Second-round simplified Chinese character

The second round of Chinese character simplification was an aborted orthography reform officially promulgated on 20 December 1977 by the People's Republic of China. It was intended to replace the existing (first-round) simplified Chinese characters that were already in use. The complete proposal contained a list of 248 characters that were to be simplified immediately, as well as another list of 605 characters that were open to discussion.

Following widespread confusion and opposition, the second round of simplification was officially rescinded on 24 June 1986 by the State Council. Since then, the People's Republic of China has used the first-round simplified characters as its official script. At the same time, the retraction declared that further reform of the Chinese character should henceforth proceed with caution. Today, some second-round simplified characters, while considered nonstandard, continue to survive in informal usage.

History

In 1956, the People's Republic of China promulgated the first round of character simplifications. The plan was adjusted slightly in the following years, eventually stabilizing in 1964 with a definitive list of character simplifications. These are the simplified Chinese characters that are used today in Mainland China and Singapore. (Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau did not adopt the simplifications, and the characters used in those places are known as traditional Chinese characters.)

In 1975, a second round of simplifications was submitted by the Script Reform Committee of China to the State Council for approval. On 20 December 1977, major newspapers such as the "People's Daily", the "Guangming Daily", the "PLA Daily", and official province-level newspapers promulgated the second-round simplifications. The "People's Daily" began to use the second-round simplified characters on the following day.

As early as mid-1978, the Ministry of Education and the Central Propaganda Department were asking publishers of textbooks, newspapers and other works to stop using the second-round simplifications. Second-round simplifications were taught inconsistently in the education system, and people used characters at various stages of official or unofficial simplification. Confusion and disagreement ensued.

As a result, the second round of simplifications was retracted by the State Council on 24 June 1986. The State Council's retraction also emphasized that further reform of the Chinese character should henceforth proceed with caution, and that the forms of Chinese characters should be kept stable. On 10 October of the same year, a final list of simplifications was promulgated, which was identical to first-round simplifications promulgated in 1964 except for six changes, and no further change has been made since.

Singapore, which followed the People's Republic of China in adopting the first round of simplifications, waited out the second round without making any changes. It was thus spared the ordeal of adopting and then rescinding the second round of reforms.

Methods of simplification

The second round of simplification continued to use the methods used in the first round. For example:

In some characters, the phonetic component of the character was replaced with a simpler one, while the radical was unchanged. For example:

* 菜 > 𦬁 (艹 + 才)
* 酒 > 氿
* 稳 > 禾 + 文

In some characters, entire components were replaced by ones that are similar in shape:

* 幕 > 大 + 巾
* 整 > 大 + 正
* 款 > 牛 + 欠 (