China to issue new list of simplified Chinese characters

Wang Ning, vice director with the Institute of Linguistics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said Wednesday at a CASS conference on Chinese culture that editing of the new list had already been completed and changes would be published "very soon". She did not give an exact date or tell Xinhua how the list would be made available. She added, the new list would involve a rather small number of changes to characters currently in use. The goal is to make them easier to learn. On Thursday, Wang Dengfeng, vice director of the State Language Commission, confirmed the Ministry of Education was about to issue a revised character list in the near future, but did not give a specific timetable. Pan Qinglin, a political advisor from north China's Tianjin Municipality, submitted a proposal to the annual session of China's top political advisory body in March this year. Pan urged the country to abolish the use of simplified characters within ten years saying they sacrificed too much "artistic quality." Both Wang Ning and Wang Dengfeng stressed that the latest character modification had nothing to do with restoring traditional characters. "Switching back to traditional Chinese characters means billions of Chinese would have to relearn their mother language," Wang Ning said. "I don't think there is any need to switch back to traditional Chinese characters, nor to make the current ones even simpler. Our top priority is to improve and standardize the simplified Chinese characters," she added, Kazinform cites Xinhua. See www.chinaview.cn for full version.