Per the Telegraph, there was a recent proposal to simplify 44 Characters in Chinese even more. The public reaction in China has been 92% against, and 4% for.

IMHO - many of the arguments seem to be very similar to the ones between Simplified Chinese Characters and Traditional Chinese Characters. The issue of the cost of making the changes to all the textbooks seems to be a major one against the change. It's interesting that some places have already made the changes - my guess is as a way of being more trendy.

Plans to simplify Chinese characters provoke anger - UK Telegraph.

An older post of mine that summarizes the arguments between Traditional and Simplified Chinese Characters.

Labels: chinese characters