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40-667: The Bamboo Annals ( Chinese : 竹書紀年 ; pinyin : Zhúshū Jìnián ), also known as the Ji Tomb Annals ( Chinese : 汲冢紀年 ; pinyin : Jí Zhǒng Jìnián ), is a chronicle of ancient China. It begins in the earliest legendary time (the age of the Yellow Emperor ) and extends to 299 BC, with the later centuries focusing on the history of the State of Wei in the Warring States period . It thus covers

80-509: A certain extent in South Korea , remain virtually identical to traditional characters, with variations between the two forms largely stylistic. There has historically been a debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters . Because the simplifications are fairly systematic, it is possible to convert computer-encoded characters between the two sets, with the main issue being ambiguities in simplified representations resulting from

120-543: A similar period to Sima Qian 's Records of the Grand Historian (91 BC). The original may have been lost during the Song dynasty, and the text is known today in two versions, a "current text" (or "modern text") of disputed authenticity and an incomplete "ancient text". The original text was buried with King Xiang of Wei (died 296 BC) and re-discovered nearly six centuries later in 281 AD ( Western Jin dynasty ) in

160-613: A standard set of Chinese character forms used to write Chinese languages . In Taiwan , the set of traditional characters is regulated by the Ministry of Education and standardized in the Standard Form of National Characters . These forms were predominant in written Chinese until the middle of the 20th century, when various countries that use Chinese characters began standardizing simplified sets of characters, often with characters that existed before as well-known variants of

200-500: A state of marital harmony together with Yao's two daughters , Shun took on administrative responsibilities as co-emperor. Among these responsibilities, Shun had to deal with the Great Flood and its associated disruptions, especially in light of the fact that Yao's reluctant decision to appoint Gun to handle the problem had failed to fix the situation, despite having been working on it for the previous nine years. Shun took steps over

240-869: Is 産 (also the accepted form in Japan and Korea), while in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan the accepted form is 產 (also the accepted form in Vietnamese chữ Nôm ). The PRC tends to print material intended for people in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and overseas Chinese in traditional characters. For example, versions of the People's Daily are printed in traditional characters, and both People's Daily and Xinhua have traditional character versions of their website available, using Big5 encoding. Mainland companies selling products in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan use traditional characters in order to communicate with consumers;

280-426: Is a partial version assembled through painstaking examination of quotations of the lost original in pre-Song works by Zhu Youzeng (late 19th century), Wang Guowei (1917) and Fan Xiangyong (1956). Fang Shiming and Wang Xiuling (1981) have systematically collated all the available quotations, instead of following earlier scholars in trying to merge variant forms of a passage into a single text. The two works that provide

320-493: The Chinese Commercial News , World News , and United Daily News all use traditional characters, as do some Hong Kong–based magazines such as Yazhou Zhoukan . The Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified characters. DVDs are usually subtitled using traditional characters, influenced by media from Taiwan as well as by the two countries sharing the same DVD region , 3. With most having immigrated to

360-567: The Shiji (Historic Records), Yao assigned astronomic officers to observe celestial phenomena such as the sunrise, sunset, and the rising of the evening stars. This was done in order to make a solar and lunar calendar with 366 days for a year, also providing for the leap month. Some recent archaeological work at Taosi , an ancient site in Shanxi , dating to 2300 BCE – 1900 BCE, may have provided some evidence for this. A sort of an ancient observatory –

400-459: The Han dynasty . Discrepancies between the text and quotations of the earlier text in older books led scholars such as Qian Daxin and Shinzō Shinjō to dismiss the "current" version as a forgery, a view still widely held. Other scholars, notably David Nivison and Edward Shaughnessy , argue that substantial parts of it are faithful copies of the original text. The "ancient text" ( 古本 gǔběn )

440-698: The Jizhong discovery . For this reason, the chronicle survived the burning of the books by Emperor Qin Shi Huang . Other texts recovered from the same tomb included Guoyu , I Ching , and the Tale of King Mu . They were written on bamboo slips , the usual writing material of the Warring States period, and it is from this that the name of the text derives. The strips were arranged in order and transcribed by court scholars. According to Du Yu , who saw

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480-486: The Kensiu language . Emperor Yao Yao's ancestral name is Yi Qi ( 伊祁 ) or Qi ( 祁 ), clan name is Taotang ( 陶唐 ), given name is Fangxun ( 放勳 ), as the second son to Emperor Ku and Qingdu ( 慶都 ). He is also known as Tang Yao ( 唐堯 ). Yao's mother has been worshipped as the goddess Yao-mu (堯母). According to the legend, Yao became the ruler at 20 and died at 99 when he passed his throne to Shun

520-522: The Shang dynasty . The narrative is interspersed with longer passages on portents, which are identical to passages in the late 5th century Book of Song . The second scroll contains a more detailed account of the history of the Western Zhou , the state of Jin and its successor state Wei, and has no portent passages. This version gave years according to the sexagenary cycle , a practice that began in

560-640: The Shanghainese -language character U+20C8E 𠲎 CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-20C8E —a composition of 伐 with the ⼝   'MOUTH' radical—used instead of the Standard Chinese 嗎 ; 吗 . Typefaces often use the initialism TC to signify the use of traditional Chinese characters, as well as SC for simplified Chinese characters . In addition, the Noto, Italy family of typefaces, for example, also provides separate fonts for

600-576: The Great as historical figures, and contemporary historians believed they may represent leader-chiefs of allied tribes who established a unified and hierarchical system of government in a transition period to the patriarchal feudal society. In the Classic of History , one of the Five Classics , the initial chapters deal with Yao, Shun and Yu. Of his many contributions, Yao is said to have invented

640-675: The Great , to whom he had given his two daughters in marriage. According to the Bamboo Annals , Yao abdicated his throne to Shun in his 73rd year of reign, and continued to live during Shun's reign for another 28 years. It was during the reign of Emperor Yao that the Great Flood began, a flood so vast that no part of Yao's territory was spared, and both the Yellow River and the Yangtze valleys flooded. The alleged nature of

680-555: The People's Republic of China, traditional Chinese characters are standardised according to the Table of Comparison between Standard, Traditional and Variant Chinese Characters . Dictionaries published in mainland China generally show both simplified and their traditional counterparts. There are differences between the accepted traditional forms in mainland China and elsewhere, for example the accepted traditional form of 产 in mainland China

720-587: The United States during the second half of the 19th century, Chinese Americans have long used traditional characters. When not providing both, US public notices and signs in Chinese are generally written in traditional characters, more often than in simplified characters. In the past, traditional Chinese was most often encoded on computers using the Big5 standard, which favored traditional characters. However,

760-515: The Yellow Emperor. Even after nine years of the efforts of Gun, the flood continued to rage on, leading to the increase of all sorts of social disorders. The administration of the empire was becoming increasingly difficult; so, accordingly, at this point, Yao offered to resign the throne in favor of his special adviser(s), Four Mountains: however, Four Mountains declined, and instead recommended Shun – another distant relative to Yao through

800-407: The Yellow Emperor; but one who was living in obscurity, despite his royal lineage. Yao proceeded to put Shun through a series of tests, beginning with marrying his two daughters to Shun and ending by sending him down from the mountains to the plains below where Shun had to face fierce winds, thunder, and rain. After passing all of Yao's tests, not the least of which being establishing and continuing

840-557: The death of Yao, "Shun tried to yield the throne to him, but in vain." However, an alternative account found elsewhere in the Annals offers a different story. It holds that Shun dethroned and imprisoned Yao, then raised Danzhu to the throne for a short time before seizing it himself. Often extolled as the morally perfect and intelligent sage-king, Yao's benevolence and diligence served as a model to future Chinese monarchs and emperors. Early Chinese accounts often speak of Yao, Shun and Yu

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880-413: The flood is shown in the following quote: Like endless boiling water, the flood is pouring forth destruction. Boundless and overwhelming, it overtops hills and mountains. Rising and ever rising, it threatens the very heavens. How the people must be groaning and suffering! According to both historical and mythological sources, the flooding continued relentlessly. Yao sought to find someone who could control

920-561: The flood, and turned for advice to his special adviser, or advisers, the Four Mountains (四嶽, Sìyuè ); who, after deliberation, gave Emperor Yao some advice which he did not especially welcome. Upon the insistence of Four Mountains, and over Yao's initial hesitation, the person Yao finally consented to appoint in charge of controlling the flood was Gun , the Prince of Chong, who was a distant relative of Yao's through common descent from

960-528: The game of Weiqi (Go), reportedly to favorably influence his vicious playboy son Danzhu . After the customary three-year mourning period after Yao's death, Shun named Danzhu as the ruler but the people only recognized Shun as the rightful heir. According to some Chinese classic documents such as Yao Dian (Document of Yao) in Shang Shu ( Book of Documents ), and Wudibenji (Records for the Five Kings) in

1000-493: The inverse is equally true as well. In digital media, many cultural phenomena imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan into mainland China, such as music videos, karaoke videos, subtitled movies, and subtitled dramas, use traditional Chinese characters. In Hong Kong and Macau , traditional characters were retained during the colonial period, while the mainland adopted simplified characters. Simplified characters are contemporaneously used to accommodate immigrants and tourists, often from

1040-725: The mainland. The increasing use of simplified characters has led to concern among residents regarding protecting what they see as their local heritage. Taiwan has never adopted simplified characters. The use of simplified characters in government documents and educational settings is discouraged by the government of Taiwan. Nevertheless, with sufficient context simplified characters are likely to be successfully read by those used to traditional characters, especially given some previous exposure. Many simplified characters were previously variants that had long been in some use, with systematic stroke simplifications used in folk handwriting since antiquity. Traditional characters were recognized as

1080-682: The majority of Chinese text in mainland China are simplified characters , there is no legislation prohibiting the use of traditional Chinese characters, and often traditional Chinese characters remain in use for stylistic and commercial purposes, such as in shopfront displays and advertising. Traditional Chinese characters remain ubiquitous on buildings that predate the promulgation of the current simplification scheme, such as former government buildings, religious buildings, educational institutions, and historical monuments. Traditional Chinese characters continue to be used for ceremonial, cultural, scholarly/academic research, and artistic/decorative purposes. In

1120-983: The merging of previously distinct character forms. Many Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between these character sets. Traditional characters are known by different names throughout the Chinese-speaking world. The government of Taiwan officially refers to traditional Chinese characters as 正體字 ; 正体字 ; zhèngtǐzì ; 'orthodox characters'. This term is also used outside Taiwan to distinguish standard characters, including both simplified, and traditional, from other variants and idiomatic characters . Users of traditional characters elsewhere, as well as those using simplified characters, call traditional characters 繁體字 ; 繁体字 ; fántǐzì ; 'complex characters', 老字 ; lǎozì ; 'old characters', or 全體字 ; 全体字 ; quántǐzì ; 'full characters' to distinguish them from simplified characters. Some argue that since traditional characters are often

1160-544: The most quotations, the Shui Jing Zhu (527) and Sima Zhen 's Shiji Suoyin (early 8th century), seem to be based on slightly different versions of the text. This version includes two sexagenary year designations (for the first year of Emperor Yao and for the Zhou attack on Shang), indicating some tampering with the text before it was quoted. Traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters are

1200-402: The next four years to reorganize the empire, in such a way as to solve immediate problems and to put the imperial authority in a better position to deal with the flood and its effects. The Bamboo Annals represent Yao as having banished prince Danzhu to Danshui in his 58th year of reign. They add that following Yao's abdication in favor of Shun, Danzhu kept away from Shun, and that following

1240-677: The official script in Singapore until 1969, when the government officially adopted Simplified characters. Traditional characters still are widely used in contexts such as in baby and corporation names, advertisements, decorations, official documents and in newspapers. The Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative in Southeast Asia regarding simplification. Although major public universities teach in simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications such as

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1280-469: The oldest in East Asia – was found at Taosi that seems to coincide with the ancient records. Some Chinese archaeologists believe that Taosi was the site of a state called Tang ( 唐 ) conquered by Emperor Yao and made to be his capital. The structure consists of an outer semi-ring-shaped path, and a semi-round rammed-earth platform with a diameter of about 60 m; it was discovered in 2003–2004. Yao

1320-700: The original standard forms, they should not be called 'complex'. Conversely, there is a common objection to the description of traditional characters as 'standard', due to them not being used by a large population of Chinese speakers. Additionally, as the process of Chinese character creation often made many characters more elaborate over time, there is sometimes a hesitation to characterize them as 'traditional'. Some people refer to traditional characters as 'proper characters' ( 正字 ; zhèngzì or 正寫 ; zhèngxiě ) and to simplified characters as 簡筆字 ; 简笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'simplified-stroke characters' or 減筆字 ; 减笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'reduced-stroke characters', as

1360-476: The original strips, the text began with the Xia dynasty . He also stated that it used the Zhou royal calendar until 784 BC, when it switched to the calendar of the state of Jin and then that of its successor, the state of Wei . Du noted that this implied that the book was the state chronicle of Wei. Pei Yin ( 裴駰 , 5th century) states that the book began with the Yellow Emperor. This version, consisting of 13 scrolls,

1400-833: The predominant forms. Simplified characters as codified by the People's Republic of China are predominantly used in mainland China , Malaysia, and Singapore. "Traditional" as such is a retronym applied to non-simplified character sets in the wake of widespread use of simplified characters. Traditional characters are commonly used in Taiwan , Hong Kong , and Macau , as well as in most overseas Chinese communities outside of Southeast Asia. As for non-Chinese languages written using Chinese characters, Japanese kanji include many simplified characters known as shinjitai standardized after World War II, sometimes distinct from their simplified Chinese counterparts . Korean hanja , still used to

1440-636: The traditional character set used in Taiwan ( TC ) and the set used in Hong Kong ( HK ). Most Chinese-language webpages now use Unicode for their text. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends the use of the language tag zh-Hant to specify webpage content written with traditional characters. In the Japanese writing system , kyujitai are traditional forms, which were simplified to create shinjitai for standardized Japanese use following World War II. Kyūjitai are mostly congruent with

1480-985: The traditional characters in Chinese, save for minor stylistic variation. Characters that are not included in the jōyō kanji list are generally recommended to be printed in their traditional forms, with a few exceptions. Additionally, there are kokuji , which are kanji wholly created in Japan, rather than originally being borrowed from China. In the Korean writing system , hanja —replaced almost entirely by hangul in South Korea and totally replaced in North Korea —are mostly identical with their traditional counterparts, save minor stylistic variations. As with Japanese, there are autochthonous hanja, known as gukja . Traditional Chinese characters are also used by non-Chinese ethnic groups. The Maniq people living in Thailand and Malaysia use Chinese characters to write

1520-518: The ubiquitous Unicode standard gives equal weight to simplified and traditional Chinese characters, and has become by far the most popular encoding for Chinese-language text. There are various input method editors (IMEs) available for the input of Chinese characters . Many characters, often dialectical variants, are encoded in Unicode but cannot be inputted using certain IMEs, with one example being

1560-539: The words for simplified and reduced are homophonous in Standard Chinese , both pronounced as jiǎn . The modern shapes of traditional Chinese characters first appeared with the emergence of the clerical script during the Han dynasty c.  200 BCE , with the sets of forms and norms more or less stable since the Southern and Northern dynasties period c.  the 5th century . Although

1600-686: Was lost during the Song dynasty . A 3-scroll version of the Annals is mentioned in the History of Song (1345), but its relationship to the other versions is not known. The "current text" ( 今本 jīnběn ) is a 2-scroll version of the text printed in the late 16th century. The first scroll contains a sparse narrative of the pre-dynastic emperors (beginning with the Yellow Emperor), the Xia dynasty and

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