<p>for 形聲字, the simplification made severe, unrepairable damages to the chinese culture.</p>

<p>for example, the character <a href="http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%9B%A3" rel="nofollow noreferrer">難(u+96e3)</a>; it's composed by the 172th radical 隹(u+96b9); and the component (u+26c29), that's a phonetic component, which was shared by numerous characters.</p>

<p>the 說文解字 stated: 難　鳥也﹒從鳥﹒堇聲</p>

<p>while <a href="http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%A0%87" rel="nofollow noreferrer">堇(u+5807)</a> is a character since oracle script, <a href="https://i.sstatic.net/jQuSa.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/jQuSa.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a>; later, it's derived to 堇(u+5807) </p>

<p>&amp; (u+26c29)<a href="https://i.sstatic.net/Ux9Ye.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/Ux9Ye.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

<p>back to the phonetic component 堇. in cantonese, 堇 is pronounced as gan2　<a href="http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/gan2.Mp3" rel="nofollow noreferrer">sound file</a>, which has the 韻母 (final) "an".</p>

<p>so, characters share this phonetic component 堇, guess how they pronounce?</p>

<p><a href="http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%9B%A3" rel="nofollow noreferrer">難(u+96e3)</a>　naan4　<a href="http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/naan4.Mp3" rel="nofollow noreferrer">sound file</a></p>

<p><a href="http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%98%86" rel="nofollow noreferrer">嘆(u+5606)</a>　taan3　<a href="http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/taan3.Mp3" rel="nofollow noreferrer">sound file</a></p>

<p><a href="http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%89%B1" rel="nofollow noreferrer">艱(u+8271)</a>　gaan1　<a href="http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/gaan1.Mp3" rel="nofollow noreferrer">sound file</a></p>

<p>after thousands of years, the 韻母 (final) of these characters are changed slightly from "an" to "aan", isn't marvellous?</p>

<p>therefore, the simplified script of 难, 叹 &amp; 艰 lose the phonetic component 堇; that no-one in modern time, or generations in the future would associate the correct pronunciation from the component of the simplified character.</p>

<p>c'est patrimoine culturel perdu ☠</p>

<p>lastly, i think that this question is excellent; i worried about the temporary "hold on" status of it. may i ask the rationale of this decision?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-30T19:30:00.970Z
Thank you--the rationale for the hold was "too many possible answers". I thought it was an understandable objection, but nevertheless, I was interested in what the answers would be!
Colin
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-30T19:33:26.493Z
too many? someone is kidding :) i need to "think" hardly, in order to get a few examples. anyway, do you get what you want in my answer?
水巷孑蠻
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-30T19:41:27.653Z
Regarding the simplification of  to 又, I agree that there is an issue there, especially since 又 is used to simplify a number of other 声旁, so it is too ambiguous. But I don't think it is one of the worst examples, since at least many characters with  were uniformly simplified. So we can still use the 又 in 难叹艰 as a reminder these characters have similar pronunciations.
Colin
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-30T19:42:46.033Z
Yes, if it were so easy to think of a zillion examples, I wouldn't have had to ask for help!
Colin
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-30T20:01:09.733Z
using 又 as reminder? die hard lah :)  歡--> 欢, 觀--> 观; the phonetic component 雚 (final "oon") is also replaced by 又.
水巷孑蠻
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-30T20:13:49.750Z
Yeah 又 is definitely doing too much work...From @user-487 we also have  鄧 --> 邓 and 雞 --> 鸡
Colin
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-30T21:43:17.777Z
I did vote for this question to be closed and then voted to reopen it after the question was clarified. Simplification damage characters is a  fact. Phonetic element removal is one of the ways simplification ruins characters.
Tang Ho
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-30T22:40:23.983Z
@ColinZwanziger - A better question would have been something like - 'What are some of the consequences of the simplification process, include some examples?'. I don't see the benefit of just listing characters which were 'damaged' as they can be easily found. Answer above is awesome, list of characters below is not.
going
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-31T02:52:37.877Z
Downvoted because losing a bit of phonological is far from causing "severe, unrepairable damages" to a culture. Getting rid of Chinese characters and replacing it with pinyin, as envisioned at that time, would have been. (Also because sentences in English start with an uppercase.)
gb.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-30T18:43:51.197Z
2016-10-30T18:43:51.197Z
水巷孑蠻
<p>For your information, Chinese glyph has another form, call <code>Cursive</code>. Which become fundamental of so "simplified Chinese". </p>

<p>So the simplification is not born from nowhere (as in Chinese proverb , pop up from the stone), it has it own historical and literature traits. </p>

<p>Most of the old cursive can refer to 《标准草书》</p>

<p>Nevertheless, the cursive glyph are wrote with added creativity, it is not easy even with the simplified word reference book. </p>

<p>Nevertheless , the whole writing things is heavily politicalised.  Since pin-ying and handwriting recognition become norm, the original mandarin might re-emerge back to mainland China mainstream usage.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-11-08T16:20:43.697Z
2016-11-08T16:20:43.697Z
mootmoot
<p>The simplification introduced some inconsistency.</p>

<p>The official simplified form of 盧 is 卢, so is easy to reason that 壚瀘櫨轤臚艫鱸鸕顱 should be simplified to 垆泸栌轳胪舻鲈鸬颅 respectively. But at the same time, 蘆廬驢爐 are simplified to 芦庐驴炉 respectively.</p>

<p>Once I wanted to type the word 芦苇(reed). I use <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubi_method" rel="nofollow noreferrer">wubi input method</a>, which is based on the structure of characters rather than their pronunciation, so I need to break down the charecter I want to input into components. I thought 芦 should be written as <a href="https://i.sstatic.net/F16Xs.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/F16Xs.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a>, so I broke it into 艹、卜、尸. Of course, I didn't get the expected character with these components. I got rather confused. Finally I had to resort to pinyin input method and found that it is 芦 instead of <a href="https://i.sstatic.net/F16Xs.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/F16Xs.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a>.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-11-08T13:20:32.297Z
2016-11-08T13:20:32.297Z
ltux
<p>In particular, there should be many examples of 形声字 ("phono-semantic compound characters") which were "damaged" by simplification. I am interested especially in characters where a 声旁 ("phonetic") or 形旁 ("signific") was partially removed in such a way as to provide misinformation.</p>

<p>To illustrate, </p>

<ul>
<li>盤 was simplified to 盘, leaving a pointless 舟 at the top instead of a 声旁/phonetic. </li>
<li>More obscurely 勝 (etymologically 朕+力) was simplified to 胜, leaving a pointless 月 instead of the semantically helpful 力. </li>
</ul>

<p>Does anyone know of more examples like these? </p>

<hr>

<p>(Note: this is not intended as an anti-简体字 post!)</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-29T19:11:54.827Z
I like this question, but it is too broad. You can list almost any simplified character and point out the negative effect of taking out some essential element. Please narrow the question down.
Tang Ho
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-29T20:40:44.547Z
I edited it to make it explicitly about 形声字 (as this was my intent). I think there will be many correct examples, but not just anything works. For instance, 遠 －－》 远 and 彈 －－》弹 are not correct answers, because in these cases, useful elements were replaced with useful elements, preserving the 形声 structure.
Colin
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-29T20:52:23.910Z
Even after the editing, the question is still too broad, a user could list a hundred characters and another user could list another hundred. The main problem is, you already know enough to list a few examples, which means the goal of this post is to seek confirmation from other users. Your examples already illustrated your point- "simplification damages characters" and I agree.
Tang Ho
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-29T21:00:14.837Z
I narrowed it a bit more. The point of of the question is not to seek confirmation that some characters were damaged by simplification (as I agree with you that is obvious), but to isolate a good number of examples of this happening. If you think there are hundreds of examples, great! It should then be easy to provide a list of 15 good ones and I can accept that answer.
Colin
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-29T21:01:02.607Z
My position on  simplified characters vs. traditional characters is - It is the current standard, people have to accept and use it in daily life unless the system is changed; However, Chinese people should also learn the traditional characters as a useful language skill.
Tang Ho
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-29T21:02:32.343Z
(I believe the question offers clear criteria for what constitutes a good example. If there are many such examples that just means it's an easy question)
Colin
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-10-29T21:04:11.780Z
Let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/47653/discussion-between-colin-zwanziger-and-tang-ho).
Colin
<etymology><simplified-characters><traditional-vs-simplified><glyph-origin>
Examples of "bad" simplified characters/简体字?
# Examples of "bad" simplified characters/简体字?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2016-10-29)

In particular, there should be many examples of 形声字 ("phono-semantic compound characters") which were "damaged" by simplification. I am interested especially in characters where a 声旁 ("phonetic") or 形旁 ("signific") was partially removed in such a way as to provide misinformation.

To illustrate,

* 盤 was simplified to 盘, leaving a pointless 舟 at the top instead of a 声旁/phonetic.
* More obscurely 勝 (etymologically 朕+力) was simplified to 胜, leaving a pointless 月 instead of the semantically helpful 力.

Does anyone know of more examples like these?

---

(Note: this is not intended as an anti-简体字 post!)

**Tags:** etymology, simplified-characters, traditional-vs-simplified, glyph-origin

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I like this question, but it is too broad. You can list almost any simplified character and point out the negative effect of taking out some essential element. Please narrow the question down.  
> **username_0**: I edited it to make it explicitly about 形声字 (as this was my intent). I think there will be many correct examples, but not just anything works. For instance, 遠 －－》 远 and 彈 －－》弹 are not correct answers, because in these cases, useful elements were replaced with useful elements, preserving the 形声 structure.  
> **username_1**: Even after the editing, the question is still too broad, a user could list a hundred characters and another user could list another hundred. The main problem is, you already know enough to list a few examples, which means the goal of this post is to seek confirmation from other users. Your examples already illustrated your point- "simplification damages characters" and I agree.  
> **username_0**: I narrowed it a bit more. The point of of the question is not to seek confirmation that some characters were damaged by simplification (as I agree with you that is obvious), but to isolate a good number of examples of this happening. If you think there are hundreds of examples, great! It should then be easy to provide a list of 15 good ones and I can accept that answer.  
> **username_1**: My position on  simplified characters vs. traditional characters is - It is the current standard, people have to accept and use it in daily life unless the system is changed; However, Chinese people should also learn the traditional characters as a useful language skill.  
> **username_0**: (I believe the question offers clear criteria for what constitutes a good example. If there are many such examples that just means it's an easy question)  
> **username_0**: Let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/47653/discussion-between-colin-zwanziger-and-tang-ho).  

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2016-10-30. Score: 3

for 形聲字, the simplification made severe, unrepairable damages to the chinese culture.

for example, the character [難(u+96e3)](http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%9B%A3); it's composed by the 172th radical 隹(u+96b9); and the component (u+26c29), that's a phonetic component, which was shared by numerous characters.

the 說文解字 stated: 難　鳥也﹒從鳥﹒堇聲

while [堇(u+5807)](http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%A0%87) is a character since oracle script, [![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/jQuSa.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/jQuSa.jpg); later, it's derived to 堇(u+5807)

& (u+26c29)[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/Ux9Ye.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/Ux9Ye.jpg)

back to the phonetic component 堇. in cantonese, 堇 is pronounced as gan2　[sound file](http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/gan2.Mp3), which has the 韻母 (final) "an".

so, characters share this phonetic component 堇, guess how they pronounce?

[難(u+96e3)](http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E9%9B%A3)　naan4　[sound file](http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/naan4.Mp3)

[嘆(u+5606)](http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E5%98%86)　taan3　[sound file](http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/taan3.Mp3)

[艱(u+8271)](http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E8%89%B1)　gaan1　[sound file](http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/sound/gaan1.Mp3)

after thousands of years, the 韻母 (final) of these characters are changed slightly from "an" to "aan", isn't marvellous?

therefore, the simplified script of 难, 叹 & 艰 lose the phonetic component 堇; that no-one in modern time, or generations in the future would associate the correct pronunciation from the component of the simplified character.

c'est patrimoine culturel perdu ☠

lastly, i think that this question is excellent; i worried about the temporary "hold on" status of it. may i ask the rationale of this decision?

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thank you--the rationale for the hold was "too many possible answers". I thought it was an understandable objection, but nevertheless, I was interested in what the answers would be!  
> **username_2**: too many? someone is kidding :) i need to "think" hardly, in order to get a few examples. anyway, do you get what you want in my answer?  
> **username_0**: Regarding the simplification of  to 又, I agree that there is an issue there, especially since 又 is used to simplify a number of other 声旁, so it is too ambiguous. But I don't think it is one of the worst examples, since at least many characters with  were uniformly simplified. So we can still use the 又 in 难叹艰 as a reminder these characters have similar pronunciations.  
> **username_0**: Yes, if it were so easy to think of a zillion examples, I wouldn't have had to ask for help!  
> **username_2**: using 又 as reminder? die hard lah :)  歡--> 欢, 觀--> 观; the phonetic component 雚 (final "oon") is also replaced by 又.  
> **username_0**: Yeah 又 is definitely doing too much work...From @user-487 we also have  鄧 --> 邓 and 雞 --> 鸡  
> **username_1**: I did vote for this question to be closed and then voted to reopen it after the question was clarified. Simplification damage characters is a  fact. Phonetic element removal is one of the ways simplification ruins characters.  
> **username_3**: @username_0Zwanziger - A better question would have been something like - 'What are some of the consequences of the simplification process, include some examples?'. I don't see the benefit of just listing characters which were 'damaged' as they can be easily found. Answer above is awesome, list of characters below is not.  
> **username_4**: Downvoted because losing a bit of phonological is far from causing "severe, unrepairable damages" to a culture. Getting rid of Chinese characters and replacing it with pinyin, as envisioned at that time, would have been. (Also because sentences in English start with an uppercase.)  

---

### Answer by username_5 on 2016-11-08. Score: 0

For your information, Chinese glyph has another form, call `Cursive`. Which become fundamental of so "simplified Chinese".

So the simplification is not born from nowhere (as in Chinese proverb , pop up from the stone), it has it own historical and literature traits.

Most of the old cursive can refer to 《标准草书》

Nevertheless, the cursive glyph are wrote with added creativity, it is not easy even with the simplified word reference book.

Nevertheless , the whole writing things is heavily politicalised. Since pin-ying and handwriting recognition become norm, the original mandarin might re-emerge back to mainland China mainstream usage.


---

### Answer by username_6 on 2016-11-08. Score: 0

The simplification introduced some inconsistency.

The official simplified form of 盧 is 卢, so is easy to reason that 壚瀘櫨轤臚艫鱸鸕顱 should be simplified to 垆泸栌轳胪舻鲈鸬颅 respectively. But at the same time, 蘆廬驢爐 are simplified to 芦庐驴炉 respectively.

Once I wanted to type the word 芦苇(reed). I use [wubi input method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubi_method), which is based on the structure of characters rather than their pronunciation, so I need to break down the charecter I want to input into components. I thought 芦 should be written as [![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/F16Xs.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/F16Xs.jpg), so I broke it into 艹、卜、尸. Of course, I didn't get the expected character with these components. I got rather confused. Finally I had to resort to pinyin input method and found that it is 芦 instead of [![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/F16Xs.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/F16Xs.jpg).


---

