The preparatory discussion meeting for the Chinese Language and Literature Society was held at the National Central University in Nanjing. Many philologists, including Zhao Yuanren, Qian Xuantong, Wang Guowei, Wu Zhihui, Li Hongxi, Chen Maozhi, Shen Jianshi, Huang Kan, etc., were invited here , jointly discuss the development of Chinese characters.
The meeting was led by the Ministry of Education. The standard Mandarin Pinyin table (Romanized Pinyin) has been formulated and will be finalized soon and then made public to the whole society. The topics of the meeting mainly include two points: first, everyone strives to promote standard Mandarin; second, The issue is to discuss the simplification of Chinese characters.
Everyone has no objection to the promotion of standard Mandarin. After all, too many dialects are not conducive to communication, but the debate on the simplification of Chinese characters is particularly fierce. They are roughly divided into three factions: one is more conservative and believes that traditional Chinese characters do not need to be changed; the other advocates reform. They call for the promotion of simplified Chinese characters; the last group is extremely radical and believes that Chinese characters should be abolished and written in Latin characters.
The plan proposed by those who abolished Chinese characters was quickly eliminated because it was nonsense and had no practicality at all.
What remains is the battle between Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese...
Qian Xuantong took out a stack of manuscripts and said: "This is the "First Batch of Simplified Characters List" I formulated five years ago. It contains more than 2,000 simplified characters. These simplified characters are not created by me, they are all taken from my own There are ancient books, so there is no difficulty in promoting them. I believe that Chinese characters must be simplified, which is conducive to printing, publishing, learning and dissemination. Not only that, I think the Ministry of Education should issue a document to advocate the use of new punctuation, Arabic numerals, AD According to the chronological system, Chinese characters are written horizontally. For example, many newspapers and periodicals still use vertical writing, which is very inconvenient and sets a wrong example to the public. I suggest that the government should order that all newspapers and periodicals must be printed horizontally! "
Jiang Menglin resigned from the post of Minister of Education some time ago, and this position is temporarily vacant. Duan Xipeng, Vice Minister of Education, said: "We will discuss the issues of promoting new punctuation and horizontal writing later. As for simplified characters, I think it is still very useful. Necessary, but whether it can be approved by the Ministry of Education can only be decided by convening a meeting of the Ministry of Education. The main issues we discuss today are the promotion of standard Mandarin and Chinese characters, and the preparation of the Chinese Language and Characters Society. If you have any good suggestions, you can speak freely. .”
Zhao Yuanren raised his hand and said: "To promote standard Mandarin, I think we need to start from two aspects. The first is radio. There are many radio listeners, but the announcer's Mandarin pronunciation is very problematic. Take China Central Radio as an example, this is It’s a radio station directly under the central government, but it still speaks Mandarin very poorly.”
Duan Xipeng nodded and said: "I will communicate with China Central Radio. Professor Zhao, please continue."
Zhao Yuanren added: "The second is records. The Ministry of Education can record Mandarin records and recite poetry, prose and novels in standard Mandarin. These records should be purchased by the Ministry of Education and distributed to various universities and middle schools. They can also be provided to radio stations and broadcast in It will be broadcast on the radio. It can also be sold in the market for those who are interested in learning Mandarin."
"Well, that's a good idea," Duan Xipeng said with a smile. He turned to look at Zhou Hexuan, "Mr. Zhou has been silent. Do you have any good suggestions?"
Zhou Hexuan was too lazy to speak. With linguists such as Zhao Yuanren and Qian Xuantong present, he didn't have to express his views at all.
As for promoting modern Chinese pinyin, Zhou Hexuan never even thought about it. Qian Xuantong, Wu Zhihui and others have been busy for more than ten years, and the Nanjing government has organized manpower and material resources for more than two years, and finally came up with a romaji pinyin plan and dictionary. How is it possible?
Overturn deprecation?
Especially the "Guoyin Dictionary", which was compiled by Wu Zhihui, one of the "Four Elders of the Kuomintang", and all uses romaji pinyin. If anyone dares to propose using another pinyin scheme, Wu Zhihui will probably jump with anger.
Isn’t all your hard work in vain?
Seeing the Vice Minister of Education's roll call, Zhou Hexuan smiled and said: "Then let me express my views. I support the promotion of standard Mandarin and the implementation of simplified Chinese characters. Regarding the promotion of Mandarin, Professor Zhao's words are very reasonable. I will only add
One thing, in addition to radio and records, you can also use movies."
"Movies?" Duan Xipeng asked in confusion, "Nowadays, Chinese movies are all silent films, and they don't make any sound at all."
Zhou Hexuan said: "China's first talkie film has been produced and may be released in another half month. There will be more and more talkies in the future. The Ministry of Education can jointly formulate regulations with the publishing department, and Chinese talkies must be in Mandarin.
Films in dialects are not allowed to be released."
"Okay, I will pay attention." Duan Xipeng nodded and said.
Next, everyone began to discuss the charter structure of the Chinese Language and Literature Society. As they talked, they somehow turned to the debate between simplified and traditional Chinese.
"Chinese characters are the most beautiful characters in the world. Traditional Chinese characters are orthodox. Once simplified, they will become residual characters. I am opposed to simplifying Chinese characters." Huang Kan said firmly.
Qian Xuan asked: "Simplified Chinese characters have been around since ancient times. They existed in the Tang and Song Dynasties, but they went backwards in the Republic of China?"
The dean of the examination, Dai Jitao, slammed the table: "Whoever wants to simplify Chinese characters, I simplified them! Chinese characters are traditional Chinese characters, and traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters. No stroke is missing!"
Wu Zhihui laughed loudly: "Don't argue. If you want me to see it, it's more convenient to just abolish the Chinese characters."
Yes, a group of gods are fighting.
Huang Kan won't go into details. He is a lunatic and will bite anyone he catches. But he is a minor player in this meeting.
What's scary is that both Dai Jitao and Wu Zhihui are Chang Kaishen's mentors, but their views are exactly the opposite.
Dai Jitao advocated retaining traditional Chinese characters. Historically, when Chang Kaishen promoted simplified Chinese characters in the 1930s, Dai Jitao opposed it the most fiercely. He even refused to attend the Kuomintang meeting for three months, forcing Chang Kaishen to cancel the plan to promote simplified Chinese characters.
Wu Zhihui was even more radical, calling for the abolition of Chinese characters and the conversion of Chinese characters into Latin characters. This guy was also a madman, nicknamed "Mad Dog Master". He even cursed himself when he got angry.
Dissatisfied with Chang Kaishen's practice of excluding dissidents, Wu Zhihui held up a lantern to see Chang Kaishen in broad daylight. Chang Kaishen asked him: "Mr. Zhihui, why did you hold up a lantern for the meeting in broad daylight?" Wu Zhihui imitated Ningbo accent and said: "
Niang Xipi, it’s too dark here, too dark!”
Last year, Chang Kaishen asked Wu Zhihui to invite Li Jishen, but when Li Jishen came to Nanjing, he was directly detained by Chang Kaishen. Wu Zhihui was so angry that he stamped his feet and asked the captain of the guard to tell Chang Kaishen: "You are the son of a bitch (Harmony)!" Chang Kai
Shen made a special trip to visit Wu Zhihui. Wu Zhihui opened the window and shouted: "Wu Zhihui is not at home!"
Now the two hot-tempered people were quarreling, and Dai Jitao said unequivocally: "Wu, if you want to abolish Chinese characters, you will be forgetting your ancestors!"
"You are still conservative. Why don't you always use old chamber pots in your house? The 30-year-old chamber pots make the most fragrant wine!" Wu Zhihui laughed and scolded.
Qian Xuantong said with a headache: "Everyone takes a step back, each takes a step back. Abolition of Chinese characters is too troublesome. Government documents, newspapers, magazines, and scientific books all have to be abolished. The gains outweigh the losses. But traditional Chinese characters are indeed not conducive to dissemination, so let's do it step by step.
, the best way is to promote simplified Chinese characters." After that, Qian Xuantong said to Zhou Hexuan, "Mr. Zhou, please say a few words!"
"Why are you involved with me again?" Zhou Hexuan sweated violently.
Qian Xuan said: "I heard people say that the manuscripts of Mr. Zhou's articles and the lecture notes used in lectures at Tsinghua University are all in simplified characters. Please tell me about your experience in using simplified characters."
"Me," Zhou Hexuan said with a smile, "I use simplified characters just for convenience. At the moment, no one has dyslexia and even a blind guesser can recognize them."
Dai Jitao slapped the table and said, "Do we have to rely on blind guessing for government documents and legal provisions?"
Zhou Hexuan rolled his eyes and was too lazy to talk nonsense. Chang Kaishen ordered the implementation of simplified Chinese characters, but Dai Jitao even rejected him, not to mention that he was white.
This discussion on the development of Chinese characters is obviously impossible to produce results.
