Some people believe that complicated and clustered characters can be bad for the modern world as it can cluster in printing press, can be harder to write, and so on. So the idea of simplifying Chinese characters has become popular in the early 20th century.
For example, if someone used a simpler, but unofficial form to write Chinese, then not everyone would understand it because it's not a standard form of Chinese. But when simplified characters becomes official for everyone and not just for the purpose of oneself (e.g. memos), then it will benefit everyone in terms of literacy and such. But not so much in the ancient Chinese tradition that has been passed on for generations and generations. Then suddenly it goes POOF, all gone.
Some people actually came up with the idea to abandon all Chinese characters as the official form of writing in China and try to replace it with something that aren't in Chinese characters (hanzi) at all. And I know what you're thinking is probably "OMG KILL IT WITH FIRE". And I totally agree with you.
I personally see simplified Chinese as somewhat of a benefit for the places that still use traditional Chinese as standard form of Chinese today (mostly Hong Kong). Because they can use both traditional and simplified and most people would still easily recognize it (but only certain characters such as 门，车，学，贝，单，马，国，萧，来，画，与，鱼，语，and more; and hopefully you would recognize them). If China did not simplify the Chinese characters, then China would still be slightly behind than what China is right now in many ways, and that includes the economy and literacy rate. But for small areas/countries that still use traditional Chinese such as Hong Kong and Taiwan, it doesn't make much difference in the literacy rate nor the economy. It seems to be steady instead. All of these are my opinion.
Other non-Chinese countries that use Chinese and have simplified characters that are simplified differently from PRC includes Japan (known as shinjitai). But I think that's it. |