Chinese Character" in traditaional Chinese on the left, simplified Chinese on the right.

There is an interesting article  from the Economist.com, a news agency, about China’s plans to revise their written, character-based language.  An expert reads:

“fierce debate is now being rekindled with the government’s announcement of plans to issue later this year a new list of character modifications, aimed mainly at correcting certain “oversimplifications” undertaken in the past. ”

The article cites some contend that these changes go beyond standardizing the language, but speak to a greater concern to that of alterations to China’s cultural identity.  Others go a bit further, and point out that changes to the system mean added costs for such things as updating signs, textbooks, and software.

For a little background, Cantonese and Mandarin are the two main spoken Chinese languages.  In total, there are about seven main variations including Wu (Shanghainese), Minbei (Fuzhou), Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, Gan, Hakka dialects, and other minority languages.  While the spoken language has evolved over the years, the written language on the other hand has not varied as much. 

For the Chinese system, the characters are called hanzi, and are traditionally ordered and and read vertically.  The characters themselves are divided into two systems: traditional and simplified.  The former is used in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and most other Chinese communities, save for Singapore and Malaysia.  The traditional form dates back to the Han Dynasty Western Han (202 BCE-9 CE) and Eastern Han (25-220 CE).  The simplified system, on the other hand, was created in the late 1950s under Mao Zedong to encourage universal literacy.

Photo from Wikipedia.