Chapter 39 Chapter 12 The Current Situation and Future of Chinese Characters

With the rapid development of science and technology, Chinese characters have been severely challenged today when human beings have entered the "knowledge explosion" and "information age". Since the advent of electronic computers in this century, Western Latin alphabetic characters have successfully realized binary computer input.However, Chinese characters, which contain characteristic information such as shape, sound, and meaning, have a complex shape structure and a large number. How to realize computer input of Chinese characters has always been a difficult problem in computer science circles at home and abroad.At least until the 1970s, scientists had not yet found a way to input Chinese characters into computers more conveniently and quickly.But solving the computer Chinese character input technology is directly related to the popularization of computer application in China.The popularization and application of electronic computers have extremely urgent requirements for the processing of Chinese character information, especially in the fields of office automation, transaction management, data processing, etc., which are almost completely inseparable from the processing of Chinese character information.It is no exaggeration to say that the extent to which this problem is resolved will affect the progress of China's modernization drive.

Because Chinese characters have been difficult to adapt to the new information processing technology for a long time, they seem to be faltering, so they have been severely condemned and even considered as a stumbling block to the revitalization of China. They seem to be facing the prospect of being replaced by pinyin characters. People who have a special liking and are deeply attached to it can't do anything for a while. "Mountains and rivers are full of doubts and there is no way out, and the willows are dark and the flowers are bright and there is another village." The rapid development of science and technology has brought new opportunities and prospects for the future of Chinese characters. After the 1970s, due to the application of semiconductor silicon and the emergence of large-scale integrated circuits, the computing speed and information storage capacity of electronic computers have been greatly improved, and hardware equipment has also undergone epoch-making updates and improvements. Directly connected input keyboards and fluorescent screens , replacing the old paper tapes, card punchers and readers.This technological improvement has brought dawn to the computer input of Chinese characters and opened up a vast world.

The Chinese character input of computer has obtained three main modes at present: the one, computer keyboard input technology, the 2nd, Chinese character font recognition input, the 3rd, Chinese character pronunciation (voice) recognition input.Thanks to the hard work of scientists, these technologies can be said to be progressing gradually and are gestating major breakthroughs. People are looking forward to it, and this expectation will surely be realized in the near future. Once the electronic computer input of Chinese characters is solved, because of its short font, clear pronunciation (voice) and dense meaning information, it will surely show its talents in various fields of computer application, and is particularly favored by scientists and computer users around the world. [Lai Lai].

Therefore, it can be considered optimistically that Chinese characters will be able to successfully withstand the challenge of modern high technology. However, it is necessary to further organize Chinese characters, establish a "modern Chinese character" system, and make adequate preparations so that Chinese characters can play a greater role in the high-tech era. The initial requirement for modern Chinese characters is to realize the standardization of Chinese characters, that is, "characters have quantification, characters have fixed shape, characters have fixed pronunciation, and characters have sequence".Over the years, relevant departments, experts and scholars have taken and are taking measures to realize the "four determinations" of Chinese characters:

The first is "quantitative characters", that is, to determine the number of characters used in modern Chinese.How many Chinese characters are used to write standardized Mandarin?What Chinese characters?Among them, which are commonly used words?Which are secondary words?To make a standard word table, this requires a lot of statistics.In recent years, relevant domestic departments have used computers to count a large number of various types of sampling materials, and obtained a 6763-character "Table of Modern Chinese Characters" (that is, "Chinese Character Coded Character Set for Information Interchange · Basic Set"). There are 3755 frequently used characters and 3008 less commonly used characters.There are many benefits of classifying and quantifying Chinese characters, such as saving manpower and material resources for computerized Chinese character information processing, speeding up the delivery of newsletters, preparing a fixed number of fonts for printing plants, and so on.Especially in the teaching of Chinese characters literacy, textbooks of different levels can be compiled according to different stages and requirements. For example, "characters used in primary schools" can extract more than 2,000 commonly used Chinese characters, and "characters used in literacy" can extract about "characters used in primary schools". More than 1,000 words in it.This shows that the quantification of Chinese characters, especially the grading quantification, is very necessary.

The second is "character has a fixed shape", that is, to unify the shape of Chinese characters and standardize the shape of Chinese characters, which mainly includes the abolition of variant characters and the use of simplified characters that are uniformly stipulated.The finalization of Chinese characters is of great benefit to publishing and printing, compilation of dictionaries and information processing of Chinese characters.As early as 1965, the Text Reform Commission and the Ministry of Culture announced the "Table of Common Chinese Characters for Printing".On this basis, in 1988, the Chinese Character Department of the State Language and Character Work Committee published the "Modern Chinese Common Character List", which established standards for the printed Chinese characters.

The third is "characters have fixed pronunciations", which means that each Chinese character has a standardized standard pronunciation.We have previously introduced the phenomenon of polyphonic polysemous characters and different pronunciations in Chinese characters.It is unavoidable that polyphonic and polysemous characters are used to distinguish word meanings.However, those different pronunciations that do not distinguish the meaning of the word (such as the second sound of bo and po in "波") will only cause confusion and difficulties in communication and use, such as radio broadcasts, dictionary phonetic notation, and Chinese character teaching. It is troublesome, so one of the different pronunciations should be selected as the standard pronunciation, and multiple pronunciations should not coexist.Therefore, sorting out and streamlining the characters with different pronunciations (that is, "words with different pronunciations") is the need for the standardization of pronunciation (phonetics) and the promotion of Putonghua. In 1956, the state set up the "Putonghua Pronunciation Review Committee" and published the "First Draft of the Putonghua Pronunciation Review Table" three times. In 1963, these three published materials were compiled together, titled "The First Draft of the General Table of Three-time Review of the Different Pronunciation of Putonghua", and a total of more than 1,100 different pronunciation words (characters) and the pronunciation of more than 190 place names were reviewed and approved. Standardization and the pronunciation of Chinese characters provide a good basis.Through practice, in recent years, the "Preliminary Draft of Auditing General Table" is still being revised and supplemented.

The fourth is "characters have a sequence", which is to determine the arrangement sequence of modern Chinese characters and to specify a standard word retrieval method.Existing Chinese character retrieval method mainly contains three kinds: Radical radical retrieval method, phonetic sequence retrieval method, four-corner number retrieval method.Different dictionaries often have different standards when using the same search method, for example, the number of radicals in the radical search method is different, the standards for grouping and stroke counting are different, and the order of characters with the same stroke is different, etc.These have all caused inconvenience to the checking of Chinese characters in the dictionary and the compilation of catalogs and indexes of relevant Chinese character materials, and there is an urgent need for standardization.

At present, there are still some different views on the changes that have taken place in Chinese characters with the development of society in recent decades, and on some problems in the current situation of Chinese characters.For example, what are the pros and cons of simplifying Chinese characters?Some people think that it is convenient for the masses and primary and middle school students to learn writing, and that the simplification is not enough, and they need to continue to simplify; If the traditional characters are preserved but there is no simplified version yet, it is advocated to remove the simplified characters and restore the traditional characters; some people put forward somewhat compromised opinions, advocating that one should be able to understand traditional characters and be able to write simplified characters, etc.

We are optimistic about the future of Chinese characters.Chinese characters have recorded and maintained Chinese culture for thousands of years, and can withstand the test of the computer age. In the foreseeable future, it will inevitably maintain its vigorous vitality and will not be replaced by any other characters.Therefore, for the younger generation, it is absolutely necessary to have a more comprehensive understanding of Chinese characters, learn Chinese characters, and master Chinese characters, so as to effectively improve their cultural literacy and language expression ability, and make greater contributions to the motherland and the people in all walks of life. contribution.