I think one important thing you missed to mention about qin dynasty related to this topic is that Chinese writing script was unified by qin. Before that, there are many different ways to write same characters, hundreds even.
Yes you are right ! And you look at the history of China 🤣you will find there is at least 20 dozens versions about every single Dynasty🤣🤣 for example the Yuan Dynasty🤣🤣 it said Genghis Khan was Chinese and the facts only being discovered that he was not , he was actually half Russian after we all have Internet because they could no longer hide the facts 🤣🤣🤣And I‘m curious how many percentage of the China history are real 🤣🤣🤣🤣
@Soulwalker Young how old are you little kiddo? did you know where to get any knowledge or information before the internet is invented ? have you read any books since ? or simply you are the one who knows nothing but siting at home imagining you are the pariah of the king ? oh wait , I see 🤣🤣another mainlander who doesn't know its history of the nation 🤣🤣🤣🤣typical ignorance 🙄
@Soulwalker Youngso why are you mainlanders still speaking the Qing s language ? is Qing also Chinese ? 🤣🤣🤣and do you know the ancestors of ccp ? were they Chinese as well ? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣Marx is Chinese if internet had not been invented 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣can't stop laughing
Oracle bone scripts are probably invented even earlier. Because by the Shang dynasty, it is already a very mature system, with far more characters than modern Chinese.
@@cocoram8156 By using fake chinese name he is scamming those gullible chinese to believe his lie. The U$ anti-china and smearing campaign is now on high gear.
The "oracle bone scripts" are too mature as an initial form a script. There are likely a more preliminary form before it. However, since people at that time wrote on pieces of wood and bamboo, it's extremely difficult to find any of them preserved over 4-5 millennia.
This is why I fell in love with Chinese calligraphy. Each word is describing exactly what the person is talking about. If you stick to the traditional meaning then you will fully understand the philosophy of the wisdom of the word. English is so boring because its like; Student "Why is the A an A." Teacher "Because the man decided that's what it was." where when a child had a question they would explain it that way on paper and become part of their writing system. I have never seen another writing system like it before and it always throws a few surprises at me the more I learn about it. There is a philosophical lesson in each character.
The “radical”, or “bùshǒu” (部首) of a character doesn’t necessarily imbue a character with meaning, as much as it says what section (部, bù) it belongs to in the Kāngxī (康熙) dictionary. Sometimes it imbues meaning, sometimes it imbues sound, or sometimes it’s there as a visual element, depicting a literal drawing of something, but it’s main purpose is to categorize the character it’s found in in a dictionary.
This is true, I heard that yesterday by a chinese youtuber, thank you for sharing that info, it seems you have studied chinese, I'm just starting, greetings from Mexico
@@Mike-bt3ki That's often the case when it comes to people with a passion learning a language academically and not just picking the language up from their parents. I would like to believe many people who learn English as their second language might do better than British/Americans on grammar and etymology.
We were the first overseas Chinese to use the simplified characters, when it was introduced outside of mainland China, in the 70s. We still use them now, and we are slowly seeing other overseas Chinese communities using them, like the Malaysian Chinese. Quoted from a Singaporean.
That's really bad. Dont understand why the other overseas chinese community would want to adopt such simplified nonsensical forms of writing. Almost like loosing our integrity. The chinese schools here in australia is also doing that. So sad. I love traditional chinese writing.
@@weloveyoona693 Simplified Chinese writing is no more nonsensical than the original oracle bone script. It is just another one of the many evolutionary changes since the oracle bone script. All are validly Chinese. Nothing to stop you loving and preferring the traditional form. But don't throw mud on the simplified writing just because you don't prefer it. There are millions who do prefer the simplified version and they have not lost their Chinese traditions and culture because of it.
Most people in China can read both traditional and simplified characters. When it comes to writing the simplified version is more popular while traditional characters are only used in certain situations.
@Einstien e they are all China’s territory, haha! Xinjiang and Tibet local people hate stupid brainwashed bot like you, while let me remind you Taiwan’s full name is “Taiwan, Republic of China”. Go get educated before speak up on the internet, Kid!
I am from mainland China. I have never ever officially learn tranditional chinese, but I can read tranditional chinese no any problem. So, I should say that simplify chinese even not perfect but wonderful enough
@JJ 88 Just because its written form doesnt tell a tale doesnt mean the meaning behind the picture is any different. The ideas that people have with these words are no less than any other
I am a Chinese calligrapher. Actually simplified chinese is taken from calligraphy or making new simplified style by following the theory of Chinese calligraphy (六书 liù shū). During the ancient time, that is no an official style of writing, as you can see the word 群 in calligraphy always be written as 羣, actually there are same meaning, but now we call the non official characters as 异体字(yì tǐ zì, means different styles characters). Thus, no need to argue traditional or simplified which is the most accurate Chinese characters, both are them are just Chinese characters. If someone always said simplified is not accurate, use 甲骨文 lah, that's most accurate loh!
In Japan, the seal script (篆書) is still in use mainly for official stamps. Typically, the emperor still uses the imperial seal written by this script. You can find the same script on every Japanese passport cover which says "日本国 旅券" (Japanese passport).
Seal script is still used in making seals (marble stamps) in China. I have such a seal with my name written in seal script. However mine is made in Singapore.
Yeğ / Yüğ = upper, superior Yeğ-mek > Yemek (to eat)= to add on oneself, to include in one's essence, Yeğ-im> Yem= provender, fodder -Yemiş= fruit Yüğ-le-mek > yeğlemek = to keep on top, to make relatively superior, ~to prefer Yüğ-ka-yer-u > yukarı =(which side is on top) = Up Yüğ-ce > yüce = superior in level Yüğ-ce-al-mek > yücelmek = to achieve superiority in level Yüğ-sü-ek > yüksek = high Yüğ-sel > yüksel = exponential , superlative Yüğ-sü-al-mek> yükselmek = to rise to a high level, to go up levels Yüğ-sük > yüzük = jewelry worn on the finger top Yüğ-sü-en-mek > yüksünmek= to take offense Yüğ-ük > yük =(load)> taken on, carried over Yüğ-ün > yün =(wool)> the feathers that on sheep Yüğ-üt > yiğit =(valiant)> superior in character Yüğ-gen > yüğen /yeğen =(nephew)> which is kept superior, valued, appreciated (yüen > yen 元) Yüğengi >yengi> yeni =(new)> it's coming on top, coming after Yüğenge > yenge =(brother's wife)> who's coming after, added to the family later (new bride) Yüğ-üne /Yeğ-ine > yine/ gene =again /over and over > yeniden = anew /as a repeat Yüğ-en-mek> yenmek = to overcome, to cope with, to subdue Yüğ-en-el-mek > yenilmek= to be overcome, to be subdued, to show weakness Yüğengil > yengil =remaining on top, light, weak Şan= Glory, splendor 單于 > Şan-Yüğ =Exalted glorious Yormak=to tire= to arrive over someone (too many). (too much) to go onto (Yörmek)> Örmek=(to operate on something), to wrap around, to weave on top (Yörümek)> Yürümek= to go on (over something) to roam around (yöre=precincts) (yörük=nomad) Yürümek= to walk (yürü=go on) Yülümek=to go by slipping over something Yalamak= to give a lick >~to take by scraping something off Yolmak= to pluck=to pull by snatching off, tear off (~flatten the top) Yılmak=to throw down from the one's own top (~get bored), to hit the ground from above (yıldırım=lightning…yıldız=star) Yurmak= to pull onto, cover over (yur-ut>yurt=tabernacle) (yur-gan>yorgan=quilt) Yırmak=to bring it on top of, to take it off (yırışmak>yarışmak= to race> to overcome each other) (Yır-et-mak)>Yırtmak= to tear= to get inside-out or bottom to top (by pulling from both sides) (~tide over, to get rid of) Yarmak= to split=go vertically from top to bottom, separate by cutting off Yermek=to pull down ,pull to the ground Germek=to tense= pull it in all four directions Sermek= spread it in all four directions Yıkmak= to demolish= overthrow , take down from top to bottom, turn upside down Yığmak= to stack= put on top of each other, dump on top of each other (yığlamak=shed tears over and over, cry over) Yağmak=get rained on, get spilled on / to pour down from above Yakmak= to burn out=purify by heating and removing matter , reduce its volume Yoğmak=make condensed=to tighten and purify, narrow by turning, get rid of volume (~get dead) Yoğurmak= to knead=tighten and thicken , reduce volume, bring to consistency (Yogurt= thickened milk) Yuğmak=squeezing purify, clean (Yuğamak>yıkamak= to wash) Yiv = sharp, pointed (yivlemek= sharpen the tip) Yuvmak=to squeezing thin out, narrow (yuvka>yufka= thin dough) (yuvka>yuka=thin, shallow) (yuvuz>yavuz=thin, weak, delicate) Yuvarlamak=to round off=narrow by turning (yuva (smallest shelter)= nest) (yavru (smallest)= cub ) Yummak=to close=shut by squeezing, close tightly (Yumurmak=to close tight ) (yumruk=fist) (yumurta= egg)
Omg this video is perfect especially when you mentioned Wang Yirong! It surprises me sooo much. Well done!!(Btw my first language is Chinese and I major in Chinese language and literature in College.😂) This video is amazing I have to say.
Great video! I have but one thing to add. The simplified version of 聽 actually comes directly from the bronze script. The Seal Script imposed by the First Emperor was arguably the direct descendant of the bronze script, but it was also the most complicated/lavished of the contemporary scripts used in the neighboring kingdoms. Many simplified forms of traditional characters have existed since the development of the Clerical Script into Regular and Cursive script, which would be right around the end of the Later Han Dynasty, and the beginning of the Three Kingdoms period. Not all characters were mindlessly hacked and trimmed down. Some have existed since ancient times, for roughly the same reasons - to expedite writing and thereby ensure a faster flow of information. I remember our Chinese calligraphy teacher telling us that, during the First Emperor’s reign, Clerical Script was already in use, and it was used by calligraphers for common documents/books etc. The Seal Script was used for more important documents. However, according to our teacher, another distinction was made between the two, particularly when it came to the Emperor’s decrees or orders: if the order was written in Seal Script, it meant a good thing. If it was written in Clerical Script, it was the exact opposite.
For clarification, the calligraphic work at 0:30 is a Tang dynasty COPY of Wang Xianzhi's 王獻之 (344-386) "Dihuang Soup Letter" (地黃湯帖). Thus, the style reflects that of the Eastern Jin (317-420) and not the Tang.
Simplified Chinese was promoted by modern China mainly simply because the illiteracy rate was so high back in the 1950s, and learning simplified Chinese is much easier for most Chinese people especially the poverty. Taking some characters of simplified and traditional Chinese for example: 樂 -乐 (happiness) 籲-吁 (sigh) 舊-旧 (old) 憂鬱-忧郁 (depressed) Which character do you think is easier to learn and write?
Simplified Chinese is easier to learn but I still like the traditional Chinese. Much more meaning into it and looks much better. But it doesn’t really now because most of us type.
I also used to think simplified was some kind of offense to beauty and history. But in fact, after getting myself deeper into the history of simplification of Chinese characters, now I think It's very reasonable. Earlier forms of simplification had been going on for centuries, standarization of the many divergent variants etc was necessary. In fact, the cursive script or Caoshu upon which modern simplification is largely based, was one of the most widespread examples. Other East Asian countries traditionally using Chinese characters did also simplify their scripture and even to a greater extent. The Japanese simplified their old Kanji forms into Shinjitai (新字体) and substituted a lot of Kanji for the much easier kana, so did Koreans with Hangul. The simplification did serve its purpose of helping in the alfabetization of many people and moreover it's more practical in many ways. I'm glad that there are places where Traditional Chinese has remained the official script though, and I think it should be a mandatory requisite to some point in the PRC for higher education as well.
Simplification of Chinese characters was also a key to eliminate illiteracy in modern China for the simple reason that the traditional Chinese writing takes more time to learn because they’re more complex.
Yes, certainly not all characters are a historical, but some of them are entirely modern creations which I am not the biggest fan of, but yes. I think that at a certian level all chinese speakers both native and foreign need to learn both traditional and simplified. Adding on cursive and some seal script wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
I think people learning Chinese characters do need to familiarise themselves with the different forms as they will encounter them and may need to look them up. Even in Japan, you will encounter all of these forms occasionally. It would be useful if there was a phone app you could use to check ancient, older and newer forms. In Taiwan, while traditional forms preponderate, simplified forms are increasingly common - to cater to mainland tourists, I suppose.
The word for hit: 打 Dǎ, whose radical, to the left of the character, is 手 Shǒu, the word for “hand” 👌🏼 喝hē “to drink” Its radical is 口kǒu, meaning “mouth” 🥛☕️ “To sing” 唱chàng has 口 as radical as well 🎶 田tián means “field” and many words that has some connection to fields use tián as a radical. For example: 畜chù “livestock” 界jiè”border” 蕾léi “thunder” Also, every stroke in Chinese characters has a direction to which they should be drawn. For example, all vertical strokes, called shù, should be drawn from top to bottom. All horizontal strokes, called héng, should be drawn from left to right. Furthermore, horizontal strokes should always be drawn before vertical strokes if they cross each other, like in the character for ten, shí 十。 But why? Because the stroke order is a way to locate characters in dictionaries. Piě are falling diagonal strokes, which should be drawn from right to left. Example: to hit, dǎ；打. Here, piě is the stroke in the middle of its radical, shǒu, which I wrote about in the beginning. Languages are fun☺️
Many of the changes undergone during the process of character simplification were merely adoptions of existing simpler forms already in use, often from the cursive character form. Both character sets have their own strengths and weaknesses but personally, I prefer traditional characters just because they look nicer.
Lol, me too. Simplified Chinese can be a bit cleaner for sight, however I do prefer to use the traditional one. Not only because it's nicer but, it holds the original meaning and essence. Even though it is quite hard to memorize and write it.
@@luckyelfo8280 But some of the simplification are okay for me. Some. While others just oversimplified. I mainly used Tradiotional mix it with a bit of simplified or other variants that faster and easy to write.
Simplification is the trend (a must). Consider how simplification has progressed from 3000+ yr ago. Many simplified written words do have a reason/origin how they were simplified in that way (from CaoShu, a type of calligraphy).
As an Indian, I have huge respect for Chinese culture. India influenced chinese society by spreading Buddhism. Although, we have territorial disputes with China, we have worked together with our bretherly people since 5000 years. We want an Asian Millenium and it is possible only if Russia, India and China join hands together.
烦恼，涅槃，不可思议，自在，须臾，瞬间。。。。。。 All these kind of adjective words is translated from Sanskrit. Primarily the monks who has translated them into Chinese was only for delivering the Dharma to any people whose native language is Classical Chinese. But as the time has gone over thousands of years, most of these words eventually have been already been admitted(meaning that all have been the Chinese vocabulary), and also been used in Chinese culture. NAMO AMITABHA BUDDHA南无阿弥陀佛
Influence what?? There are zero indian culture in chinese society. Chinese don't eat with hands. We eat with chopsticks with beautiful porcelain ware, not on banana leaf.
simplification wasn’t random; most simplified characters already existed although rarely used. There was a romanization movement but that had stopped before Mao. Pinyin wasn’t invented for globalising the language but helping to standardize pronunciation
Mao was a zealous supporter of Romanization movement and abolishment of Chinese characters(漢字廢除運動), so did most CCP members (and some KMT members), the original purpose of Chinese Simplification was to pave the way of Romanization movement, such “goal” to destroy Chinese characters didn’t stop until 1980s after the catastrophic failure of Cultural Revolution, and thank goodness it fucking failed! This is even recorded by CCP’s own official records, you can’t hide it. cpc.people.com.cn/BIG5/218984/218997/219022/14818462.html But unfortunately the damages caused by Chinese Simplification movement stay till today, many simplified Chinese characters are not historically inherited but artificial newly made by CCP themselves which make NO sense at all. I’ve also made videos about this topic.
@@MrGod47 At least, I agree with you. They claimed that simplified Chinese is nothing more than the recover the ancient characters, but in fact, the continuity of Chinese civilization is based on traditional Chinese.
The only few pictographic type of writing system still in used today, many had perished like those of Egyptian hierographic etc., The ancient Chinese character often associated with people's everyday life, like the word Abandon 棄 in early form, this word has two figures represent two grow up person side by side, they carry a basket, on top of the basket sits a child, this word not just represent a meaning, it also tells a very sad story, due to poverty, parents had to abandon their child, a word that helps us look into our reflection and emotion, it also reminds us, do not give up easily.
@@ozone8897 😄I was trying to say every single Chinese charactor has got very deep and various meaning, and it's even much more complicated when the caractors combine together as sentences or even articles, so he needs to go deeper, otherwise just waste of time.
Same as censorship, a phenomenon that many people credit as a Communist Party's invention, while in fact most of the practices today were already established with surprising accuracy during the Qing dynasty, and even earlier. Some people just lack perspective.
At 7:57 the character for ting1 (listen) is shown, but the traditional character is 聽 with 王 under 耳. Is it an alternative version of the traditional character?
Good catch, I saw that too. Nope they just got it wrong. That says a lot about the merits of using simplified Chinese I think. You simply need to give your mouth the axe or halve the weight of your mouth when you write "listen" in simplified Chinese.
Simplified Chinese is created from cao shu script and xing shu script, they are simpler to write, but you will still be able to understand traditional characters. Some simplified characters you can already see from artifacts and buildings from as early as Tang dynasty
Yes, simplification of Chinese characters had a long history before PRC's intervention in the mid 20th century, BUT those simplified characters only appeared on special occasions, the characters themselves were not changed, same writer might even write the same characters differently depending on the visual effect he/she liked for the piece. Simplified then make them standard? This is not the same as paying hommage to any other ancient script, this is creating a new language.
The theory that the "heart" was removed is inaccurate. Almost all simplified characters existed as a 異體字 which was used in calligraphy as an artistic variation, or was used by other nations in the Sinosphere. For instance, Japanese kanji prefers 国 to 國. In the extreme case of 听, this character was originally an onomatopoeia (as its "mouth" radical shows) meaning smile. It was also used as a variation to 聽 to save time when copying manuscripts and writing. It began as 口厅 which makes sense phonologically, but eventually scribes made a mistake by writing 斤 instead. If one person does it, it's a mistake. But when it becomes the norm, it is classified as a variation.
Brother. Just because it was cursive and used informally, doesn't mean it should be the official system. A lot of them are just downright horrendous and ugly with no actual meaning in them. Sure, they're associated with a meaning but they're not any different from a question mark. The original characters are actual Ideograms with several radicals that can tell you a lot about its meaning. Something simplified characters don't have.
@@minsekfau3218 Although you may think the word Latin sounds more high end😏, but unfortunately English using Latin script doesn't make it a Latin alphabet; it's still an English alphabet, not Latin. Otherwise English and Vietnamese would be using the same alphabet. Try something else. By the way, the way you spell your ID is pretty ugly. Even Vietnamese words look better than it. Perhaps that's why you wanted to chime in because you are really pissed? 🤔🤔 😆😆
Personally, I think the simple form was a great idea and served its purpose well... We should keep both forms and let them serve different audiences and usage.
@@zee446 the problem in digitising traditional character is they suffer "block death". They are so dense it gets in the way of reading, I find character with less strokes are more elegant
Simplified characters are very effective for communication, especially for beginners, seeing traditional characters will discourage many foreigners. Having said that, traditional Chinese characters have more ancient meaning and culture than simplified Chinese characters. If you want to deepen Chinese culture, you must learn traditional Chinese characters. For foreigners, simplified Chinese characters can be used as a springboard
The earliest true writing (that having sentences) appeared at the Yin Ruins, c. 1350 BCE, near Anyang, China although earlier single unconnected characters (Neolithic signs or proto-writing) have been found in Henan province at Jiahu as far back as c. 6600 BCE. These were inscribed mostly on cow shoulder blades and turtle shells. I've seen some of the Jiahu writing at the Henan Museum in Zhengzhou, Henan. Also, I've been to the Yin Ruins and the Chinese Character Museum in Anyang. All I highly recommend for a visit if you want to learn about the origins of Chinese writing. Note there is no written evidence for the legendary Xia dynasty known until about 1600 years later and most probably a folk legend.
Wow! Before this video I was never Interested in chinese before, as I found it very intimidating, but after seeing the wisdom behind the form of many characters I think that chinese for me could become a candidate laanguage to study at university.
Mao, a calligrapher that argued the opposite of Hu shi's proposal to Romanized Chinese character, did not eliminated Chinese character within mainland.🤦🏿♂️
3600 years ago, Chinese oracle bone inscriptions (characters carved on tortoise shells and bones, specially used for the emperor’s sacrificial and divination purposes) were not the earliest Chinese scripts. Although no earlier carriers have been found, it can be inferred that Before Oracle, China had written characters in an earlier era. It must have undergone a very long development, or 1,000 years or more. The two most important inferences, One: Oracle is a very mature text that can express content concisely and accurately (this is also a characteristic of Chinese). Two: Chinese is a pictograph, which is a text that creates and expresses meaning according to the shape of things. Some of the text can infer what things are like, such as the"水"(water)"火"(fire)"木"(wood) in the video are all mimicry of things. There are also the words "册“（Book） and”典“ （Dian=Encyclopedia Masterpiece) in Oracle bone inscriptions. "册“（Book）are Chinese books, written with a carrier connected by split bamboo pieces. And ”典“ （Dian=Encyclopedia Masterpiece) is a large number of "books" gathered together to complete the"册“（Book）. It can be proved that bamboo slips are the main writing vehicle. In 106 AD, Cai Lun in the Han Dynasty of China improved papermaking and was able to produce paper in large quantities, which changed the writing vehicle. However, writing vehicles made of bamboo cannot be preserved for a long time. The longest preserved bamboo slips in China were found in the tomb of a prince and king 2500 years ago.
> It must have undergone a very long development, or 1,000 years or more. No, it must not. We know from the history of cuneiform and hieroglyphs that the development from nothing at all to a complete script can happen in a few hundred years (perhaps even as fast as 50 years). We also know something about the spread of the writing system to other nearby states. We can infer from that that there was absolutely not 1000 years or more of development before the Oracle Bones. (And your 3600 is several hundred years too generous. 3200-3300 is more like it for the Oracle Bones.)
The oralce bone characters is about divining, killing and sacrificing. They have so many specific characters of each unique way of killing people, ox, hog, deer, sheep and other lives, that you certainly don’t want to think about the life styles of the Shang rulers. They were monsters.
@marie sandal Shang（商）is also called Yin（殷）, and the character Yin（殷）is the portrait of killing human sacrifice with a hammer. The character 卯 is a way of killing sacrifice which could be human, ox, pig or something, giving it looks like “db” in oracle many scholars speculate that it’s a portrait of cutting the sacrifice into half vertically, and you can see lots of records on the bones of the King of Shang 卯 some human or ox or pig sacrifices to honor his ancestors.
@marie sandal Beheading human sacrifice is called 伐, which means chopping today. Striking the head of a human sacrifice with a stick to kill him is called 攸, which means water flow and quickly today. Striking the head of a sacrifice to kill it is called 它攵, and the sacrifice would be human or ox. Burying the sacrifice alive is called 臽, which means to trap today, and each kind of sacrifice has its unique writing, that specifically portraits what kind of sacrifice is trapped, could be human, ox, sheep, dog, pig, deer.
@@kylewood303 Chinese classic mentions that Xia Dynasty valued black color, Shang Dynasty valued white color, and Zhou Dynasty valued Red. clearly, not yellow. Yellow become important when Northern Nomadic people took over China. Nomadic people valued gold, because that's something they can carry around. Ming Dynasty Emperors wore Yellow robes during normal functions, but Black dress (Mianfu) when they perform rituals, which was the Xia tradition.
I totally dont mind Simplified chinese as a Traditional chinese learner. But the thing is simplified chinese is spread A LOT more globally than Traditional chinese, to the fact that some people dont even know traditional chinese is a thing, and when it simplified SO much that I cant even regocnise it. I have small struggles reading simplified chinese due to OVERSIMPLIFYING of words.
Many of them were common in (fast) handwriting long before the last Emperor. Traditional characters are still sometimes used in Mainland China when it has to look really nice and official.
Simplified Chinese characters were developed long before Mao around 600 AD. These characters were used for unofficial occasions or in particular calligraphic styles. After 1949, the Chinese government modified the existing simplified characters and started to use them for official functions.
As a Malaysian born Chinese who studied in Taiwan, I actually preferred to write in Traditional Chinese, although Simplified version is faster to write. Each of the characters presenting so much meaning, and I love the beauty in it
Transcribing your own name is one of a great punishment in modern primary school especially for the students who have a difficult writing name. My surname 蕭 (Siu) is an example. So student who have a difficult writing name will always being obedient to avoid facing such punishment.
Jajaja that's funny, I couldn't imagine writing my name as a difficult thing or that it could be difficult to some one. Have you get used to writing your Surname over the years? Greetings from Mexico
@@fenixwb8612 If you can zoom in to look at the word "蕭", It has a asymmetrical structure like a logo. It's not too hard and I've get used to it when I was a child XD
Many errors 1. The Shang dynasty characters are bronze inscriptions (evolved from the oracle bone inscriptions) 2. Simplified Chinese characters proposed by the Kuomintang 3. The phonetic symbols were invented by the Kuomintang, not traditional phonetic symbols
I love the many strokes yet beautiful looking than less strokes but kind of tacky (this is my opinion only, okay). Take a look at my Chinese name 溫瑞龍 (trad characters) vs 温瑞龙.
I understand that the evolution of Chinese characters is a complex topic, but this video managed to get even some of the more basic facts wrong. Here are a few examples: 1) There is an erroneous caption at 4:15 that reads "(221 - 106 BCE) Late Zhou Dynasty to the Qin Dynasty." 1a) The Zhou collapsed in 256 BC. 1b) The Qin formally established its empire in 221 and collapsed less than two decades later in 206 BCE. (not "106 BCE"--which is a century into the Western Dynasty!). At 4:47, the narrator says the Qin lasted for 36 years, which is obviously incorrect. 1c) The Qin seal script, usually accredited to Li Si 李斯, was likely finalized shortly before or after 221. 1d) Seal script 篆書 was not invented during this period, as the script goes back as far as the bronze script 金文 of the late Shang and Western Zhou. The speaker here no doubt means "SMALL seal script 小篆," which is synonymous with Qin seal script 秦篆. No accurate account of the evolution of Chinese characters is possible without highlighting the distinction between large and small seal script. 2) The script shown at 4:30 is actually pre-Qin bronze script 金文 (which is completely skipped over in the video). Oddly, the narrator, describes seal script as "elongated strokes and square shapes," though the picture shows a comparatively widened, rounded and overall less uniform type of script! In any case, "elongated strokes and square shapes" is actually a near-perfect description of Qin seal script, which is NOT shown. 3) The first imperial was NOT carved into white jade! Qin Shihuang Di merely was the FIRST TO USE JADE to carve imperial seals. Big difference!
As I understand, in the simplified characters with 2 parts, one part is usually for the meaning and the other is for the pronunciation. In 听, 口 is for the meaning and 斤 (jin) refers to the pronunciation. There is a word '聆听' -- listen carefully maybe. 聆 （ling） has similar meaning with 听 but is used more formerly. It has 耳（er）-- ear for the meaning and 令 (ling) for the pronunciation.
I get what you say about simplification removing the meaning and artistry from the characters, but many Chinese characters don’t have that sense of meaning or symbolism anyway. Plenty, if not most, traditional characters are made up of radicals which are devoid of any poetic meaning or symbolism at all. Simplification is present in all languages at various points in time, and Chinese is no different.
7:25 it's nice and all to keep the word form with its meaning within each ideogram. But I wonder how a language like mandarin compares to a romanized language in terms of adaptability to new ideas and words and time and effort required for attaining average literacy. The Chinese language is not a museum to showcase the history of item but is also a tool that allows its users to communicate and record their learned knowledge. Studies have also shown that by using softwares to key in words, native Chinese citizens even quickly forget how to write Chinese words. Why not evolve the language further to address that. The history will always still be in the books for reference
Would you have any sources you recommend for further research in this topic? I'm looking into doing my dissertation on the history and influence of the Chinese language.
Simplified characters ruin the beauty of the Chinese characters. Traditional characters carry the meaning that is easy to understand as in the good example she gave in the word listen 聴 .
It should also be noted that Japanese kanji are quite similar to traditional Chinese characters. They have, of course, been modified over time, but not nearly as drastically as simplified Chinese
The kanji are not identical to traditional Chinese anymore, they have some differences. The point was that they’re more similar to traditional than simplified. Everyone knows kanji directly means Chinese characters, that’s not the gotcha you think it is
You should mention the simplification of chinese did not begin with the CCP, it's been happening all over the country over the entirety of chinese history. It's natural to want to simplify complicated characters. In fact, if you look at japanese or korean characters, many of them resemble simplified chinese, or some simplification that looks mutant, but was the "simplified" version at the time. In fact, the KMT part was the one that began the simplification of the chinese characters, before the CCP took over. It's not a secret that the complicated traditional chinese really limited literacy.
Is this fact from CCP or KMT? My ancestors' letters are written with traditional characters. My father used simplified ones only on his quick notes and memos.
@@kiloPhyll there are "traditional" characters, but every tribe, dialect, from every region, spamming from vietnam to japan to korea, and every colonized region that once belonged to china, has been simplifying characters. It's impossible for people to not want to simplify such complicated characters. The only thing the KMT as well as the CCP did was to allow simplified chinese in a formal setting, and nationalize it. The KMT's efforts were not successful as they were dealing with the war with Japan followed by the CCP. But CCP basically took over the efforts to simplify chinese.
"Limited literacy". I would say that the problem really was rather not funding education enough - Taiwan for example has no problem with literacy even If they use traditional characters. Understandable for ancient times tho, but its not really the language/writing system but the government funding for education.
Most people don't know, especially Westerners and those who do not travel much. Chinese characters were used in Vietnam and Korea. And most Japanese characters used now are Chinese.
This is why I belive Orwell's proposal in 1984 that language can influence people. Because the way we interpret a charicter says a lot about what the society saying we should do when doing that act. Especially logographic languages like Chinese wherein the charicters show a message when interpreted.
Absolutely amazing video! Well researched and gives me a simple to follow yet informative look into information that I otherwise wouldn't be exposed to. Thank you!
There are many ways to imbue characters with meaning, you can view them as a picture, combine the meaning of the parts, or think of them metaphorically and not literally. Sometimes a large character with many strokes does not convey meaning more easily or elegantly than a simple character
Symbol Listen“听”, in Oracle is already “听", a mouth ”口“, beside a raised ear ”斤“. Many Chinese characters have some different writing styles (for example, "寿"（lilength of life) has more than 100 writing styles). The simplified characters are not some new created characters, but stipulates the characters used in the official text, using the simple styles instead of those complex styles. All those simplified characters have been used more than thousand years.
They don't care about this. They just find another method to trash talking the Chinese government even they know the romanization of Chinese characters was firstly advised by the KMT government which even made textbooks in romanized Chinese for children to learn in primary schools.
Maybe u r not fully understand about the changing.Its a dialect from 吳語 to change 聽 into 𠯸, 葉and叶 also is borrowed the dialects word. 听 is a common writing(俗寫) about 𠯸，the left part does not representing mouth（口）, is a kind of Phonetic character（表音符號） If want to learn how to change the tra.ch.Probably can start from observing these characters,聽(orignal cha) 聼(simplified in history) 聴(simplified by Japan) and 廳(a character that borrowed the“聽”） .廳 is simplified to 厅(simplified in history)。By using a Phonetic character, mixed a box with 厅 ，become𠯸,and then chg into 听(simplified by PRC)。听is not mixed with mouth and gram/weight.The uploader just didnt research well about the history. And by the way, PRC did create some meaningless simplified characters thats obey all the system of the language.for examples 導into导, totally new word created by the new party. Its not a common writing that occur in chinese history like万（萬），机（機)，寿（壽）.
@@HL-le2nn I understand you. Just like the Chinese government called England as 口英 口吉 口利 at the earlier Qing dynasty. The 口 here doesn't represent mouth but just a phonetic character.
@@nikosgee4991 In dialect can founded more.Like cantonese,咭（卡/card），𠶧，𠱁，𠻗.These characters are not related with mouth.It just borrow a character that same pronounce and add a 口 on the left. Mostly are word from voice of a motion,emotions supportive,or foreign words like u mention :𠸄咭唎（And btw,this word is not a polite word for describing a country.Although this characters are meaningless)
The simplification of hanzi and the abolition of Hanja in Korea devastated a millenia of linguistic harmony between Japan, China and Korea. An old Chinese scholar once said “There came a man in an exotic dress. I did not understand him but when we began writing its as it we have been friends for a long time”. Chinese Japanese and Korean scholars used to be able to freely communicate with each other since ancient Japanese and Korean were ENTIRELY written in Hanzi.
They used to communicate in classical Chinese not in vernacular Chinese.Even today's Chinese struggle to learn it. I don't expect Korea or Vietnam to use character based script in that case
a misunderstanding of simplified Chinese, which in effect more related to modern life. For instance, love 愛 is now applicable to 友 friend as well ; 听 means listen because what comes from the mouth has weight.
I know many people here are trying very hard to justify simplified characters. Now the problems of illiteracy shall not be the problems, why the traditional characters for thousand years cannot be recovered now? Political reasons.
@@Lee-Van-Cle No need to be exactly the same. Just similar is enough to apply the 借音 way of creating new simplified character. I can give you other example like 進(traditional) vs 进(simplified) which borrow the sound of radical 井. There are strict principles in crating new simplified character which is well documented. You can search it online . I read about it long time ago.
Communication is full of small hints, and tones, and hidden meanings also history and context. So maybe to the ancient Chinese all that had to be engraved even when writing a single word. Meanwhile in the rest of the world we just want to draw sounds, easy haha (but of course everything gets overcomplicated with time, like the English and French forgot that a letter should be a sound).
If you wanna have the best understanding of Chinese words’ writing, better learn from the traditional Chinese before getting deep on the simplified Chinese that widely using now😃
Actually, Malaysia and Singapore do allow the usage of Traditional characters in various forms and are still used widely here. Simplfied Chinese by the CCP was drafted in an effort to gradually latinize the language and do away with the characters completely. Not to raise literacy, which should be attributed to education reforms and many other factors instead. And to the others who are talking about the KMT scheme, it had wholly different objectives, which was to reduce functional illiteracy in already conversationally fluent adults, which was a major problem in the republican era. The main gist was to eradicate this specific type of illiteracy as quickly as possible. The PRC, on the other hand, carried this over but with much more dire notions.
So what is the purpose of simplifying the characters? People with disinformation always have their own version of knowledge which they believe that is true.
are you insane ?? Simplfied Chinese was there before ccp and wtf it had anything to relate to latin to latinize in begining , tranditional characters was also Simplfied version of ancient chinese characters , hell you delusional idiot
@@ZhangLee. I've actually read the history, so I know what I'm talking about. The KMT scheme had wholly different objectives, which was to reduce functional illiteracy in already conversationally fluent adults, which was a major problem in the republican era. The main gist was to eradicate this specific type of illiteracy as quickly as possible. The PRC, on the other hand, carried this over but with much more dire notions.
@@ZhangLee. Traditional characters are not simplified versions of ancient characters. In fact, more often than not, they were complexified over time (累增字) in order to disambiguate meaning. This is the natural evolution of characters over time. Not a big sweeping mass simplification of characters that only went on to produce greater inconsistencies.
Hey lady, not all hanzi are pictographic; something like 80 percent of hanzi are phono-semantic compound characters, not direct pictograms. 聽 changed to 听 because 斤 rhymes with 听 in Old Chinese, and they added the semantic component 口 to it. So its literally "something to do with mouth, rhymes with 'jīn'". Even the original form of 聽 is phono-semantic, not pictographic. It's nice to create little stories to help remember stroke order or radicals, but radicals dont always play a part in the actual meaning of a word. Don't conflate folk etymology with actual etymology.
Informative presentation. The simplified version is ironically an evolution from a complex version of 草书, that only those well versed will retain its original depiction, otherwise its just simplified
I almost feel that romanizing Chinese would've been a better idea than creating Simplified Chinese. Both of these paths would strip away a lot of Chinese culture, but the path that was taken resulted in a new writing system being created, which takes humanity a step farther from universal communication.
@@Cantersoft but not everything would be clear. It’s like reading lips as a deaf person, you are mostly just guessing but it’s still hard to come up with a definite prediction of what the word is exactly. Plus, with the different dialects and accents, it would make it even harder.
There are many different ways of pronouncing the same words in the various regional languages, Cantonese, Mandarin, Shanghainese, etc. The language needs to have the same meaning, hence symbolic versus alphabetical, so speakers of all these different dialects can understand the same written language. Chinese written language was developed this way so people from different regions can communicate without needing to speak the same language. That’s why the sounds are not that meaningful but the characters are. China has many ethnic groups with their own languages but they can understand each other through the written language only because it’s symbolic nature. Japanese and Korean etc have less variation in their regional languages so it’s easier to unify under alphabets or sound only.
We also use English, but we don't say that English originated in China. We will also use Arabic numerals, but we will not say that Arabic numerals originated in China. The whole world knows that Chinese characters originated in Shaanxi and Henan, China, English originated in Britain, and Arabic numerals originated in India. Only Koreans like to take other people's things for themselves.
The Ancient Egyptian writings are same as Chinese characters. Most of the structures are two pictures combined that one for meaning and one for pronunciation. The writing could be from right to left, from left to right and from top to bottom. The Hieroglyph of Xia and Pre-Xia King's name in form of Oracle Bone Scripts are exactly the same or similar to Egyptian Kings. For example, The name of Narmer is made of catfish and chisel, that is exactly same as Yu the Great in China Xia. The list of king's names in similarity are very long but here can not post pictures.
@@davidjacobs8558 Chinese culture is from Ancient Egypt. Fact: Ancient Egyptians are East Asians. Look the faces of Pharaoh status, Hieroglyph with Shang Oracle Bone scripts, and Culture of Death. The distribution of East Asians on earth 5000 years ago were totally different than today. Obviously, Asians were originated from Africa, like everyone does. In 342BC, the last native Pharaoh, Nectanebo II was defeated and that towards an end of Ancient Egypt civilization. Look the stone status of Tutankhamen auctioned in UK on July 4th, 2019. We simply can not lie to the world for Ancient Egypt history. Where were the Chinese from? Where were the Chinese civilization and language from? The old concept of races on earth are basically 3: White, Asians and Blacks. Apparently, ancient Egyptians are not white, nor they are black because Nubians on south are blacks. So they can only be Asians. Did you go to Egypt and look the carvings on temples walls like Karnak Temple and Luxor Temple? Did you know the carvings on the wall shows the enemies on the north (shows European face features, such as high nose, deep eyes and more mustache) and enemy of south (shows black features such as slope forehead, broad nose and curved short hair) of Ancient Egyptians? The Ancient Egyptian writings are same as Chinese characters. Most of the structures are two pictures combined that one for meaning and one for pronunciation. The writing could be from right to left, from left to right and from top to bottom.
@@Sphinx6x8 so... in your theory, when did ancient Egyptians left Egypt for China? and what route did they take to get to China? or are you saying Chinese went to Egypt?
@@davidjacobs8558 About 2000BC to 1600BC, some time of Xia Dynasty. The site of Liang Zhu could be where they arrived. People don’t understand pre-industrial travel was not that bad. Look, the Polynesians went to Hawaii which far away from anywhere. Mongols only need 1 Month to Egypt on the back of horse. And aboriginal people arrived in Brazil 15000 years ago.
@@xiandi oh no way really? Lol yeah I know I'm just saying it's upsetting cause of pronunciation and that there's over 3k kanji (hanzi in Chinese) that you must learn in order to read and write. Lmao
I just hate the thought that simplified character is less meaningful. All the simplified characters are already been used in history. Some people are just want the tradition be preserved as some endangered animal. But our language is alive and it's a tool to communicate , learn, and record for every people in China now, not like in history, to know how to write is a privilege for a small group of people, simplification is a way of evolution.
All languages evolve overtime. That's much is true. But I fear the narrow goal of simplification of Chinese just for the sake of simplification may have stripped away other important aspects of the original language (i.e artistic beauty..etc). I would rather want a language to be evolved naturally.
Your perspective is interesting, but if you think of it, the classic script has a mnemonic to it that makes it easier to learn. It's difficult to forget that listening requires your senses and emotional attention. That one is easy though, maybe the other ones are not as easy?
@Iris Tian Actually not all simplified characters were used in history, many modern simplified characters are newly created by CCP themselves which are indeed less meaningful than traditional characters, many of them also don’t make sense at all and don’t even follow Chinese character classification(六書原則), even if some simplified characters are historical inherited(俗體、古體), they’re mostly still 冷僻字(rarely used) or even 錯別字(miswriting) in ancient time, but CCP still turn them into common usage in modern days, then claim “it already exists in history”. For example: "漢" is simplified as "汉" which is CCP’s own modern creation, not historical inherited, it doesn’t follow六書原則 nor make any etymological sense. There are many simplified characters like this and they make NO sense at all. Even CCP’s own CASS director胡喬木, who was member of Chinese Simplification Movement Committee, also criticized these nonsense: “1982年1月23日，中國社科院院長胡喬木，在中國文字改革委員會主任會議上，就二簡字的修訂批評這些乂、又之類的記號字：「它是沒有道理，沒有原則的。它不過就是作個記號，並不代表任何意思。」…「這些記號，不能說它代表什麼，解釋不出來。實際情況是遇到筆畫多，難寫的結構就打個『乂』，或者寫個『又』，作為記號。在我們的簡化字裏面，這種濫用『乂』『又』的情況相當多，這不能說是漢字發展中的一個進步，只能說是一種退步。” You can watch my video if you want to know more. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ch5RBHbS_ZY.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lx0Cn_dFALU.html The original purpose of Chinese Simplification was to pave the way of Romanization Movement, AKA "Elimination of Chinese Characters"(漢字廢除運動). Chairman Mao was a zealous supporter of Romanization movement, so did most CCP members (and some KMT members), such “goal” of destroy Chinese characters and cultures didn’t stop until 1980s after the catastrophic failure of Cultural Revolution and二簡字(second round of Chinese character simplification), and thank goodness it failed! This is even recorded by CCP’s own official records. cpc.people.com.cn/BIG5/218984/218997/219022/14818462.html But unfortunately the damages caused by Chinese Simplification movement remain till today, which seriously hurts Chinese culture and misguides less informative people like you.
what if Ancient Egypt language survived to today，their Glyphs may make a good friend with Chinese， Chinese language is so lonely，it is the only one survived 6000 years，most of chinese people can understand things written 3000 years ago
@@SenkoKitsune They literally have. We have all the intermediary steps and most natives are trained on some of those so they can read those... they can’t necessarily read the ones they haven’t been trained on. I am not a native speaker and I haven’t trained myself on seal script or running style yet. I absolutely cannot read them. I also cannot read oracle bone script characters. I do know for sure, though, that even the simple characters changed a lot since the oracle bone script.
