Talk:Traditional Chinese characters

About the MAP

I found wrong information at the Map and its explanation. (in English page)

(1) in the map, South Korea is yellow green with Japan together here. But South Korea has to be changed as Yellow with North Korea. (2) At the below of the Map, Yellow includes Korea. I personally like the expression of "Korea", but think it has to be North Korea and South Korea here. Now those are two countries. I hope it would be been expressed as "Korea" someday. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kylenoh (talk • contribs) 08:11, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Exact definition

LVTW2, yes, to be clear, Hong Kong's character set is another traditional character standard. Singapore used to have a distinct simplified character standard. I don't understand how this article is supposed to be coherent if it doesn't have a modern, narrower sense which agrees with that of its dual: that these two articles are about modern standards. This terminology did not begin being used until the introduction of simplified characters, the category of 'traditional characters' did not exist. Orthodox and variant character forms existed, and those are categories along different lines than now exists between traditional and simplified.
It makes no sense to me to give this article the entire scope of Regular script or Jiu zixing, those are also independent articles with distinct scopes. These distinctions and associations should be pointed out in the text of the article, of course. You may as well just merge this article with one of those if going on the looser definition.
[edit: i just archived the older discussions on this page since it was created, and most of them have to do with this issue! so it would help to be a bit more clear about it] Remsense聊 21:01, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Discussion on modern interest in Traditional Chinese characters in Mainland China

I have added four citations describing the post-2000 proposals to re-integrate traditional Chinese characters into mainland China (of interest from both intellectuals and government officials), however all of my edits have been undone by User:Remsense who has repeatedly given ostensibly disingenuous reasons to revert my edits, among these:

• an implication that 2009 was somehow too far back into the past to constitute modern relevancy - “One news article from 2009 does not suffice to verify these claims about relevant present heated nationwide debate”, conveniently ignoring the other citations given on the topic of non-government discussion
  • User:Remsense further goes to allege that my edits pointing out that nothing I added was meant to suggest a highly heated nationwide debate occurring at the present, only that there continued to be interest in restoration of traditional characters somehow weakened the credibility of my edits, which I struggle to comprehend what the point being made here is if any
• that the citations given were poorly constituted, as if “reaching for more sources that do not support the statements you want to put in the article” (whatever that means - all the articles were relevant in describing the phenomenon I wrote of)

Given that I maintain that my edits constitute descriptive and relevant information being added to the article (of which this is not the first time User:Remsense has sought to eliminate content from pages on the grounds of “triviality”, see Qing dynasty and said user’s actions removing information on the Qing anthem), I would like to have my edits restored, as I do not believe that my colleague has given any compelling reasons for the exclusion of my edits - the most that could be justified from the reasons given by User:Remsense is a rewording of the added sentences. 72.136.117.182 (talk) 21:18, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

First of all, thank you for engaging in good faith and taking this to talk like I requested—I know it's not fun to get reverted, so I appreciate your patience while I look over all this again. As I mentioned, the main problem here is you're seemingly conducting original research by synthesizing very specific claims (not the ones as you have restated above) that your sources don't actually say themselves.

Again, you have claimed unequivocally that there is significant and current discussion about both abandoning (your word being "abolishing") simplified characters, and in turn "restoring" traditional characters, in both intellectual and government circles within the PRC. Those are the specific claims your sources have to directly back up. They have to make these statements directly, or ones that mean exactly the same thing.

FWIW, this is completely distinct from the issue at Qing dynasty, where all the material is safely verifiable, but I do not think merits prominent placement in the article per our policy on due weight, where we must represent aspects of a topic proportional to their relevance and prominence in the body of sources about said topic. Remsense ‥ 论 21:19, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Firstly: no, unfortunately no news article from nearly 15 years ago can verify any claim about whether any event is current and ongoing, especially not matters of public policy or intellectual interest. It is that simple; this source is not useful to verify your claims as written, which are couched as describing current and ongoing events.

Secondly, the 2019 article does not mention any lessening of the use of simplified characters whatsoever, never mind their replacement or even total abolishment. It is not a new development that traditional characters are seen as valuable in mainland China for activities like cultural studies and calligraphy. That dimension never went away in the country; this article is about developments in this vein but is being twisted entirely out of context to verify your claims instead, which are beyond divergent. That is sloppy research at best.

Now, I am looking at the newest two in your latest addition. Remsense ‥ 论 21:42, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

I will concede that perhaps “ongoing” was a poor choice of words and perhaps wording that lessened the emphasis or otherwise changed the implication that it was some heated topic of discussion within mainland Chinese society. 2605:8D80:13E2:BE85:6C3D:E931:3B17:EF3A (talk) 21:59, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

I will avoid further engaging with the Qing dynasty topic as it would be out of scope for this talk page. But there is no original research being conducted out of the pages that would be cited. While I could understand a request to reformat the edit in a way that could be more appropriate to the true matter of its weight, I disagree that the content should be expunged from the page on the grounds of original research.

Three of the four articles cited are in Chinese rather than English, two of which are unfortunately non-HTTPS, but I will describe why each of them are relevant, in the order that they appeared in my edit (I will not provide the citations here - they can be found in the edits).

• The first citation is an article written by an author (later interviewed by Sina Corporation for the content of the article). The article goes into five reasons why Traditional characters would be beneficial to re-adopt (I am not using these articles to espouse my own personal political beliefs nor am I giving personal endorsement of the contents; I am merely stating the contents and describing the relevancy to my edits).
• The second article did a news article discussing a proposal by a CPPCC member suggesting re-adopting traditional characters and dropping the simplification scheme, which led to a “heated debate”. (I further used this article to mention the reasons given in favour of re-adopting traditional forms.) The points raised by the article are meant to say that there were incidences of government officials showing interest in restoring the old forms, which prompted debate. The article briefly mentions the interest of a few literary/linguistic personalities demonstrating an interest, as well as other scholarly individuals expressing opposition. This was once again not to say that it was a nationwide debate, but to simply show that such debate did occur at the government and scholar levels.
• The third article is another incidence of a deputy “strongly” proposing the restoration, and gives three reasons for supporting it. Once again, the same reasons apply for the previous article - it demonstrates the occurrence of such discussion at a government level.
• The fourth article is a news article from a Taiwanese paper describing an interest from the PRC Ministry of Education and CPPCC in the matter of potential restoration of the traditional characters. It concludes that the Ministry of Education believes there is no needed further emphasis on traditional characters, but also says that traditional characters should play a role in artistic contexts in school, such as calligraphy classes. While the article does say that the Ministry of Education ultimately did not support restoring traditional characters in the comprehensive matter the CPPCC member (apparently a different member from the CPPCC member mentioned in the second article) proposed, it still demonstrated discussion within Chinese society in favour (and against) restoration.

Thus, while I can understand wanting the edit to be worded differently, to lower the emphasis that may have suggested it was a “nationwide highly-polarising debate”, I do not believe that the matter of anything I added should be completely redacted from the article for the aforementioned. 2605:8D80:13E2:BE85:6C3D:E931:3B17:EF3A (talk) 21:44, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

I apologise for what was not the most clearly articulated edit summary starting out. Remsense ‥ 论 21:46, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Would you be willing to accept a rewritten version of the edits that minimises the emphasis to certain details? 2605:8D80:13E2:BE85:6C3D:E931:3B17:EF3A (talk) 22:16, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

I think you're working a bit backwards presently—in general, it is important to read what the sources say and represent that, not have an idea of what you want to say first and fit it to the sources. Forgive me if that sounds uncharitable, I don't mean it as sounding sinister or bad faith whatsoever. We've all done it. I think there's an interesting and worthwhile addition to this article in this vein, it's just important that it represents what the sources say first and foremost. Remsense ‥ 论 22:24, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Understood, I am willing to analyse the sources more closely and write an edit that reflects their content better. You are free to let me know if you have any issue with future revisions of course. 2605:8D80:13E2:BE85:6C3D:E931:3B17:EF3A (talk) 23:19, 25 February 2025 (UTC)