The Chinese Language – Traditional and Modern
The Chinese written language appeared in its original form around 3500 years ago. It has gradually evolved over several stages. Typically, these stages are divided into Old, Classical and Modern Chinese. Classical Chinese remains popular today only for formal correspondences and artistic prose. Modern Chinese tends to be the language that most people use in mainland China today. A simplified form of this version began to be introduced during the 1950s. Singapore also uses this form of Chinese.
The reason that the modern form of Chinese has been labelled ‘simplified’ is simply that – it was introduced to help facilitate easier communication and better literacy rates throughout China. There are far fewer ‘brush strokes’ associated with writing simplified Chinese, and this makes it easier for people to learn. Complications began to emerge when Hong Kong and Taiwan decided to stick with the traditional form of Chinese after it was introduced in the 1950s. This has created some issues in terms of ensuring proper communication. It also creates major issues when dealing with translations. That’s why we employ experts who are very familiar with both styles of writing. We can facilitate quality translations that are readable by people regardless of where they live – Mainland China, Singapore, Hong Kong or Taiwan.
Unlike English, French, Spanish and many other modern forms of language, Chinese does not use an alphabetical system. Instead, it uses symbols and characters to represent entire words. In English, letters are placed together to form a series of sounds which correspond to words and eventually sentences. From here, meaning is derived. Chinese is quite different. Complicating matters is the fact that so many different symbols need to be created to correspond to every word. This means that understanding how to read and write in Chinese can take years. This is also why you should only use our expert Chinese translations experts to handle all your files and documents.
