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Taiwan seeks heritage status for complex Chinese characters
Asia Pacific News.Net
Thursday 18th December, 2008 (IANS)
Taiwan plans to apply for world heritage status for the complex Chinese characters that China stopped using after 1949 but Taiwan continues to use today, a newspaper said Thursday.
Taiwan plans to set up a task force in February to prepare for making the application to UNESCO, the United Daily News quoted Premier Liu Chao-Shiuan as saying.
It was not clear whether Taiwan's not being a member of the United Nations would hinder the effort, but Taiwan's government does not believe China would oppose the move because the complex characters are part of the Chinese heritage, the News said.
When the Chinese Communists won the Chinese Civil War and founded the People's Republic of China in 1949, they introduced simplified Chinese characters beginning in 1956 to make it easier for farmers and workers to learn to read and write.
But the Chinese Nationalist Government, which lost the civil war and fled to Taiwan to set up its government-in-exile, preserved the complex characters in the name of preserving the Chinese culture, and today Taiwan is the only country in the world where the complex characters are still being used.
The complex characters are also used by Chinese-language newspapers in the former British and Portugese colonies Hong Kong and Macau, which are now China's special administrative zones.
Liu said that if one knows the complex characters, it is easier for one to read ancient Chinese characters used 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. 'So complex Chinese characters are like a living fossil,' he was quoted as saying.  Email this story to a friend
Comments on this story
fish
12-19-08, 01:11 PM |
Taiwan seeks heritage status for complex Chinese characters
Good for Taiwan for making this move. Not only the complex characters should be protected, China should also consider reinstating its usage. Or else, no Mainland Chinese will be able to read and comprehend Chinese literature, poems, and writings of the past thousands of years. That was the intention of the communists who burned all these books anyway. Thanks goodness to Taiwan, HK, & Macau for still holding that flag that will help preserve and benefit their people on China’s past richness. The population at large in China won’t benefit from China’s past though. And that’s a shame, ONE BIG SHAME for being forced to lose touch with one’s own heritage, and a very rich one.
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Anonymous
12-19-08, 08:43 PM |
Taiwan seeks heritage status for complex Chinese characters
Good for Chinese Heritage. For critics of simplify characters. Have they tried to remember or write with traditional form?Chinese language is complex enough, Simplify Characters are faster to recognize and write. China has rich heritage, no one doubts that, but Chinese do not have to wear their heritage on paper everyday! Language evolves & changes, efficiency is key. If traditional characters were so perfect it would not have changed. Vietnam under Chinese rule for many centuries could not adopt Chinese Characters. But English is quickly & widely adopted by many countries(Phillipines, South Africa, India, etc). A language does not have to so complicated. That is why history is history, because it is out of use.
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