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Rewriting the rules of language triggers controversy

By Chen Siwu (China Features)
Updated: 2009-08-28 10:29

Young people practice Chinese calligraphy after taking the annual college entrance examination in Hanshan, Anhui province. Proposals to change 44 characters have been met with opposition for netizens and the publishing industry. [Photo by Cheng Qianjun/China Daily]

Even computer firms would have to update the relevant characters in word processing and other software packages.

Officials at the Ministry of Education, who revealed the experts and academics that compiled the new character list made 90 revisions during 80 special meetings over eight years, insisted the proposals are in line with the standards of the country's 2001 law on Chinese language.

"The readjustment is to be made for the sake of facilitating information storage, management and exchange," said Li Yuming, director of the ministry's department of language information management and deputy director of the State Language Commission.

He said all 44 frequently used characters have already been digitalized in computer software and can be easily printed.

"The slight amendments will not affect the lives of ordinary people and it will do good to the standardization of the printing," he said.

If the backlash that followed the suggestion to change the name of Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei province, this month is indication, however, Chinese citizens may take some convincing.

Chen Yujian, deputy director of the city's bureau of science and technology, proposed a switch to the name "Zhengding" but the response from residents was so overwhelmingly against the move city government officials held a press conference to deny the idea had ever been mooted.

The feedback from the public, particularly netizens, over the possible changes to the 44 characters has so far been very different from the government's reported response.

An online poll last week by Sina.com, a major Chinese news portal, which attracted 531, 000 respondents, showed 91 percent opposed the revision, with only 4.5 percent in favor.

"This is funny," wrote Xiong Peiyun on the Beijing News's opinion-editorial page on Sunday. "How can the results of ministry's statistics and the online survey be so different?

"Which has more samples? More importantly, which represents the majority?"

Ma Jinglun, a professor in Chinese language at the Nanjing Normal University and president of the Linguistics Society in Jiangsu province, said he was strongly against revising the 44 characters.

Related readings:  Character not in need of cosmetic change  Proposed revisions of 44 Chinese characters spark controversy  China begins revision of historical books

"Such characters have been widely used for more than half a century and deeply rooted in the minds of 1.3 billion people," he said. "The proposed revisions will mean inconvenience and cause confusion among the public.

"In adjusting languages or characters, we have to be very careful and must not be rash. These proposals are like holding a candle to the sun and are completely unnecessary."

During the Warring States Period (475-221 BC), the prime minister of Qin, Lu Buwei, hung his works The Spring and Autumn Annals of Lu (Lu Shi Chun Qiu) at the city gates of Xianyang, now Xi'an, and vowed to award 1,000 pieces of gold to anyone who could add or delete a character from the book.

Lu later helped Qin Shihuang unify the nation and become the first emperor of China, but it was his "precious" promise and the popular phrase it coined that is his obvious legacy today.

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