovate, so that Chinese culture can be passed on and continued.
Resources:
Su Que, "A Brief Discussion on the Concept of Vulgar Characters and Their Scope", Cultural and Educational Materials, No. 32, 2017
The Man, "Talking about simplified characters on ancient cultural relics"
Extremely vicious Lee Papaya "Antique Super Interesting"
This article is reproduced on the WeChat public account: Museum 丨 Watch Exhibition (ID: atmuseum)