Since the Southern and Northern Dynasties, among the commonly used regular script Chinese characters, some characters with relatively simple shapes have been popular among the people, which are called "simplified characters", "vulgar styles" or "broken styles", such as "Er, Gai and Liu". Because these simplified characters may not conform to the original six-character system of Chinese characters and have special historical factors, they have not obtained legal status for a long time.

It was during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom that simplified characters gained legal status for the first time in history. In the seals of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom government, as well as the announcements and books issued, a large number of popular simplified characters were adopted, and many new simplified characters were created. For example, the word "country" was changed from "or" to ",and the word" king "was changed from" king "during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

19 19. After the May 4th Movement, as the vernacular gradually replaced the classical Chinese, the voice of reforming Chinese characters gradually rose.

In February 1920, 1, Qian published a proposal to save Chinese characters in New Youth.

1922, Qian et al. put forward a set of concrete simplification schemes, including eight simplification strategies, which is the first time that Chinese characters have been systematically simplified.

1In June, 935, Qian selected more than 1300 words from his Simplified Chinese Characters (more than 2,400 words) and compiled a List of Commonly Used Simplified Chinese Characters, which was sent to the Preparatory Committee for the Unification of Putonghua. The Committee adopted the word 1230, which is ready for implementation.

1935 On August 2 1 day, the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China issued the ministerial orderNo. 1 1400, which officially announced the first batch of simplified word lists, and adopted 324 of the 2,400 words in the Catalogue of Simplified Words edited by Qian, which was also called "characters on hand" at that time. This is the first time that the government has carried out a large-scale reform.

After the founding of New China, People's Daily published the State Council's resolution on the publication of simplified characters and simplified characters on June 5438+09565438+1October 3/KLOC-0. Legal simplified characters have achieved the status of orthography in today's Chinese mainland. Later, in May 1964, the simplified word summary was adopted. 1986, The Summary of Simplified Chinese Characters was slightly revised and re-published, which has been used in Chinese mainland ever since.