Four questions raised by Chinese character table

　　Ask

　　How did the new 1335 words come from?

　　According to the frequency of use.

　　8300 words-this is the number of words included in the General Specification Chinese Characters Table. Compared with the general standard Chinese characters in 1986, it has increased by 1335 characters.

　　This is the third time that Chinese characters have been standardized in New China after those in 1956 and 1986. The 1335 new words are mainly surnames, names, place names, technical terms and classical Chinese characters used in primary and secondary schools.

　　The new Chinese character list divides 8300 characters into three levels according to their generality: the first-level Chinese character list receives 3500 characters, which is the most frequently used common word, mainly meeting the needs of basic education and cultural popularization. The secondary word list receives 3000 words, and the frequency of use is lower than that of the primary word. Second-class characters and first-class characters mainly meet the needs of modern Chinese text printing and publishing. There are 1800 words in the third-level word list, which are common words used in some special fields but not in the first-level and second-level word lists, and mainly meet the needs of using words in special fields closely related to public life and cultural popularization.

　　It is understood that Chinese characters that can be selected into the first-and second-level word lists are determined according to their frequency of use. The experts used the data of nine huge corpora for statistics, among which the two most important corpora were the Balanced Corpus of Modern Chinese of the State Language Commission and the Dynamic Circulation Corpus of Modern News Media in beijing language and culture university, with 91 million and 350 million Chinese characters respectively.

　　"Every word included in the General Specification Chinese Characters Table has a clear origin." Wang Ning, the head of the expert working group on the development of the word list and a professor at the College of Literature of Beijing Normal University, said that there are a large number of variant characters in Chinese characters. In order to ensure the standardization of Chinese characters included in the word list, the experts and scholars of the working group have searched and verified the origin and the corresponding relationship between the positive and the negative of each Chinese character.

　　Second question

　　“？ ? ? What’s the basic treatment? He recovery

　　Is to respect people’s psychology and folk customs.

　　The dispute between traditional Chinese characters and simplified Chinese characters once became a hot topic in society. During the development of the word list, the problems of traditional Chinese characters recovery and analogy simplification have been discussed repeatedly. The final conclusion of the research team is that in order to maintain the stability of Chinese characters in society, the word list will not restore traditional Chinese characters in principle.

　　However, in this new Chinese character list, 51 variant characters have been restored and 6 traditional characters have been adjusted.

　　“？ Thin? "8", "? G”、“？ ？” These words were once regarded as variants or traditional characters of Pan, Tong, Xi, Xian and Ning, but few people know that they were actually surnames. Out of respect for the family tradition, these Chinese characters were reserved in the third-level Chinese character list for the first time in the General Standard Chinese Character List.

　　Wang Ning with "? ？” For example, in the past, we simplified it to "line", and some people said, "I am willing to use this surname. My surname is spring, and spring water is flowing, which is auspicious." There is also "Zhe". Some people don’t want to use this word in their names because it means broken. Some people say, "Philosophical Zhe has a variant"? Foundation? , two Guido Geely. "Another example is" Miao ".Now people sometimes say that the five elements are short of water. Isn’t it good to have three waters? This involves the psychology and folklore of people using words.

　　However, these variants and traditional characters cannot be used arbitrarily. Wang Ning explained that the word list is clearly defined, and these words can only be used for specific place names or surnames and names; When using characters in a general sense, you can’t write variant characters and traditional characters casually.

　　Three questions

　　44 fine-tuning words "tune" what

　　Only for printed Chinese characters

　　After the publication of the Chinese Character List of General Specification, 44 fine-tuning words immediately aroused people’s incomprehension.

　　At first glance, the words "Qin, Su, Pi and Pa" are no different from those used now.

　　Many people hold a modern Chinese dictionary and compare it carefully with their eyes wide open, and finally discover the elusive "mystery": originally, the last stroke of the word "Wang" on the upper left of the word "Pi", "Qin", "Pa" and "Se" turned out to be horizontal, and in the new Chinese character table, it was horizontally deformed and lifted up like the word "Wang" beside the word "ball".

　　Is it necessary to regulate such a small adjustment?

　　"This adjustment should not have much impact on the use of Chinese characters in the current society, because it will not change the distinctive features of confession and reading provided by each glyph, and will not have much impact on people’s lives, mainly for printing norms." Members of the development team explained.

　　Originally, at present, the standard glyphs of Chinese characters are standardized in China, which is the List of Printed General Chinese Characters jointly issued by the China Character Reform Commission and the Ministry of Culture in 1965. However, due to historical reasons, this set of printed Songti glyphs is unified in general, but there are still some inconsistencies in some places, and there is still room for improvement in the stroke shape, stroke combination and whole word structure of a few glyphs. These tiny deficiencies, in the pre-computer era, because the type of each printing factory was cast with a unified copper mold, the word-using department was not easy to detect these tiny differences by vision alone; After entering the computer age, more and more units and individuals use computers to create characters, and the irregular situation of glyphs is "exposed".

　　Four questions

　　Can the words outside the list still be used?

　　It’s best not to go beyond the scope of the word list.

　　When the list of Chinese characters is published, one of the most concerned questions in online messages is: Can Chinese characters beyond 8,300 characters still be used?

　　In this regard, Li Yuming, deputy director of the State Language Committee, specially explained the difference between "generality" and "standardization", emphasizing the universality of standardized Chinese characters, that is, universality in fields and high frequency of use.

　　Professor Cao Xianzhuo, the chairman of the Expert Committee of the General Standard Chinese Character List, said that Chinese characters are the treasure of the Chinese nation, and if they are used well, they must be standardized. Norms bring convenience, and we should cherish this convenience. If we always emphasize ourselves, people will not know it, and it will not work.

　　Chinese character lists are not legally binding, but experts suggest that it is best not to use words other than Chinese character lists when naming names, which will bring many unnecessary troubles to life. For example, the computer may not be able to print the words of the name when entering the account, saving in the bank, flying, applying for insurance, etc.

　　According to reports, considering the use of Chinese characters in the mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and internationally, the Comparison Table of Simplified and Complicated Chinese Characters has been compiled to facilitate communication. A general standard Chinese character dictionary will be published to explain this word list. Experts suggest that Xinhua Dictionary and Modern Chinese Dictionary, as two important dictionaries for standardizing Chinese characters, should also follow this standard. (Reporter Dong Hongliang)

Excerpt from People’s Daily, August 13, 2009

(Editor Liu Yi)