What's the ratio of Simplified Chinese users to Traditional Chinese users in USA?

[ChineseSpeaker]

Last June, I payed a visit to Philadelphia, USA, I was surprised to find almost all newspapers, brands, advertisements are printed in Traditional Chinese.

Only Traditional Chinese is used in USA? If Simplified Chinese is used too, what's the ratio of Simplified Chinese to Traditional Chinese?

I do know most American Chinese immigrated from Taiwan, Hongkong and Macau where Traditional Chinese has been used; however the economy of China mainland is growing rapidly, Simplified Chinese, the official language of China mainland should appear to be more attractive.

[atitarev]

The same situation is in Australia and I bet in other countries with a large Chinese community. The newspapers are run by older immigrants who arrived long ago or were born in a migrant family. The areas of immigration were more commonly outside mainland China.

It seems there are much more people speaking standard Mandarin in Chinatowns but there are mainly visitors, not the owners of shops, restaurants. It's hard to tell the ratio of Chinese immigrants by the area but I hear Mandarin more often than Cantonese for example (at least among people).

I found that some online Chinese language newspapers in Australia have an option to switch to simplified but in print there are more traditional. It's strange, since Chinese schools teach simplified script to Chinese kids and most Chinese classes for foreigners are based on simplified as well.

Signs in traditional, especially short ones are more popular here but some people mix simplified and traditional by mistake. I also know that some Chinese I know have some difficulties with traditional characters and couldn't understand some good-looking signs.

The changes are imminent, though:

Future changes may include, for example, a growing preference among mainland Chinese for the use of the two-character (澳洲) instead of the four-character Chinese word (澳大利亞) for “Australia” or a wider acceptance in Australia and Hong Kong of simplified rather than traditional Chinese characters.

But:

If an organisation is targeting only one Chinese market, the material should be published using the Chinese character, vocabulary and style preferences of that market. For publishing that is not market-specific and is targeting all three Chinese economies it is best to have two versions, one in simplified characters for the mainland and one in traditional characters suitable for Taiwan and Hong Kong. If resources are only available for one version and the mainland market is no more important than the others, then it is best to use traditional Chinese characters and vocabulary that would be acceptable to, if not always the first preference of, markets in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Publishing targeting Chinese readers in Australia should normally use traditional Chinese characters.

Read more on "Australian Guide to Chinese Language Publishing & Translating":

http://www.dfat.gov.au/acc/publications/chinese_publishing_translating_guide.html

[atitarev]

There must be guidance still.

I read more of the documents and found this, which contradicts with my earlier quotes:

Traditional Chinese characters should be used for publishing in Australia or for an international audience not focussed on mainland China.

[russmeier]

I can speak to general observations as someone living in the U.S. and learning chinese.

1. I just returned from Honolulu. Of course, as a major Japanese tourist site, most advertising, signage, etc. is repeated in Japanese. But, in Chinatown, the Chinese is traditional. I had a great conversation with a restaurant owner about this very topic. She said: most people are native Cantonese or Taiwanese speakers. Most also speak Mandarin, of course. I saw traditional characters everywhere and rarely a simplified character.

2. My experience with Toronto has been the same: traditional everywhere, rarely simplified.

3. I brought this up to my Chinese instructor as we are using Integrated Chinese and learning simplified first. She said that most U.S. universities believe in training for the global marketplace and not for the local North American communities. Thus, simplified is of course the choice being made as that is standard in the mainland.

Cheers!

Russ

[atitarev]

Same document::

...Among Chinese Australians there are still many more Cantonese speakers than speakers of Mandarin and other dialects, but the number of Mandarin speakers is increasing rapidly. Migration from Hong Kong has fallen in recent years and migration from the mainland continues to increase. This will probably lead within a decade to a majority of Mandarin-speaking Chinese Australians and may also lead, eventually, to greater use of simplified characters...

I think publishers are just a bit slow, rather than too conservative in overseas Chinese communities. I think they realise the importance of publishing material in simplified but since no-one complains, they can't be bothered. Besides, traditional readers outside China are less comfortable with simplified than the other way around, no wonder since they don't see much simplified, unless they go to China.

[Ian_Lee]

Traditional script will still be dominant in the Chinese community in North America for many more years.

Why? There are many factors:

(1) For example, the immigrants from Mainland will always not be in the majority in US. Under the current immigration quota, US admits 20,000 migrants from Mainland, 20,000 migrants from Taiwan and 5,000 migrants from Hong Kong respectively and annually. Even including all the asylum seekers, Mainland migrants are at most in par with the migrants from Taiwan+HK. So if immigrants from Mainland do not constitute the majority (of course there are some exceptions like NYC) in US, how can they change the prevailing script?

(2) Another issue is the media. Chinese newspapers in North America are dominated by World Journal (Taiwan) and Sing Tao (HK) (both use traditional). Leftist newspaper like Qiao Bao (use simplified) has a much lower readership and circulation. Naturally even migrants from Mainland learn traditional script to read Chinese newspaper if they want to get the news from home.

(3) The exports from Mainland also ironically encourage the use of traditional script overseas. For example, most of their products on the shelf of the Chinatown markets use traditional script for label. CCTV video products have traditional script for subtitles.

(4) And in real life, whoever has the economic power has the say. Generally the immigrants from Mainland are less economically powerful than the immigrants from Taiwan & HK. So if you are a restaurant owner from Mainland but your customers are principally from Taiwan or HK, what script are you going to print in your menu? Of course Traditional.

Anyway, since most Chinese language learners are just interested in ripping some bucks from Mainland China, why do they care what script is used in the Chinese community in North America?

Well, in Honolulu not only the traditional script is used in Chinatown, even the voting instruction is printed in traditional script at the ballot.

[Ian_Lee]

The newspapers are run by older immigrants who arrived long ago or were born in a migrant family. The areas of immigration were more commonly outside mainland China.

In Australia, the Chinese newspapers circulation and readership should be more or less identical with North America.

There may be a newspaper printed by older immigrants on one piece of paper which hardly anybody reads (just like Honolulu). But what prevails on sale in Chinatown should also be newspaper from Taiwan or HK. Of course there will be some leftist newspapers but they cannot match the formers in circulation or readership.

And even if immigration policy in Australia is different from US which will make the immigrants from Mainland the majority in the long run, the newspaper landscape will not change.

Why? The reason is as simple as ABC.

The editors of the newspapers based in Taiwan and HK have much less constraints in reporting many sensational topics on Mainland, i.e. the slave labor case in Shanxi, while the leftist newspaper will have to stick to a more restrained tone.

If you are a reader, which newspaper will you read?

(澳洲) instead of the four-character Chinese word (澳大利亞)

Who uses the cumbersome 澳大利亞 in HK and Taiwan?

[atitarev]

Not sure if immigration patterns in the US and Australia are the same. In Australia - about a quarter of the population was born overseas and Mandarin Chinese has become 2nd largest language according to 2001 statistics. It beat Italian and Greek.

In Australia and Canada - the annual proportion of migrants from mainland China far exceeds that from Hong Kong and Taiwan combined.

Your prediction what will happen in a few years contradicts predictions of Australian Chinese publication authority. There already exists an Australian web site (information portal) working entirely in simplified Chinese (nihao.com).

As the refugees and illegal immigrants also come mainly from mainland China, it has affected the scripts used by some public services. According to The Epoch Times, Chinese make about 80% of current refugees in the camps. Some printed materials are distributed only in simplified, they don't exist in traditional Chinese or any other language, except English. Centrelink (the main government social service orgnisation in Australia) has all documents and forms in both traditional and simplified Chinese.

Who uses the cumbersome 澳大利亞 in HK and Taiwan?

I only bulk-quoted, I know it's still used in mainland China, though.

[bhchao]

Last June, I payed a visit to Philadelphia, USA, I was surprised to find almost all newspapers, brands, advertisements are printed in Traditional Chinese.

Only Traditional Chinese is used in USA? If Simplified Chinese is used too, what's the ratio of Simplified Chinese to Traditional Chinese?

I do know most American Chinese immigrated from Taiwan, Hongkong and Macau where Traditional Chinese has been used; however the economy of China mainland is growing rapidly, Simplified Chinese, the official language of China mainland should appear to be more attractive.

Philadelphia has one of the few remaining Chinatowns in the US where old generations of Chinese families (dating to ROC era) still live in the enclave, entrenched in low income housing. Approximately 99% of all signs in the Philly enclave are written in Traditional Chinese.

Simplified Chinese is much more prevalent in Flushing because of the influx of Mainland Chinese immigrants. Traditional Chinese still has a slight majority in Flushing due to the large population of residents from Taiwan. I would say about 55% of publicly printed Chinese characters in Flushing are traditional, while 45% are simplified. The presence of simplified characters in Flushing is substantial.

The Chinese newspaper World Journal (owned by UDN in Taiwan), which is published in Traditional Chinese, has its North American headquarters in Flushing.

[atitarev]

Something on the usage of Chinese simplified script in Australia. It's true that newspapers are still mainly in traditional here but when I was in Queensland (昆士兰) this year (Cairns and Gold Coast - 凯恩斯, 黄金海岸) I was surprised to see a lot of signs are in 3 languages - English, Japanese and Chinese (simplified). It used to be just 2 - English and Japanese. There was a joke "konnichi-wa" is "hello" in Queensland speech.

Now due to the huge influx of tourist from mainland China, they put a lot of signs in Mandarin - around the city shops, attractions. Tourist brochures in simplified Chinese are on every corner in Cairns. I had quite a few occasions I could practice my Japanese and Chinese in Cairns - both written and spoken.