The Truth – A tale of 3 Characters

Posted at January 1, 2010

Chinese characters have been evolving for thousands of years, and even today there are some big differences in how they are used around the world. Taiwan and Hong Kong both use traditional characters, while Singapore and China are using the simplified versions. Japan adopted the traditional characters a long time back and is now using it’s own blend of old and new. Taking a simple word like Truth (Shi2 hua4 = Real + talk) we can see how the characters have taken several paths:

實話	Traditional Used in Taiwan and Hong Kong today
実話	Japan modified Used only in Japan
实话	Simplified version used in modern mandarin China, Singapore

The top character is the traditional form, which I’ve heard has been in use about 2000 years. Japan adapted it and it’s been simplified to an even greater extent in modern Chinese. I like this example because it shows how it has changed in Japan slightly, and some words like hua (the 2nd character) haven’t been simplified to the extent they have been in China.