Republic of China
49-654: The National Protection War ( simplified Chinese : 护国战争 ; traditional Chinese : 護國戰爭 ; pinyin : Hù guó zhànzhēng ), also known as the Anti-Monarchy War , was a civil war that took place in China between 1915 and 1916. Following the overthrow of the Qing dynasty three years previously, the Republic of China was established in its place. The war was caused by President Yuan Shikai 's proclamation of
98-519: A New Year's banquet in 1916. Han Chinese and Aboriginal rebels launched the Tapani incident uprising against Japanese rule in 1915 with the rebel leader Yu Qingfang telling people that Yuan Shikai's Beiyang army would come and help liberate Taiwan from the Japanese. The rebellion was ruthlessly crushed by Japanese authorities within weeks of the initial uprising. The National Protection War symbolized
147-443: A component—either a character or a sub-component called a radical —usually involves either a reduction in its total number of strokes , or an apparent streamlining of which strokes are chosen in what places—for example, the ⼓ ' WRAP ' radical used in the traditional character 沒 is simplified to ⼏ ' TABLE ' to form the simplified character 没 . By systematically simplifying radicals, large swaths of
196-434: A conversion table. While exercising such derivation, the following rules should be observed: Sample Derivations : The Series One List of Variant Characters reduces the number of total standard characters. First, amongst each set of variant characters sharing identical pronunciation and meaning, one character (usually the simplest in form) is elevated to the standard character set, and the rest are made obsolete. Then amongst
245-407: A few revised forms, and was implemented for official use by China's State Council on 5 June 2013. In Chinese, simplified characters are referred to by their official name 简化字 ; jiǎnhuàzì , or colloquially as 简体字 ; jiǎntǐzì . The latter term refers broadly to all character variants featuring simplifications of character form or structure, a practice which has always been present as
294-483: A major defeat in Sichuan province. Before this defeat, Guizhou and Guangxi provinces declared their independence between February and March 1916. Guangdong , Shandong , Hunan , Shanxi , Jiangxi and Jiangsu followed suit and declared their independence shortly thereafter. Discord began to surface even inside the emperor's government in the national capital of Beijing . Faced with mounting pressure, Yuan Shikai
343-610: A newly coined phono-semantic compound : Removing radicals Only retaining single radicals Replacing with ancient forms or variants : Adopting ancient vulgar variants : Readopting abandoned phonetic-loan characters : Copying and modifying another traditional character : Based on 132 characters and 14 components listed in Chart 2 of the Complete List , the 1,753 derived characters found in Chart 3 can be created by systematically simplifying components using Chart 2 as
392-573: A part of the Chinese writing system. The official name tends to refer to the specific, systematic set published by the Chinese government, which includes not only simplifications of individual characters, but also a substantial reduction in the total number of characters through the merger of formerly distinct forms. According to Chinese palaeographer Qiu Xigui , the broadest trend in the evolution of Chinese characters over their history has been simplification, both in graphical shape ( 字形 ; zìxíng ),
441-440: Is actually more complex than eliminated ones. An example is the character 搾 which is eliminated in favor of the variant form 榨 . The 扌 'HAND' with three strokes on the left of the eliminated 搾 is now seen as more complex, appearing as the ⽊ 'TREE' radical 木 , with four strokes, in the chosen variant 榨 . Not all characters standardised in the simplified set consist of fewer strokes. For instance,
490-454: Is derived. Merging homophonous characters: Adapting cursive shapes ( 草書楷化 ): Replacing a component with a simple arbitrary symbol (such as 又 and 乂 ): Omitting entire components : Omitting components, then applying further alterations : Structural changes that preserve the basic shape Replacing the phonetic component of phono-semantic compounds : Replacing an uncommon phonetic component : Replacing entirely with
539-813: Is now discouraged. A State Language Commission official cited "oversimplification" as the reason for restoring some characters. The language authority declared an open comment period until 31 August 2009, for feedback from the public. In 2013, the List of Commonly Used Standard Chinese Characters was published as a revision of the 1988 lists; it included a total of 8105 characters. It included 45 newly recognized standard characters that were previously considered variant forms, as well as official approval of 226 characters that had been simplified by analogy and had seen wide use but were not explicitly given in previous lists or documents. Singapore underwent three successive rounds of character simplification , eventually arriving at
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#1732765557485588-623: Is referred to as the " big seal script ". The traditional narrative, as also attested in the Shuowen Jiezi dictionary ( c. 100 AD ), is that the Qin small seal script that would later be imposed across China was originally derived from the Zhou big seal script with few modifications. However, the body of epigraphic evidence comparing the character forms used by scribes gives no indication of any real consolidation in character forms prior to
637-547: Is used instead of 叠 in regions using traditional characters. The Chinese government stated that it wished to keep Chinese orthography stable. The Chart of Generally Utilized Characters of Modern Chinese was published in 1988 and included 7000 simplified and unsimplified characters. Of these, half were also included in the revised List of Commonly Used Characters in Modern Chinese , which specified 2500 common characters and 1000 less common characters. In 2009,
686-522: The Empire of China , with himself as the Hongxian Emperor. In Yunnan , military leaders, including Tang Jiyao , Cai E and Li Liejun , declared their independence and launched military expeditions against Yuan Shikai. Yuan's Beiyang Army experienced several defeats and fractured, which led other provinces in the south to declare independence as well. Eventually, under immense pressure from
735-756: The Xilai Temple in Tainan , where the revolt began, and the Yu Qingfang Incident after the leader Yu Qingfang . Multiple Japanese police stations were stormed by Aboriginal and Han Chinese fighters under Chiang Ting (Jiang Ding) and Yü Ch'ing-fang (Yu Qingfang). Modern Taiwanese historiography attempts to portray the Tapani Incident as a nationalist uprising either from a Chinese ( unification ) or Taiwanese ( independence ) perspective. Japanese colonial historiography attempted to portray
784-554: The "Dot" stroke : The traditional components ⺥ and 爫 become ⺈ : The traditional component 奐 becomes 奂 : Tapani incident The Tapani incident or Tapani uprising in 1915 was one of the biggest armed uprisings by Taiwanese Han and Aboriginals , including Taivoan , against Japanese rule in Taiwan . Alternative names used to refer to the incident include the Xilai Temple Incident after
833-459: The "external appearances of individual graphs", and in graphical form ( 字体 ; 字體 ; zìtǐ ), "overall changes in the distinguishing features of graphic[al] shape and calligraphic style, [...] in most cases refer[ring] to rather obvious and rather substantial changes". The initiatives following the founding of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) to universalize the use of their small seal script across
882-482: The 1986 General List of Simplified Chinese Characters , hereafter the General List . All characters simplified this way are enumerated in Chart 1 and Chart 2 in the 1986 Complete List . Characters in both charts are structurally simplified based on similar set of principles. They are separated into two charts to clearly mark those in Chart 2 as 'usable as simplified character components', based on which Chart 3
931-520: The 1986 mainland China revisions. Unlike in mainland China, Singapore parents have the option of registering their children's names in traditional characters. Malaysia also promulgated a set of simplified characters in 1981, though completely identical to the mainland Chinese set. They are used in Chinese-language schools. All characters simplified this way are enumerated in Charts 1 and 2 of
980-511: The 20th century was part of an initiative by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to promote literacy, and their use in ordinary circumstances on the mainland has been encouraged by the Chinese government since the 1950s. They are the official forms used in mainland China and Singapore , while traditional characters are officially used in Hong Kong , Macau , and Taiwan . Simplification of
1029-470: The Chinese government published a major revision to the list which included a total of 8300 characters. No new simplifications were introduced. In addition, slight modifications to the orthography of 44 characters to fit traditional calligraphic rules were initially proposed, but were not implemented due to negative public response. Also, the practice of unrestricted simplification of rare and archaic characters by analogy using simplified radicals or components
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#17327655574851078-511: The Hongxian Emperor, Cai E and Tang Jiyao rulers of Yunnan province declared independence in the provincial capital, Kunming . The date was 25 December 1915. They organized the National Protection Army and began a military expedition against Yuan Shikai and his supporters to defeat the new Imperial China, and save the Republic of China . Yuan Shikai sent 80,000 men in an attempt to attack Yunnan , but his troops suffered
1127-670: The beginning of the separation between the North and the South after the establishment of the Republic of China. Yuan Shikai was a legitimate president of the Republic, but his attempt to become Emperor was thwarted by the military opposition of the southern provinces. Even after the end of Yuan's short-lived monarchy, the Beiyang government in Beijing was no longer able to maintain control over
1176-428: The character set are altered. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms that embody graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms. In addition, variant characters with identical pronunciation and meaning were reduced to a single standardized character, usually the simplest among all variants in form. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification and are thus identical between
1225-407: The chosen variants, those that appear in the "Complete List of Simplified Characters" are also simplified in character structure accordingly. Some examples follow: Sample reduction of equivalent variants : Ancient variants with simple structure are preferred : Simpler vulgar forms are also chosen : The chosen variant was already simplified in Chart 1 : In some instances, the chosen variant
1274-689: The country through the Northern Expedition , the Central Plains War and many other civil wars before the onset of the Second Sino-Japanese War and Chinese Civil War . Simplified Chinese characters Simplified Chinese characters are one of two standardized character sets widely used to write the Chinese language , with the other being traditional characters . Their mass standardization during
1323-473: The country's writing system as a serious impediment to its modernization. In 1916, a multi-part English-language article entitled "The Problem of the Chinese Language" co-authored by the Chinese linguist Yuen Ren Chao (1892–1982) and poet Hu Shih (1891–1962) has been identified as a turning point in the history of the Chinese script—as it was one of the first clear calls for China to move away from
1372-426: The early 20th century. In 1909, the educator and linguist Lufei Kui formally proposed the use of simplified characters in education for the first time. Over the following years—marked by the 1911 Xinhai Revolution that toppled the Qing dynasty , followed by growing social and political discontent that further erupted into the 1919 May Fourth Movement —many anti-imperialist intellectuals throughout China began to see
1421-631: The entire nation, Yuan Shikai was forced to abdicate. He resumed his rule as President and died a few months later. The war ended on July 14th following the abolishment of the National Protection Government. After Yuan Shikai plotted the assassinations of Song Jiaoren and Chen Qimei , founders of the Kuomintang , Sun Yat-sen launched the Second Revolution against him. It was unsuccessful, and Sun Yat-sen
1470-634: The first official list of simplified forms was published, consisting of 324 characters collated by Peking University professor Qian Xuantong . However, fierce opposition within the KMT resulted in the list being rescinded in 1936. Work throughout the 1950s resulted in the 1956 promulgation of the Chinese Character Simplification Scheme , a draft of 515 simplified characters and 54 simplified components, whose simplifications would be present in most compound characters. Over
1519-463: The first round—but was massively unpopular and never saw consistent use. The second round of simplifications was ultimately retracted officially in 1986, well after they had largely ceased to be used due to their unpopularity and the confusion they caused. In August 2009, China began collecting public comments for a revised list of simplified characters; the resulting List of Commonly Used Standard Chinese Characters lists 8,105 characters, including
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1568-475: The following decade, the Script Reform Committee deliberated on characters in the 1956 scheme, collecting public input regarding the recognizability of variants, and often approving forms in small batches. Parallel to simplification, there were also initiatives aimed at eliminating the use of characters entirely and replacing them with pinyin as an official Chinese alphabet, but this possibility
1617-511: The founding of the Qin. The Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) that inherited the Qin administration coincided with the perfection of clerical script through the process of libian . Eastward spread of Western learning Though most closely associated with the People's Republic, the idea of a mass simplification of character forms first gained traction in China during
1666-412: The incident as a large scale instance of banditry led by criminal elements. However, the Tapani Incident differs from other uprisings in Taiwan's history because of its elements of millenarianism and folk religion , which enabled Yu Qingfang to raise a significant armed force whose members believed themselves to be invulnerable to modern weaponry. The similarities between the rhetoric of the leaders of
1715-466: The increased usage of 朙 was followed by proliferation of a third variant: 眀 , with 目 'eye' on the left—likely derived as a contraction of 朙 . Ultimately, 明 became the character's standard form. The Book of Han (111 AD) describes an earlier attempt made by King Xuan of Zhou ( d. 782 BC ) to unify character forms across the states of ancient China , with his chief chronicler having "[written] fifteen chapters describing" what
1764-465: The left, with the 月 'Moon' component on the right. Li Si ( d. 208 BC ), the Chancellor of Qin, attempted to universalize the Qin small seal script across China following the wars that had politically unified the country for the first time. Li prescribed the 朙 form of the word for 'bright', but some scribes ignored this and continued to write the character as 明 . However,
1813-619: The military leaders of the southern provinces. After the death of Yuan, the Beiyang government lost its leadership over warlords in the provinces and infighting among cliques within the government began in earnest; meanwhile, Sun Yat-sen of the Kuomintang created a military government in Guangzhou in the far south, leading to the protection of the Constitution . China's Warlord Era would last for years until Chiang Kai-shek unified
1862-402: The most prominent Chinese authors of the 20th century, stated that "if Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die" ( 漢字不滅，中國必亡 ). During the 1930s and 1940s, discussions regarding simplification took place within the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party. Many members of the Chinese intelligentsia maintained that simplification would increase literacy rates throughout the country. In 1935,
1911-430: The public and quickly fell out of official use. It was ultimately formally rescinded in 1986. The second-round simplifications were unpopular in large part because most of the forms were completely new, in contrast to the familiar variants comprising the majority of the first round. With the rescission of the second round, work toward further character simplification largely came to an end. In 1986, authorities retracted
1960-465: The recently conquered parts of the empire is generally seen as being the first real attempt at script reform in Chinese history. Before the 20th century, variation in character shape on the part of scribes, which would continue with the later invention of woodblock printing , was ubiquitous. For example, prior to the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) the character meaning 'bright' was written as either 明 or 朙 —with either 日 'Sun' or 囧 'window' on
2009-481: The same set of simplified characters as mainland China. The first round was promulgated by the Ministry of Education in 1969, consisting of 498 simplified characters derived from 502 traditional characters. A second round of 2287 simplified characters was promulgated in 1974. The second set contained 49 differences from the mainland China system; these were removed in the final round in 1976. In 1993, Singapore adopted
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2058-467: The second round completely, though they had been largely fallen out of use within a year of their initial introduction. That year, the authorities also promulgated a final version of the General List of Simplified Chinese Characters . It was identical to the 1964 list save for 6 changes—including the restoration of 3 characters that had been simplified in the first round: 叠 , 覆 , 像 ; the form 疊
2107-497: The traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. The Chinese government has never officially announced the completion of the simplification process after the bulk of characters were introduced by the 1960s. In the wake of the Cultural Revolution , a second round of simplified characters was promulgated in 1977—largely composed of entirely new variants intended to artificially lower the stroke count, in contrast to
2156-833: The traditional character 強 , with 11 strokes is standardised as 强 , with 12 strokes, which is a variant character. Such characters do not constitute simplified characters. The new standardized character forms shown in the Characters for Publishing and revised through the Common Modern Characters list tend to adopt vulgar variant character forms. Since the new forms take vulgar variants, many characters now appear slightly simpler compared to old forms, and as such are often mistaken as structurally simplified characters. Some examples follow: The traditional component 釆 becomes 米 : The traditional component 囚 becomes 日 : The traditional "Break" stroke becomes
2205-522: The use of characters entirely. Instead, Chao proposed that the language be written with an alphabet, which he saw as more logical and efficient. The alphabetization and simplification campaigns would exist alongside one another among the Republican intelligentsia for the next several decades. Recent commentators have echoed some contemporary claims that Chinese characters were blamed for the economic problems in China during that time. Lu Xun , one of
2254-600: Was a former Qing dynasty official who approved of the Yuan Shikai's monarchism and was against republicanism. Yang commanded thousands of Chinese Muslim troops. He ruled Xinjiang with a clique of Yunnanese, being from Yunnan himself. His subordinate Muslim generals Ma Fuxing and Ma Shaowu were also Yunnanese. When some of the Yunnanese revolutionaries wanted to join Cai E in rebelling against Yuan Shikai, he beheaded them at
2303-464: Was abandoned, confirmed by a speech given by Zhou Enlai in 1958. In 1965, the PRC published the List of Commonly Used Characters for Printing [ zh ] (hereafter Characters for Printing ), which included standard printed forms for 6196 characters, including all of the forms from the 1956 scheme. A second round of simplified characters was promulgated in 1977, but was poorly received by
2352-569: Was forced to abdicate on 22 March 1916, but he returned to his office of president and the war continued. He died soon after, on 6 June 1916. Eight days after his death, on 14 July 1916, the National Protection War was ended, with the provinces rescinding their declarations of independence. The independent provinces were controlled by warlords though, and so the Warlord Era began. The governor of Xinjiang , Yang Zengxin ,
2401-487: Was forced to flee to Japan while the Kuomintang was dissolved. Between August and December 1915 supporters of Yuan began to clamor for the restoration of a Chinese monarchy. Yuan declared himself emperor of the new Chinese empire under the name Hongxian Emperor. The new empire was due to formally launch on 1 January 1916, when he intended to conduct the accession rites. Shortly after Yuan Shikai proclaimed himself
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