A Perspective On The Simplification Tendency In The Evolution Of Chinese Characters Through The Conversion From Official Script To Regular Script

The simplification of Chinese characters is a trend running counter to the complication of the characters. Throughout the history of the development of Chinese characters, simplification conformed to the trend of a conversion from complex forms to simplified ones, which is an irreversible tendency. This article discusses the causes for the simplification of Chinese characters from Official Script to Regular Script and the causes for the simplification and abbreviation of Regular Script. Basing on the 350 simplified characters in Table I and 132 simplified characters in Table II from General List of Simplified Chinese Characters issued in 1986, the article compares and analyzes the corresponding 503 traditional characters and 394 characters in Regular Script, and then with specific data and detailed proofs, demonstrates the viewpoint that Regular Script is the result of the simplification of Official Script from the aspect of changes in both the style of brushwork and the structure of characters, and also, generalizes the 482 simplified characters and the corresponding 503 traditional characters with a statistic analysis. What's more, the article suggests that some of the characters be simplified once again in four aspects with the premise of keeping a relatively stable form of each character, hoping the idea can be helpful to the standardization and regularization of Chinese characters.