There are historical reasons for the evolution of simplified characters. In the 1950s, in order to improve the cultural level of the whole people and vigorously eliminate illiteracy, literacy classes were set up everywhere in factories, streets and rural areas. Literacy and learning culture were the craze of that period, but when encountering difficulties, traditional Chinese characters were difficult to write and recognize, and the target of literacy was a large number of adults who could not understand a word. Out of this need, simplified characters have been formed according to some writing habits of the masses, which is the literacy and recognition of the whole society.

The simplified characters currently used in Chinese mainland were revised and passed on June 28th, 1956+65438. Although it changed slightly according to the usage, it has been used up to now and has become the standard Chinese characters used in Chinese mainland. 1977 announced the second batch of simplified Chinese characters scheme, which was abolished after a period of trial in newspapers and periodicals.

Principles and methods of Chinese character simplification;

The principles of simplifying Chinese characters are: "talk without action", "established practice and steady progress", that is to say, try to use simplified Chinese characters that have been popular among the people for a long time, only collect, sort out and make necessary changes, and do not make words without authorization. Jokes like "Simplified Chinese characters were invented by the * * * production party" and "Simplified Chinese characters were invented by Guo Moruo and others" are just Kuomintang propaganda.

The method of simplifying Chinese characters is based on the method proposed by Qian in 1922. There are seven kinds of * * *:

1, using ancient Chinese characters that are simpler than painting. Such as Cong, Zhong, Li, Wu, Chen and Yun are all found in Shuowen Jiezi, which is more in line with Liushu than traditional Chinese characters, but some traditional Chinese characters are wrongly written (see Fang's article etymology and simplification of Chinese characters).

2, cursive script. Such as "specialty", "east", "soup", "music", "pawn", "buy", "farmer", "grandson" and "behavior".

3. Replace complex radicals with simple symbols. Such as chicken, Guan, Xi, Deng, Nan, Le, Qu, Lao, Luo, Liu and Qi.

4. Keep only the characteristic parts of the original words. Such as sound, learning, county, medicine, business, broadcasting, literature and chisel.

5. Replace the original pictophonetic characters with simple phonetic symbols. Such as Liao, Migration, Post Station, Order, Traffic, Distant, Disturbance, Yuda, Surprise and Protection.

6. Keep the original word outline. Such as Tortoise, Trouble and Love.

7. Homophones are merged into a simple word, which will not cause confusion. For example, the combination of "Li" and "Li" of mileage, "Mian" and "Mian" of face, "Hou" and "Hou" of queen, and "melancholy" and "lush" will not cause confusion in modern Chinese, and users of simplified characters will never feel inconvenience. On the contrary, some people who have never used simplified characters will naturally worry.

Several commonly used words are particularly worth mentioning: the word "turtle" has nearly 20 strokes in traditional Chinese characters, just like a turtle is drawn one by one. It's hard to write (I don't know its correct stroke order and strokes) and hard to remember (I can't read books in traditional Chinese characters, let alone primary school students). After simplification, it retains its outline, leaving only seven strokes. There are as many as 29 traditional strokes of melancholy! The writing is extremely complicated and difficult to remember (it is said that someone wrote this word at a sinology conference and won applause). After simplification, it was replaced by "depressed" and "depressed", with only eight strokes. There are as many as 31 traditional Chinese characters "Xu", and it is also very difficult to remember and write them. After simplification, it was changed to pictophonetic characters, with "mouth" and "Yu" as shapes, which is easy to remember and only has six strokes. There are twenty-six traditional Chinese characters for "Quan", and the writing is rather strange. Knowing its etymology, you may not remember its writing, but only eleven are simplified. These are common words that everyone must remember. I don't know how much effort it takes pupils to learn traditional Chinese characters, but pupils who use simplified Chinese characters can remember them easily. No wonder some people are very dissatisfied with simplified characters-his original efforts were in vain. There are more than ten or twenty traditional Chinese characters and an average of seven or eight simplified Chinese characters, which is not only fast to write, but also convenient for computers to use words. I'm afraid it will take a lot of effort to put a lot of more than 20 words into the font of 16 pin one by one, so now the free fonts used by everyone are beautiful song styles, and the traditional ones are nothing, just like children drawing.