Traditional Chinese character

Traditional Chinese characters are one of two standard character sets of printed contemporary Chinese written language. It is the set of characters that has been used since the 5th century during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. It is called traditional in opposed to the other form - the simplified Chinese characters, created or standardised by the government of the People's Republic of China (mainland China) starting from the 1950s. Traditional Chinese is text written with Traditional Chinese characters. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and some overseas Chinese communities; especially those originating from the aforementioned countries or who emigrated before the widepspread adoption of simplified characters in the People's Republic of China. In contrast, simplified characters are used in Mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore and in some overseas Chinese communities; especially those from aforementioned countries who emigrated after the widespread adoption of simplified Chinese characters.

Printed text

When printing text, people in Mainland China and Singapore mainly use the simplified system, which was developed by the People's Republic of China government in the 1950s. However, the PRC also prints material intended to be read outside of Mainland China using traditional characters. In handwritten text, most people use informal, sometimes personal simplifications. In most cases, an alternative character (???) would be used in place of one with more strokes, such as ? for ?. Contrary to popular belief, most of these are still part of the set of traditional chinese characters, but informally and confusingly called simplified form (??). Though not standard, these are usually accepted outside schools, and some are extremely widespread, notably the tai (?) in Taiwan as opposed to the standard character (?).

Related Topics:
1950s - Mainland China

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