Reading from the same script: a brief history of simplification and Chinese characters
The 20th century saw many attempts to make reading and writing a little easier for Chinese people
The simplified versus traditional debate is not new. Indeed, the sophistication of traditional characters once prompted many progressive Chinese thinkers of the early 20th century to advocate their abolition.
They thought the characters’ complexity would stifle literacy in China, where most people were illiterate farmers, and stymie modernisation. The most vociferous was Lu Xun, seen as the greatest Chinese writer of the last century.
He made the stunning proclamation: “If Chinese characters are not eradicated, China will perish!”
The push for simplification actually started before Communist Party rule.
The Republic of China under the Kuomintang tried to promote the use of simplified Chinese in the 1930s, with the first batch of 324 simplified characters introduced in 1935. But the move was suspended the next year due to opposition from party elders.
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After the Communist Party came to power in 1949, it resumed language reform, setting up the Language Reform Committee of China, which issued a new set of simplified Chinese characters in the 1950s.