

Typically, different stroke order, or slightly shorter or longer strokes Minor variations in how the same character is written – meaning, Since the communities using the descendants of a writing system fromĪn earlier era were acting independently, we ended up with more or less Spreading literacy by reducing the number of strokes needed to write

Simplification was undertaken in the 1950s, with the explicit goal of To some extent in Japan, but I am not familiar with the circumstances of Simplifying characters for practical purposes. Their development from symbols on oracle bones all the way to modernįorms that you see in print or on computer screens.Īt different stages, there were centralized, conscious efforts of

For many Hanzi,Ī straight line of “written etymology” can be reconstructed that traces Still used in South Korea, where they are referred to as Hanja.Īs these things go, writing systems change over time. To an increasingly diminishing extent, they are also These characters, called Kanji, are a central part of the Japanese Over the course of history, various East Asian cultures borrowedĬhinese characters to write different languages.

Hong Kong and by overseas Chinese communities. Identical, set of characters is used to write Cantonese, particularly in They are used to write Mandarin Chinese in the PRC (MainlandĬhina), Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Hanzi, Kanji and HanjaĬharacters originating from the historical Chinese writing system areĬurrently used in a number of countries, as part of several different So I thought it’s worth dedicating a post to this topic, going back to first principles. Chinese typefaces: simplified and traditional :: Jealous Markup $jm> _ Plots Builds Texts Chinese typefaces: simplified and traditionalĪnyone who’s dealing with Chinese knows all about simplified and traditional characters, right? I sure thought I did, but even as I was working on Zydeo, very self-assured of my knowledge, I discovered a whole bunch of subtle and unanticipated details.
