On Thursday 24 March 2005 10:30, Theron Stanford wrote: > On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 10:10:53 +0800, Arne GÃtje (éçè) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Traditionally the characters have been written all the same way in > > all CJK areas (China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Vietnam). > > This is not true. The shapes of many characters used in both China > and Japan diverged centuries ago.
Ok, then I was misinformed. Thanks for enlightening me. :) > > The "correct" way to write these characters is *not* reflected by > > the Unicode standard, nor by the Arphic fonts. > > Although DynaLab was the font foundry commissioned by the MOE to > create the new standard character shapes to be used in Taiwan, Arphic > also sells a font of standard character shapes the MOE would approve > of. I bought my copy in Taiwan in Jan 2001. Yes, there are also commercial varients for the GB18030 standard available... but they are not free. > > In Taiwan, scholars and the MOE (Ministry of Education) push to > > write those characters the "correct" traditional way. > > Not so. People think that the MOE claims to preserve the "correct" > traditional way, but if you read their literature more carefully, > you'll see that what they really claim to do is preserve the > distinctions between character components that existed in the > earliest forms, such as seal script. > > However, they are not consistent in their application of this > principle; sometimes they'll change a character from what everyone > has been writing for centuries in order to more accurately reflect > seal script, while at other times they'll say, "Oh, everyone writes > it this way anyway, so we're going to make this the standard." > > In their zeal to preserve these distinctions, the MOE has even gone > so far as to create character shapes that never existed before. For > example, the character å since time immemoriam has been written with > å on top. But since the seal script makes it clear that the > character is not derived from å, the MOE changed it to å. Never mind > that the original character is not derived from å either; never mind > that they are not preserving the "correct" form; never mind that the > character they are promulgating did not exist a dozen years ago. The > MOE has staked a claim to preserving the "correct" traditional way > and has convinced enough people to believe that what they says must > be correct, even if it's wrong. > > I don't want to get too technical here, but I can give you all sorts > of information that shows that when all is said and done, any > complaints the MOE has against the PRC is just the pot calling the > kettle black (or as they say in Chinese, the soldier who runs fifty > paces away from the battle mocks the one who runs one hundred). Ok, I didn't study this, my sources are only some guys in these different regions to whom I've talked os far. But maybe you can give me more information on this matter? > > The "correct" and traditional way of the most important and > > controverse characters: > > a) "Rain" é: The 'raindrops' in this character should not face all > > downwards, but as follows: upper left one faces from left-up to > > right-down, lower left one faces from left-down to right-up, upper > > right one faces from right-up to left-down, lower right one faces > > from left-up to right-down. > > Reason: the drops represent "Water", which is written that way. > > This is not borne out by the seal script. The rain character is not > derived from the water character. The drops in the seal script are > actually perfectly horizontal dashes. The Kangxi Dictionary has the > raindrops all facing down. interesting... I have a dictionary that documents paint brush writing (Kaiti style) in different periods. Both ways can be found in there. > > b) "Flesh" radical, looks similar like "Moon" æ, but the two > > horizontal strokes in the middle are actually slanted, the upper > > one from left-up to right-down, the lower one from left-down to > > right-up. This is to distinguish "flesh" from "moon". > > This is by fiat of the MOE. This shape is attested to in earlier > works, but it is not always this way. (I didn't look this up in my > Kangxi Dictionary before coming to writing this, or I'd tell you what > it says.) Again, in my source both ways are used. > > c) "Bone" radical: upper part faces to the right, lower part is the > > "flesh" radical and should have the middle strokes slanted, like > > explained in b). > > Yes, the upper part has faced right for centuries. But many have > written it the other way for centuries, since it's easier. > > > During the cultural revolution in the 1970's in Mainland China, > > they "simplified" many characters. > > Your timing is off. Standardization of the written Chinese language > on the mainland began soon after the establishment of the People's > Republic in 1949. It was guided by three principles: > > 1) Characters with competing alternate forms, such as å and ç, were > to chose one shape (in this case, å). A list of alternate shapes > that were declared obsolete was issued in 1955. > > 2) Characters with many strokes were to be simplified. The > simplification process was very complicated, and I won't go into all > the details here. It began as a series of lists of characters to be > simplified, beginning in 1956 and continuing until 1959. In 1964 > these lists were combined into the first simplified character table. > The list was revised in 1988. > > 3) Character shapes were to be unified in order to reduce the number > of components and better reflect how people write characters nowadays > (in contrast to the MOE in Taiwan). This happened in the early > 1960s; most mainland dictionaries give a table of "old" and "new" > components. There is also a list of the correct forms for the 3500 > most commonly used characters. > > With regards to character simplification, many are under the > impression that the government just made up a bunch of characters. > In reality, only 10% to 20% of these simplified characters did not > exist before 1949. Most simplified characters can be traced back to > the Song Dynasty, and some even to the Han. As I said, I have not studied this topic, thanks for enlightening me. > > Those simplified versions are considered "wrong" in Taiwan. > > However, these simplified versions are used all the time by people in > Taiwan. For instance, when I was in in Taipei in Jan 2001, one of > the largest cell phone companies, Taiwan Dageda, used the simplified > character for "wan" in their logo. Yep. All forms are used in all places in daily life. > > Fonts developed in Japan and Taiwan can choose what they want, > > usually it's the traditional form or a slightly simplified variant. > > Arphic (Taiwan) uses a slightly simplified variant of traditional > > Chinese for its Big5 fonts. > > As I mentioned above, Arphic also makes a font that the MOE would > approve of. I was refering to the "free" ones. :) Cheers Arne -- Arne GÃtje (éçè) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> PGP/GnuPG key: 1024D/685D1E8C Fingerprint: 2056 F6B7 DEA8 B478 311F 1C34 6E9F D06E 685D 1E8C Key available at wwwkeys.pgp.net. Encrypted e-mail preferred.
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