David on Formosa

Taiwan likes to promote itself as one of the last bastions of traditional Chinese characters. Traditional characters are seen as being under threat from simplified characters which are used in the PRC. Simplified characters are also the main system used in Chinese language education throughout the world.

Some people seem to believe that traditional Chinese characters are threatened. A report in today's Taipei Times says that a group of academics in Taipei will apply to the UN to protect traditional Chinese characters. According to the article, "The best way to prevent traditional characters from being marginalised was to list them as a UN-protected world cultural heritage".

The article also quotes Hsu Ching-yun, a professor at Soochow University, saying that simplified characters were officially adopted by the PRC in 1949. This is wrong. They were officially adopted in two stages in 1956 and 1964.

For all this talk about how traditional characters are under threat I don't know how much substance there is to the debate. I think it is more to do with the PRC establishing a hegemonic ownership of Chinese culture and the fact that Chinese characters (both simplified and traditional) are facing many pressures in the modern world (see the readings section of Pinyin.info for some more background on this). I think the survival of traditional characters depends much more on good education and continued widespread usage rather than being undermined by simplified characters.

I think an interesting thing to note is that simplified characters are occasionally used in Taiwan. The Taipei Times article notes, "according to the list of standard characters published by the ministry [of Education], 57 commonly seen simplified characters are now considered standard characters."

One of the most commonly seen simplified characters is the "Tai" in Taiwan. Taiwan is most commonly written as 台灣.The first character is a simplification of 臺. Hence, Taiwan written in its full traditional form is 臺灣. Taiwan written in the simplified form 台湾 is also sometimes seen in Taiwan. So there are actually three ways of writing Taiwan. I assume that the simplified form of "Tai" (台) is on the official list of 57 characters mentioned above, but I am not sure about the simplified form of "wan" (湾).

I took a number of photos of signs showing the word Taiwan while walking around Taipei. You can see them below.

Simplified-traditional form of Taiwan

Simplified-traditional form of Taiwan

Simplified-traditional form of Taiwan

Simplified-traditional form of Taiwan

Simplified form of Taiwan

Traditional form of Taiwan

Traditional form of Taiwan

Hand-written form of Taiwan. The second character looks more like the simplified character.