The Origins of Simplified Chinese Characters
#1
Before I begin, if you don't know about the subject, can't answer my question, or going to troll, there's the door, you can go out now.

Now to the question.

Simplified Chinese was said to be invented by Communists, but today, someone said that the characters were used dating back to the Ching dynasty. I was pretty surprsied that someone would say that, but you know, the guy didn't link his proof.

As far as I know, even in Mao's China, at least in the beginning, propaganda banners display Traditional Chinese characters. This person also went on and said that the Nationalists, under Sun Yat Sen, the first leader of the Nationalists-owned China since the downfall of the Ching dynasty, took a stance for altering the writing system. Again, no proof. If that was true, why does Taiwan still use Traditional script when the Nationalists took over the island?

But I do know this: if a Hong Kongner, one who claims that the PRC are forcing their kids to speak Mandarin and write in Simplified script and abhors this move, read this, his ass will be chapped upon reading that comment. My opinion? well, let's just say that, I take the side that I think most Hong Kongners take, and that is to tell the Communist party to leave us alone for the next twenty years, as promised.

Well, that's enough politics for now, the thread is about the origins of Simplified Chinese characters. Whoever can confirm this assertion or want to  discuss this, please feel free.

Thank you.
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#2
i don't believe that the prc claim to have invented the simplified script rather that they are in favor of it and have continued to attempt to simplify the script over the decades in hopes of increasing literacy and developing a uniform language. their reasons for this can be easily figured out: they want their people to be able to read and write. reading in general will allow ease of industry, law, trade and blah blah blah. but anyway. you can trace the simplification back way before the establishment of the prc to even before the industrial modernization efforts of china, japan and korea as well as their mixing of culture; you can also find similar instances across all languages in general.

it makes sense that originally, people were just trying to save some effort like instead of doing a traditional tiny "L" break thingy in chinese, it is easier to make a dot or a dash. hundreds of years ago, most people in the region were illiterate and those that could read and write to each other were not in a hurry. english equivalent: kind of like using '&' instead of 'and'... or 'et al' instead of long latin words... or whatever: lol, tl;dr, etc.

a really good western example is the evolution of conversational and narrative english from the 1700's to present day with a focus on the socioeconomic divide, locale and the availability of education... recently, i found out last year that a lot of kids in the united states don't have to learn cursive handwriting anymore due to new core competency standards. this totally threw me for a loop. at first, i figured that this anti-cursive stance appeared to be a move away from the efficiency of cursive handwriting in favor a train of thought similar to the simplification of chinese. i think i was wrongish. as technology becomes more available to americans (kids in particular) -- most forms of communication today are electronic in nature -- writing a letter by hand is not as important as picking a letter out on a keyboard or reading it off a screen. that makes sense to me: modernization.

back to china; circa 1900 modernization, the simplification of traditional script:

-easier to to communicate with the population
-standardization of government operations
-standardization of educational materials
-stronger industry
-higher productivity
-higher skilled industries

there are lots more reasons if you want to think about it (some diabolical in nature) and keep in mind, modernization wasn't just the script, but refers to culture as a whole. also, with the prc, modernization can also mean unity... or domination. depends on your imagination and their determination. but, i'm not quite sure that the continued simplification of chinese is really that important anymore for the same reason that learning english cursive is not that important anymore: why write it when you can type it?
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#3
Wow, what a response; I didn't expect this, but that's what I'm looking for.

Yeah, it might have scraped China's illiterates off the ground.

Still, I don't believe that Hong Kong needs it, but whatever.

Of course, revamping characters that are passed down a long time ago seems to be a dangerous thing; it's almost like Newspeak; people are dumbed down until the point that they can't think for themselves. Because the Chinese were illiterate before the changing of the characters, it is a lot worse when the characters are changed. The government can then say anything because the population can do nothing but read the propaganda fed to them. The civilians cannot argue about anything; how can they?

Now, despite the reply, there is but one question left: has there been living proof that the characters were used at the Ching dynasty?

EDIT: It looks as if I found the answer to my own question: the answer was "yes," but from Wikipedia. I was reluctant to use Wikipedia because I hear it's full of holes, more so than Gorgonzola cheese. Here's the quote:

Wikipedia Wrote:Although most of the simplified Chinese characters in use today are the result of the works moderated by the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the 1950s and 60s, character simplification predates the PRC's formation in 1949. Cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print are attested as early as the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC).

It looks as if my credibility was flushed down the toilet of reality.

Still, an interesting thought. I guess my apprehension to use Simplified script comes from the fact that maybe I am a little paranoid about the corruption and decadence of the government. That is a separate issue altogether, so I think I need to work on, well, separate them.
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#4
in every widespread initiative, breaking the whole into separate goals and plots allows it to make more sense. and, yes and no: the needs for simplification for whatever reason that it's pushed forward, has a purpose. with hong kong, even controlling something as simple as dictating the style of character brings a sense of authority. it might not work on the current adult population, but will have an impact on the younger population in 20 years or so when they start to matter more.

if you take the prc out of it all, it makes it more easy to follow the natural progression of the simplification. like tibet, buddhism, hong kong and taiwan, the prc does not own simplification; they are just supporting it to satisfy their own goals.

regarding the qin... if anyone needed simplification, it would be the qin. after the fall of zhou, they probably had a trouble reading all those confucius scrolls...
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#5
If you say so... a pirate can't be wrong.

Me, if I have kids, I'd teach them to learn both.
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