In the process of using Chinese characters, the system and font are constantly changing. As far as the Chinese character system is concerned, Chinese characters have become more and more complicated for thousands of years. As far as glyphs are concerned, except for a few Chinese characters that have not changed much for thousands of years, most Chinese characters are changeable, some from simple to complex, and some from complex to simple, but the general trend of Chinese characters evolution is from complex to simple. Simplification of Chinese characters is not only an inevitable requirement for Chinese characters to become simple and convenient as an auxiliary communication tool, but also brings favorable conditions for the popularization and popularization of Chinese characters.

I. Simplifying classification

Generally speaking, the simplification of Chinese characters has two parts, one is to simplify the system, and the other is to simplify the font.

The simplification of Chinese character system is the process of removing variant characters and traditional characters from Chinese characters. In the list of the first batch of variant characters published by China Reform Commission, the 8 10 group of variant characters was simplified and the 1055 group of variant characters was abolished according to the three principles of following the custom, being simple and taking care of writing convenience.

The trend of Chinese character structure from complexity to simplicity began in the Oracle Bone Inscriptions era. Later, through the bronze inscriptions of the Western Zhou Dynasty and the ancient prose of the Warring States Period, it was standardized as Xiao Zhuan, and then evolved into official script, cursive script, regular script and running script. This simplification trend is more obvious. The simplification of Chinese characters' glyphs has gradually weakened the ideographic nature of Chinese characters and made them more symbolic and symbolic.

Second, the method of simplifying Chinese characters

1, the method of simplifying Chinese character system

The total number of Chinese characters is increasing. From 9,353 words in Shuo Wen Jie Zi compiled by Xu Shen in the Eastern Han Dynasty to more than 60,000 words in the Chinese Dictionary, we can see the growth of Chinese characters. And a big dictionary like Kangxi Dictionary contains many words that are rarely used, and there are also many different languages and mistakes. Restricting and reducing these variants and uncommon words is to "slim down" the Chinese character system.

2. Methods to simplify the structure of Chinese characters.

(1) There are five main methods for the structure of Chinese characters from complexity to simplicity:

Turn a graph into a symbol. The early hieroglyphics were "painting as it is, following its body", with a strong sense of picture. For example, "car" is a two-wheeled car, which is drawn in the same way and is very complicated to write. After gradual simplification, there are only four pictures left.

Delete redundant or duplicate components. For the sake of simplicity, some unnecessary or repeated radicals in the combined Chinese characters have been deleted, such as the word "Yu". When coining words, fishing means that there are fish in the water, at most two waters and four fish, and then the repetition is removed, leaving one water and one fish. The word "fishing" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions is both complex and simple. After a period of competition, the traditional word "fishing" with simple structure was replaced.

Intercept a part of the original word and replace it. Intercept the forms that represent the characteristics of words and delete the additional forms. For example, Oracle Bone Inscriptions made the shapes of the two men, while Gu emphasized the characteristics of the flag. In the Zhou dynasty, some inscriptions attached the image of a car, indicating that there should be flags, soldiers and chariots in marching operations. Then the "car" was removed, the flag was symbolized, and only the "brigade" understood by its two members was taken.

Replace radicals and simplify generation. In pictophonetic characters, simple pictophonetic characters or phonetic characters are used to replace the original complex parts.