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wix
Joined: 21 Apr 2003
Posts: 250
Location: Earth
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 Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 4:16 am Post subject: Re: Traditional characters |
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| martinphipps wrote: |
| Another point that doesn't get mentioned is that people in Taiwan and Hong Kong have adopted simplified characters for handwriting because it is faster, almost like a shorthand. Indeed, when people quickly write traditional characters they are almost illegible. I like to think that most of the simplifications are the kind of things people would do anyway when they write lazily, things like replacing four dots with a single dash, for example. A lot of the simplifications arise naturally from the switch from using brushes to ball point pens: it's easy to make dots with a brush but tedious when you are using a pen. |
Actually most Taiwanese people would never admit they are writing simplified characters. They would say they are just writing the cursive or shorthand forms. They are right in a way because many of the simplified characters are based on the cursive or shorthand forms.
I don't think traditional characters are threatened in particular. Chinese characters as a whole are under threat though. With increasing use of computers more and more people are no longer investing the time in learning characters properly. Needless to say characters are an extremely inefficient form of writing. Most of the world abandoned them centuries or millennia ago. For whatever reasons they have continued to be used in Northeast Asia. I know people will argue about the importance of culture, but alphabetic systems are just far more efficient. For more discussion of this issue have a look at Pinyin.info. |
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markholmes
Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Posts: 661
Location: Wengehua
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| Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 5:32 am Post subject: |
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I have a question.
Does anybody know what the characters are for HSBC bank? There are two of them and they are extemely complicated as I remember. I was in Shanghai a couple of weeks ago and saw the mainland characters for HSBC which are incredibly simple (although I confess I can't remember was they are).
I'm feeling the Taiwanese must use other characters when writing HSBC down, not the one HSBC itself uses in Taiwan and not the mainland characters either.
I apologise in advance if this is a stupid question. My reading ain't that good. |
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Aristotle
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Posts: 1388
Location: Taiwan
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markholmes
Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Posts: 661
Location: Wengehua
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| Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 8:49 pm Post subject: |
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As opposed to this  Neither of which I recognise. |
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Serious_Fun
Joined: 28 Jun 2005
Posts: 1171
Location: terra incognita
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SolitaryThrush
Joined: 04 Oct 2004
Posts: 32
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| Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 12:37 pm Post subject: |
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Wow, my thread was exhumed. 
Off-topic, but I teach in South Korea, and I've been in Taipei since Saturday visiting a friend and being a tourist. I've seen some really interesting things, had a blast, and I'm dreading returning to SK in a few days, haha. I've got a contract for one more year in the Land of the Morning Calm, and then maybe I'll try my hand at Taiwan. Hen Hao! |
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