extra-simplified characters

[bokane]

I remember hearing before about characters being further-simplified during the 70s - the third simplification? - but the result being so weird that the changes were rolled back. One of my professors at Beida last semester even mentioned having been taught using those characters.

I've googled unsuccessfully for information on these characters in English and Chinese. Am I looking in the wrong places? Using the wrong search results? Or were these characters so unsuccessful that they just ceased to exist? If anyone knows of any sites with examples of these, I'd be much obliged.

[Guest Yau]

It's called "二簡方案" (second simplication solution) which was launched in 1977----right after mao's death and the end of the Cultural Revolution.

It's always said that there raised up too many confusions that make it fail but the political background should be a key here.

[skylee]

Take a look at this -> 第二次汉字简化方案(已废止，供参考。由李南生据现有资料整理)

Do note that those are defunct proposals. This is what is in force.

[ala]

Had 二簡 been sustained, romanization would have very likely been the next step, since 二簡 was probably more confusing than just using pinyin.

[shibo77]

Occasionally, in the late 80's and early 90's, I could have still seen some Second simplification (the other one was called First Simplication revised) characters such as 雪xue3(just the bottom part) and 草cao3(just the top part) around on signs.

-Shibo