Simplified Chinese characters are the logical result of the evolution of Chinese characters. The general trend of Chinese characters from Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscriptions to seal script, to official script and regular script is from complexity to simplicity. Official script is the simplification of seal script, cursive script and running script are the simplification of official script, and simplified characters are the simplification of regular script. Regular script began to appear in Wei and Jin Dynasties, and simplified Chinese characters appeared in inscriptions in the Northern and Southern Dynasties (4th-6th century). During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, simplified characters gradually increased, which were quite common among the people and were called "vulgar characters". At this time, many simplified words we use today have appeared, such as "Ying", "Shou", "Jin", "Enemy", "Succession", "Candle", "Zhuang", "Qi", "Yuan", "Lou", "Gu", "Dedication", "Change" and "Change". In the Tang Dynasty, Yan's "The Book of Ganlu Zi" and "Japanese Drama" both included a large number of vulgar characters. After the Song Dynasty, with the invention of printing, simplified characters were transferred from inscriptions and calligraphy to block-printed books, thus expanding the popularity of simplified characters and greatly increasing the number. According to the Book of Folk Characters since the Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties, as many as 6,240 simplified characters were used in 12 folk editions, which were combined into 1604 traditional Chinese characters, with an average of 3.9 different simplified characters for each traditional Chinese character. The simplified characters that are exactly the same as those used now are Shi, Bao, Listening, Wan, Li, Lao, Tong, Zhuang, Dream, Although, Medicine, Yang, Phoenix, Sound and Meaning.

1909, Lu Feikui published a paper "Common characters should be used in general education" in the first issue of Education magazine, which was the first time in history to publicly advocate simplified characters.

1922, Lu Feikui published a paper "Opinions on the Sorting of Chinese Characters", suggesting that simplified characters that have been popularized among the people should be adopted, and other characters with many strokes should also be simplified.

1922, Qian proposed "saving the current Chinese character stroke case" at the preparatory Committee for the unification of Mandarin, which was signed by, and. This is the first concrete plan about simplified characters in history, which advocates only the past.

Simplified Chinese characters popular among the people are used as regular Chinese characters in all formal written languages. The eight methods of simplifying Chinese characters put forward by it are actually the basis of simplifying Chinese characters now, which has far-reaching influence.

1928, Hu published The Theory of Simplified Characters, which collected more than 300 simplified characters.

1930 The Institute of History and Linguistics of Academia Sinica published a list of commonly used characters since the Song and Yuan Dynasties, reflecting the development of simplified characters in the past thousand years.

1932, the Ministry of Education of the National Government published the Vocabulary of Common Phonetic Alphabet compiled by the Preparatory Committee of Putonghua, which contains many simplified characters, and pointed out: "Now we should implement it (simplified characters) to make writing easier."

1934, China Library Service published Du Dingyou's Standardized Table of Simplified Characters, with 353 simplified characters.

Xu Zemin published a "list of 550 commonly used words" in the semi-monthly Analects of Confucius. Qian put forward the case of "collecting simplified characters that are inherently applicable" at the preparatory Committee for the unification of Mandarin.

1935, Qian presided over the compilation of Simplified Chinese Characters, and collected more than 2,400 simplified Chinese characters. In August of the same year, the Ministry of Education of the Kuomintang government adopted a part of this draft and published the First List of Simplified Chinese Characters with 324 words. Although it was ordered to be revoked in February of the following year, it was the first list of simplified characters published by the government in history. That is, in this year, Shanghai cultural circles organized the "Handwritten Chinese Characters Promotion Meeting" and launched the "Handwritten Chinese Characters (Simplified Chinese Characters)" activity.

1936 10, Rong Geng Simplified Dictionary, 4445 words, basically cursive. In June of the same year 165438+ 10, Trn Quang Diu published a list of commonly used simplified characters, with 3 150 characters, about half of which came from cursive script and half from vulgar characters.

1937, the font research society of Beiping Research Institute published the first simplified word list with 1700 words.

When War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression broke out, the movement of simplified characters was forced to stop, but it continued to develop mainly in the liberated areas. After the Communist Party of China (CPC) took power, he immediately began to promote simplified characters.

65438-0950 The Social Education Department of the Ministry of Education of the Central People's Government has compiled the Registration Form of Commonly Used Simplified Characters.

195 1 year, on the basis of the above table, the first simplified word list with 555 words was drawn up according to the principle of "words without deeds".

On February 5th, 1952, the China Character Reform Research Committee was established.

At the end of 1954, on the basis of the first batch of simplified word lists, the Cultural Reform Commission drew up a simplified word scheme (draft), which abolished 798 words, 56 simplified words and 400 variant characters.

On February 2nd, 1955 "Simplified Chinese Character Scheme (Draft)" was published, and 26 1 was tried out in more than 50 newspapers and periodicals in China in three batches. In July of the same year, 13, the State Council established the Chinese Simplified Scheme Review Committee. In the same year, in June+10, 5438, the national Chinese character reform conference was held, and the Simplified Chinese Character Scheme (Revised Draft) was discussed and passed, and the number of characters received was reduced to 5 15, and the number of simplified radicals was reduced to 54.

1 October 28th 1956,1The Simplified Chinese Character Scheme was reviewed by the Simplified Chinese Character Scheme Revision Committee, adopted at the 23rd plenary meeting in the State Council, officially published in People's Daily on1October 28th, and implemented nationwide. Later, this scheme was slightly changed according to the usage. 1May, 1964, the Cultural Reform Commission published a summary of simplified Chinese characters, which is divided into three tables: the first table is 352 simplified Chinese characters that are not used as radical, the second table is 132 simplified Chinese characters that can be used as radical and 14 simplified radical, and the third table is analogized by radical. A total of 2238 words (actually 2236 words because of the repetition of the words "sign" and "must"), which is the standard of using words in Chinese mainland today.

In other countries where Chinese characters are used, they are also simplifying Chinese characters.

Singapore: The first batch of 502 simplified words was published in 1969, except for 67 words (called "variant simplified words"), which are exactly the same as those published in China. 1974 The Summary of Simplified Characters was published, with 2248 simplified characters, including all simplified characters published in China and 10 domestic simplified characters, such as Yao and Chuang. 1May, 1976, the revised version of Summary of Simplified Chinese Characters was promulgated, and these 10 simplified Chinese characters and variant characters were deleted, which was completely consistent with the Summary of Simplified Chinese Characters in China.

Malaysia: Malaysia Simplified Chinese Characters Committee was established in 1972, and the summary of simplified Chinese characters was published in 198 1, which is completely consistent with the summary of simplified Chinese characters in China.

Thailand: It was originally stipulated that all Chinese schools should not use simplified characters for teaching. After the United Nations adopted simplified Chinese characters as the standard of Chinese characters, it announced the cancellation of the original restrictions. At the end of 1983, it was agreed that all Chinese schools could teach simplified characters, distribute manuals of simplified and complicated comparison tables, and attach simplified and complicated comparison tables to primary school textbooks.

Japan: Chinese characters have been used in Japan for nearly two thousand years, and some simplified characters have already penetrated into the people. 1946, the Japanese cabinet published a list of Chinese characters to be used, with a total of 1850 Chinese characters, of which 13 1 is a simplified character, 53 are the same as those in China and 9 are almost the same.

South Korea: 1983, Chosun Ilbo published the first batch of 90 simplified characters, which were used in Chosun Ilbo. There are 29 characters that are the same as China characters, and 4 characters that are almost the same.