How do mainland Chinese people feel when seeing a sign with traditional characters?

[rezaf]

because we will fight to the last drop of blood

[renzhe]

But 俗 does not mean "incorrect". It means "vulgar" (in this context, at least) or "popular". They were not acceptable in formal writing, but were acceptable in many other situations. Widespread language sometimes becomes acceptable, that's how languages evolve.

The issue some people have is that this particular reform was done by decree, and not by letting writers establish the validity through use (as was the case with 她, 哪 and similar characters in very recent past). This is a valid complaint, but is not something that particularly bothers me.

Germany went from "muß" to "muss" recently, Portugal went from "óptimo" to "ótimo", and I witnessed both transitions. Both were a break with literary tradition, but both were seen as necessary because language had evolved. It bothered some people, but most of them just changed how they write formal stuff, and moved on. So now "ótimo" is correct and that's what kids learn in school.

[rezaf]

Widespread language sometimes becomes acceptable, that's how languages evolve.

Or devolve?

[OneEye]

They use a bastardized nonsensical romanization system, because pinyin is "made by the evil communists".

Not true. Hanyu Pinyin has been the standard in Taiwan for 2 years now, though I fully expect them to change their minds. I for one like the mix of romanization systems used on the island, because I can now understand Wade-Giles, Tongyong Pinyin, and Gwoyeu Romatzyh in addition to Hanyu Pinyin. It's quite a useful skill to have. Now just to learn Zhuyin Fuhao.

@Renzhe, while I certainly agree with you on 她 et al (remember I did say that there are many orthodox characters in use in the Taiwanese standard), I disagree on 听. Here's an analogy 2 clarify my point. See, '2' is already in existence, and many people use it as shorthand for 'to' or 'too', but that does not make it correct. If the US government standardized that usage, then it would become "correct" by law, but that wouldn't stop the UK from howling with laughter and talking about how we Americans have bastardized the language (which in fact, already happens ). 听 is such a character in Chinese, as is 后. They already had meanings of their own and were borrowed to write completely different words. Now before anyone brings up the fact that 來 originally meant wheat and was borrowed in a similar fashion, that was very early on in the development of the writing system, and as far as I know it didn't replace another character, and 'wheat' had 夊 added for clarification. To add insult to injury, 听 *should* be pronounced 宜引切, so the modern Mandarin yín reading is actually the more correct reading of the character, not tīng. That makes much more sense with a 斤 phonetic to me.

Anyway, we're seriously off course here. Of course, that's what makes these conversations interesting and stimulating. So as long as roddy's cool with it, I say party on!

[roddy]

It seems that most, if not all threads involving comparison between simplified and traditional Chinese that I have read always end up in the same way. Why?

Because nobody has got a blind bit of interest in actually changing their minds. It's like gathering tea drinkers and coffee drinkers in a room and organizing a debate - you can mix up any number of opinions, facts and conjunctions, nobody is going to switch. Nor is there any need for them to. Which is why it would be a stupid thing to do.

[rezaf]

How do you think I was convinced that I should convert to 繁體字？It was in one of these discussions on this forum ages ago.

[OneEye]

Me too! I started out with simplified, and still read simplified reasonably often, but I was converted due to a discussion (either here or another forum).

[xiaocai]

@ Roddy

I see. But I am more happy with the fact that we can freely choose between tea and coffee, and in fact many of us can enjoy tea as well as coffee. Some people become almost religious with these kind of things, which I just can't understand.

[imron]

It's like gathering tea drinkers and coffee drinkers in a room and organizing a debate

Force all the coffee drinkers to switch to tea I say. While we're at it, lets also discuss Christianity vs Islam vs Buddhism vs Pastafarianism, and how 'bout them Republicans (mind you, the Democrats aren't much better). Boy what a fun thread this will be, throw in Vi vs Emacs, and Pirates vs Ninjas and we should be set.

[Iriya]

Now before anyone brings up the fact that 來 originally meant wheat and was borrowed in a similar fashion, that was very early on in the development of the writing system, and as far as I know it didn't replace another character, and 'wheat' had 夊 added for clarification.

'Wheat' was originally 來, 'come' was originally 麥 (with the 'foot' at the bottom to clarify the meaning). The characters switched places because 'come' is a much more common word than 'wheat', so the character with less strokes was chosen for it.

There were many cases of simplifications and substitutions in the history of the Chinese language, this discussion is pointless.

[roddy]

Oh God, the forum has consequences. . . .

this discussion is pointless.

Oh no, wait, everything is ok again.

[skylee]

How do mainland Chinese people feel when seeing a sign with traditional characters?

I suppose nobody cares about the OP's question any more.

[Kenny同志]

Easy guys, my inbox is about to explode with the notifications.

[OneEye]

'Wheat' was originally 來, 'come' was originally 麥 (with the 'foot' at the bottom to clarify the meaning). The characters switched places because 'come' is a much more common word than 'wheat', so the character with less strokes was chosen for it.

Can you point me to a reference for that? I've not heard that before.

Edit for clarification: I've always read that 來 was a rebus for both words (wheat and come), as was common at the time. Both words were pronounced *mlək. The 夊 was added later for clarification for 'wheat', as was also a very common practice (obviously). If you have other information I'd certainly like to read it.

[rezaf]

Here is some more clarification according to this website:

http://vividict.com/...fo.aspx?id=2710

http://vividict.com/WordInfo.aspx?id=2709

I can't copy paste the explanation because of the images but it supports one eye's post I guess.

[Guest realmayo]

Roddy, the final word in this debate surely belongs to the following Hong Kong invention: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuanyang_%28drink%29.

Now we can go back to less combatorial content like which of "x" in pinyin or "sh" in pinyin sounds more like "sh" in English.

[roddy]

Yes, let's all have a nice glass of 鴛鸯. Who could possibly object to that.

[jkhsu]

The fact that the CCP finished something that had de facto started long before the party's founding (over 50% of the aforementioned 521 simplified characters were already in existence during the Yuan dynasty) does not make simplification itself pro-communist, anti-capitalist or whatever.

Nobody said the process of simplification is "pro-communist". As you and others have stated very clearly, simplification of characters has been going on for centuries. The reason I even brought this up was to explain some of the issues behind why the welcome signs in airports such as LAX are in traditional vs. simplified and that the reason they are probably not going to "just change" to simplified is due to the influence of Taiwanese and Hong Kong immigrants in those areas.

Where I do have a disagreement with you is in "responsibility". Some examples below. I used "assume" so that we don't get into the nitty gritty details that have nothing to do with what I am trying to explain:

1. Assume that, under every President, a country has had tax increases. Assume that the President is ultimately responsible for signing tax increases into law. The current President just signed a new tax increase into law.

Is the current President "not responsible" for the tax increase just because every other President before him/her increased taxes?

2. Assume that in the history of a particular restaurant, the owners happen to be the cooks as well. Assume that the owner/cook is responsible for the taste of food in this restaurant and that every owner/cook has served bad tasting food. Under the current owner/cook, the food is still terrible.

Is the current owner/cook "not responsible" for the bad food because the food has always sucked?

3. Assume that a company has lost value, market share and revenues under every CEO. Assume that the Board of Directors of this particular company has set the CEO's responsiblity to increase value, market share and revenues. Under the current CEO, the company has again lost value, market share and revenues.

Is the current CEO "not responsible" for the company's performance just because the previous CEOs failed?

Finally, are you trying to say that the CCP was "not responsible" for the simplifications that they signed into law after they took control of China? In my mind, even if the KMT came up with the simplifications (the changes that the CCP signed into law) but didn't sign them into law, they are not responsible for it. The ruling party is responsible for their actions during their rule. And if the CCP ultimately signed them into law, then they are responsible for it because they are the ruling party. It's your view of responsiblity that I am disagreeing with.

[Meng Lelan]

I told my teacher, who laughed, but then said it's "not polite". She also told us about 共匪 and then told us it's not polite and not to use it.

You're making me wish I could be in that class too. That is a very sought after teaching skill, to be able to turn a point like that into a teachable moment.

[rezaf]

It seems these people also had a discussion about 來／麥:

會意

甲骨文的麥字是從「來」和「夊」所組成。來字本是麥子的象形，指麥子；夊字，是腳的象形，包含「夊」符的字通常都與行動或行為有關(請看書證)。古人認為，麥子為上天所賜，自天而來，後引申為任何事物的到來，所以「來」字當了「行來」的意思了。基本上完全同意網友tc的說法。

麥字像一株有足的麥子，就字形來看，應意會為「行來」的「來」，但事實並非如此，沒有書證可看到麥字指「行來」，反而《詩經》有以來字指麥子的例子。為何意義調轉？眾說紛紜，好像沒有肯定答案。就在形音義當中，兩字的形和義有明顯的連繫，合符轉注條件，故用字法歸入「轉注」。

Edit: Sorry I can't put a link or quote anyone. There is something wrong with safari and this website.