Subject: Re: GB vs BIG-5

From: Stephen G Simpson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1991 12:52:21 -0500

"Minghui Yao, Dept of Physics, ASU" writes:
 > I don't know much about GB and Big5 technically. But I am an advocator
 > of simplified Chinese Characters. The evolution of Chinese Characters is
 > a nature simplifying process, from complex to simplicity. If a language
 > is unchanged, it is dead.

and he goes on to list other merits of simplified characters.

I can't really comment on the literary or historical question.  I am
not a native Chinese speaker or a deep student of the language and its
history.  And I am certainly not opposed to simplified characters, I
myself prefer them in handwriting.

My only point about traditional versus simplified characters was a
practical one.  Usually, if you are preparing a document, you are
doing so for some particular purpose, i.e. publication in some
fashion.  Therefore, you have to take account of the stylistic
conventions of the publication medium.  If you are publishing in a
newsletter that uses simplified characters, GB is a very practical
choice.  Some other publications may insist on traditional characters,
and preserve distinctions as between Mian4 ("face") and Mian4 ("wheat
flour").  For these publications, the author may find BIG-5 more
practical.  In the United States, many Chinese scholarly books,
newspapers, and other printed publications are in traditional
characters, so this may be a consideration.  That's all I wanted to
say.  I didn't mean to offend anyone or express a preference for one
type of character over the other.

 > As far as simplified Chinese Char is concerned, GB is adquate.
 > We have published 34 issues of HXWZ (16000x34 chars).Yet, we have
 > not come across a single char that could not be found in GB.(some
 > might say that we used 'substitute':-). But they are not. They are
 > official chars in mainland China.)  We have not got a complaint
 > about simplified char from 3400 HXWZ subscribers yet.

I too would like to congratulate the publishers of HXWZ, you are doing
a great job.

When I said `substitute', I meant from the point of view of
traditional characters.  I am aware that in mainland China these
`substitutions' are not really substitutions, they are official
standards, so for instance it is actually incorrect to use the
traditional character Mian4 ("flour"), although older books still
contain this character.  I think of this as being something like the
distinction between British and American spelling, one spelling is
correct in America and the other is correct in Britain, neither one is
inherently better.

My only point about this was that the person who wants to print a
document in traditional characters will have problems with GB, even if
he is using a traditional character font.