President Ma Ying-jeou has called for the continued coexistence of traditional and simplified Chinese characters.
Speaking at a conference held by the World Chinese Language Association on Friday, Ma said that the preservation of traditional Chinese characters is very important. He said that there are perhaps fewer than 40 million people using traditional characters in the world today, over half of them in Taiwan. He said that preserving traditional characters will also help close the gap between the modern world and that of classical Chinese literature.
However, at the same time, Ma also said that the simplified character set officially used in China, Singapore, and Malaysia is not as radically different from Taiwan’s traditional standard as many imagine. He said that only around a quarter to a third of commonly used characters have been altered in the simplified set.
Ma called on Chinese speakers to allow both standards to coexist, much as British English and American English do.
Ma also encouraged Taiwan to build up its position as a center for Chinese language education.
He said that out of the 70,000 foreign students currently in Taiwan, over 10,000 are studying Chinese. He said he hopes to see this number grow to around 30,000 by 2016 and break the 40,000 mark by 2021.
Mainland China began a program of simplifying the shape of characters in the late 1950s with the aim of boosting literacy. Some characters were altered slightly while others were given a radical overhaul. Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau have continued to use the same traditional characters that developed over centuries of Chinese history.