Simplified Chinese characters

Simplified Chinese characters are one type of standard Chinese character sets. Along with traditional Chinese characters, they are one of the two standard character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the People's Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s to encourage literacy.[1] They are officially used in the People's Republic of China, Malaysia and Singapore, while traditional Chinese characters remain in common use in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Japan, as well as South Korea to a certain extent.

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Simplified Chinese
Script type	Logographic
Time period	1956–present
Direction	Left-to-right, rows top to bottom (modern usage) Top-to-bottom, columns right to left (traditional style)
Official script	People's Republic of China  Singapore  United Nations (documents in simplified Chinese characters from 1971–present)
Languages	Chinese
Related scripts
Parent systems	Oracle Bone Script Seal Script Clerical Script Traditional Chinese Simplified Chinese
Sister systems	Kanji Chữ Hán Chữ Nôm Hanja Khitan large script Khitan small script Zhuyin
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Hans (501), ​Han (Simplified variant)
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name 简化字; Jiǎnhuàzì or colloquially 简体字; Jiǎntǐzì ⁱ. In its broadest sense, the latter term refers to all characters that have undergone simplifications of character "structure" or "body",[note 2] some of which have existed for millennia mainly in handwriting alongside traditional characters. On the other hand, the official name refers to the modern systematically simplified character set, which includes not only structural simplification but also substantial reduction in the total number of standardized Chinese characters.[note 3][3]

Simplified character forms were created by reducing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms. Some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the same pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character, usually the simplest amongst all variants in form. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification and are thus identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies.

A second round of simplifications was promulgated in 1977, but was later retracted in 1986 for a variety of reasons, largely due to the confusion caused and the unpopularity of the second-round simplifications.[4]

In August 2009, China began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters.[5][6][7][8] The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 (simplified and unchanged) characters was officially implemented for use by the State Council of the People's Republic of China on June 5, 2013.[9]

Han characters
Scripts Precursors Oracle-bone Bronze Seal (bird-worm large small) Clerical Regular Semi-cursive Cursive Flat brush Simplified characters Type styles Imitation Song Ming Sans-serif
Properties Strokes (order) Radicals Classification
Variants Character-form standards Kangxi Dictionary Jiu zixing/Inherited form Xin zixing General Standard Chinese Characters (PRC) Graphemes of commonly-used Chinese characters (Hong Kong) Standard typefaces for Chinese characters (ROC Taiwan) Grapheme-usage standards Graphemic variants General Standard Characters (PRC) Jōyō kanji (Japan) Other standards Standardized Forms of Words with Variant Forms (PRC) Previous standards Commonly-used Characters (PRC) Tōyō kanji (Japan)
Reforms Chinese Clerical reforms Traditional characters Simplified characters (first round second round) Debate Japanese Old (Kyūjitai) New (Shinjitai) Ryakuji Sino-Japanese Differences between Shinjitai and Simplified characters Korean Yakja Singaporean Table of Simplified Characters
Homographs Literary and colloquial readings
Use in particular scripts Written Chinese Zetian characters Slavonic transcription Hokkien Nüshu Kanji (Kokuji) Kana (Man'yōgana) Idu Hanja (Gukja) Chữ Nôm Sawndip
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