We've been led to believe that at 02:41 PM 5/1/99 -0700, Andy Sze wrote:
>>..just don't get me started on the many faults of mainland China's
>>simplified style.
>I don't see simplified Chinese too often in the States.  Is simplified
>chinese widely used in China?  Taiwan?  HK?  Singapore?  Or do I just not
>notice it because I'm and ABC and can't really read too much?

Simplified Chinese is used in mainland China.  They began using it as part
of their "educating the masses" program.  Because traditional Chinese
writing can often be quite complex, they were deemed "too difficult" to be
taught to everyone.  In order to make it easier for more people to learn
how to read and write, they decided to (1) simplify most of the more
complex characters, and in many cases, (2) use the one same simple
character to represent the originally many different characters (kanjis)
that were pronounced the same way.

Everywhere else in the world where Chinese is spoken, written, and read
(i.e. Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc.), the traditional style is used.


Funny thing is, the literacy level is still higher where the traditional
style is used as opposed to the simplified.  So it's not the style, but
rather the education system.


Anyway, I'm sure I've bored everyone enough with this, so I'll stop here.
If, for some strange reason, you actually found this interesting, we could
take this to private e-mail.



On the subject of the Japanese kana system--as others have said--they were
derived from the kanji system, simplified and used for pronounciation
purposes (and the meaning of the kanji taken away), since the Japanese
spoken language required more than what was possible by just using the
kanji system.

-- 
Glenn Wang <brief@ix.netcom.com>, http://www.netcom.com/~brief/
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