Writing Chinese Characters in the Same Form: Historical Retrospect and Present Considerations
ABSTRACT
"Writing Chinese Characters in the same form” refers to the uniform of writing norm of Chinese Characters. Confucius initiated “writing Chinese Characters in the same form” and he pointed out that this task had to be done by those both in powerful positions and with virtue. Qin Shihuangdi unified the Chinese Characters and established Xiaozhuan which should not be regarded as a change of writing style. Instead it should be understood in the sense of “writing Chinese Characters in the same form”. Historically, the mainstream normalization of Chinese Characters always adopts the orthographic form as its standard. “Vulgar form” did exist, but synchronically cannot be accepted as standard. The current inconsistent use of Chinese Characters across the Taiwan Straight came from the fact that mainland China adopted simplified form, which takes as a principle to “reform” reformed orthographic form with handwriting and vulgar forms. Its initial intention was for the convenience of daily writing, so the analogy of radicals was limited to frequently used Chinese Characters. In academic community such as humanity studies, traditional proper forms remain in use.
”Original form” is a term specially used for those characters not yet simplified in mainland China and cannot be said to belong to Taiwan district. Writing Chinese Characters in the same form is the common desire and ideal for all the Chinese people. The principle of unifying Chinese Characters should be: There should be a scientific holistic consideration, which maximizes the convenience for all the Chinese people to learn and use, maximizes preservation of cultural heritage, and minimizes any change in computer coding system. It should take into consideration both the normality of traditional orthographic form and the writing convenience of simplified form. There has been a difference of orthographic form and handwriting style of Chinese characters in practical use, just as there are such differences in many other languages in the world. If we restore the difference between the simplified form and the “original” form as the difference between handwriting style and normal writing, we will then establish a real “two-style” form for the Chinese characters. Computer coding system can then also be unified. The convenience of daily handwriting is maintained while proper forms of writings in traditional literature and its norm can be maintained as well. Thus “writing Chinese Characters in the same form” can be realized perfectly with minimum costs.
KEY WORDS
Writing Chinese Characters in the same form; Xiaozhuan; Writing Norm of Chinese Character; orthographical form; handwriting style