<p><a href="http://b8721035.blogspot.com/2009/03/blog-post_23.html">Source</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>【葉】和【叶】在普通話中雖然讀音相差很遠，但在古音(【葉】的古音為ㄕㄜˋ，是春秋楚國時的一個地方。)和吳方言中讀音相近，所以清末民初時蘇州等地的群眾開始把茶葉、百葉的【葉】寫成【叶】。錢玄同在1922年出版的《國語月刊‧漢字改革號》上提到這種用法。後來，中國人民共和國發布的《簡化字總表》吸收了這一用法，將【葉】簡化為【叶】，但注明【叶韻】的【叶】仍讀ㄒㄧㄝˊ。(時學祥、趙伯平主編的《語林趣話》一書（四川辭書出版社2002年1月出版）第396-397頁)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Although in Mandarin the pronunciation of "葉" and "叶" are very far, however the ancient pronunciation (葉 ancient pronunciation was Shè, and was used for the name of a place in the Chu kingdom during the Spring/Autumn period.)  in Wu dialect is the same. So, people in the early Qing dynasty in places like SuZhou started to use "叶" in words like 茶叶(tea leaves), 百叶（literally means: one hundred leaves. In fact, it's a kind of food made of soybean, in the shape like a piece of paper). 
<a href="http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%92%B1%E7%8E%84%E5%90%8C">錢玄同</a> in his 1922 published "國語月刊‧漢字改革號" mentioned this use. Then the Chinese Republic released "簡化字總表" (simplified character table) they implemented this use, taking "叶" as he simplification of "葉". However, the "叶" in "叶韻" is pronounced xié.</p>

<p>Source (時學祥、趙伯平主編的《語林趣話》一書（四川辭書出版社2002年1月出版）第396-397頁)</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-19T11:14:12.917Z
good source,I am curious how you find it?
Huang
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-19T15:00:46.127Z
+1 good source!
Georgeee
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-19T09:48:21.437Z
2011-12-19T12:43:53.363Z
2011-12-19T12:43:53.363Z
going
<p>「葉」didn't become「叶」from any systematic rules. The character「叶」was a non-standard and old variant of「協」(<strong>xié</strong>; <em>to cooperate, collaborate</em>).「葉」and「協」are homophones in some Chinese languages (notably Shanghainese; <strong>hhiq [T5]</strong>), and so this variant of「協」was chosen as a phonetic loan for「葉」in the First Round Simplification.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-04-15T01:08:33.043Z
2019-04-15T01:08:33.043Z
dROOOze
<p>At the beginning, I want to say that I am a native speaker and love Chinese, but I am not on a research level. It is welcomed that anyone can make comments and supply more info to my answer.</p>
<p><strong>Introduction</strong></p>
<p>First, Wikipedia (see the link provided by Krazer) is good start to get some background knowledge why we have simplified characters. After the found of the new China (People's Republic of China, P.R.C), the country was out of turmoils and wars and the government decided to simplify the characters (note that before P.R.C, there were some proposals and pratices on simplification). I think one main reason was to allow more people to get well educated, since simplified characters were easier to learn. However, the government didn't make a long-term preparation and thus some characters were not simplified in a &quot;logic&quot; or &quot;scientific&quot; way.</p>
<p><strong>Main Text</strong></p>
<p>“叶” is a typical example of a character that was not simplified &quot;properly&quot;. So how did characters get simplified? As far as I know, unfortunately, the government didn't issue any official document to explain this. I searched this topic on the internet and I found some useful info, one of them is a <a href="http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4cc726e10100crpt.html" rel="noreferrer">blog</a>, which I think has logic and acceptable explanations.</p>
<p>I will explain more with my own knowledge:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>古 (the original characters):  One example is &quot;从&quot; and &quot;從&quot;. In 《说文》(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi" rel="noreferrer">a famous old dictionary</a>),&quot;从&quot; is explained to be the orignal form of “從&quot;. &quot;从&quot; means &quot;to follow&quot; and it's intuitive (one 人 – <em>person</em> – follows another) so &quot;从&quot; is selected.</p>
</li>
<li><p>俗 (the informal characters). In ancient times, few people got well educated and of course, characters were developing too, so there were some &quot;informal&quot; characters, which were popular among not-well-educated people. Two examples are &quot;泪&quot; and &quot;淚&quot;. In 《字彙》(a dictionary written in Ming Dynasty), &quot;泪&quot; is explained as the informal form of &quot;淚&quot;. &quot;泪&quot; is intuitive, because the left part refers to water, &quot;目&quot; means the eye, and &quot;泪&quot; means <em>tears</em>. It's &quot;reasonable&quot; to use “泪&quot; as the simplified form.</p>
</li>
<li><p>异体字 (characters with the same sound and meaning, but different shape). Example: &quot;凶&quot; and &quot;兇&quot;. Both have the same pinyin (xiōng) and same meaning (danger), so &quot;凶&quot; is selected because it has less strokes. Also, &quot;凶&quot; is intuitive: isn't it like a man dropped in a trap?</p>
</li>
<li><p>闲置的旧字 (characters used under very rare conditions; they won't appear in most cases). This is how &quot;叶&quot; is simplified. Actually, even now, <strong>&quot;叶&quot; has another pronunciation and meaning</strong>, if you consult it in a dictionary (higher-level) and this is actually the original “叶” in classic chinese. It's &quot;叶 (xié)&quot; as in the word &quot;叶韵&quot; (yùn), which means that some characters have similar or the same vowel so the pronunciations of them sound harmonious ( when rhyming). You can find this phenomenon in classic poems and modern lyrics.</p>
<p>However, this meaning is very very rarely used and we would say “押(yā)韵&quot; rather than “叶韵&quot; nowadays. 叶 (xié) sounds similar with 葉 (yè) — remember this happened in ancient times —, so some not-well-educated people used 叶 instead of 葉 by mistake, and this mistake was &quot;admitted&quot; in simplification. Another example is &quot;听&quot; and &quot;聽&quot;(tīng) which means <em>&quot;to hear&quot;</em>. &quot;听&quot; (yīn) means <em>&quot;laugh&quot;</em> as in &quot;听然&quot; in Classic Chinese originally, but this meaning is generally expressed by other words like &quot;哂&quot; or &quot;莞尔&quot; in classic Chinese, so this character is borrowed to express &quot;聽&quot; because of similar sound, even &quot;to hear&quot; has nothing to do with the radical &quot;口&quot; in &quot;听&quot;.</p>
</li>
<li><p>草书楷化 (simplification from Cao to Kai). This will explain how &quot;单&quot; and &quot;严&quot; came out. &quot;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursive_script_%28East_Asia%29" rel="noreferrer">草书</a>&quot; is a hand-writing font. Have you heard of Chinese Calligraphy? 草(草率) implies that characters are written very casually, so characters are difficult to read but fast to write.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script" rel="noreferrer">楷(kăi, <em>paragon</em>）书</a> is another font in formal writing. This principle is used to simplify a character so that the shape looks like its shape in 草书. Below are some pictures to show.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Characters are 单, 书, 为, 学, 严, 专 in traditional form, from left to right and the traditional forms are: 單, 書, 為, 學, 嚴, 專. (Remember that 草书 has several schools so the shapes vary somehow. Examples below are based on the font of 黎凡草书 installed on my PC):</p>
<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/f9lkc.jpg" alt="enter image description here" /><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/gZjfe.jpg" alt="enter image description here" /><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/SkWVm.jpg" alt="enter image description here" /><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/y8CcW.jpg" alt="enter image description here" /><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/dd1xc.jpg" alt="enter image description here" /><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/xXltk.jpg" alt="enter image description here" /></p>
<ol start="6">
<li><p>同音字 (characters with the same pronunciation). Select a character with the same pronunciation to replace a complex one. Example: &quot;后&quot; and &quot;後&quot;. &quot;后&quot; is really a character used in Classic Chinese, meaning “the queen&quot; or &quot;the formal wife of the emperor&quot;, and “後&quot; means &quot;to be after something, some time point&quot;. &quot;后&quot; is selected as the simplified version of &quot;後&quot; and thus has the meaning &quot;after&quot;. This also brings problems: when people want to use traditonal characters in some cases, they may <strong>use wrong characters</strong>. E.g. the year of 2009 was roughly the year of “己丑&quot; in Chinese Lunar Calendar (known as &quot;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagenary_cycle" rel="noreferrer">Sexagenary cycle</a>&quot;).</p>
<p>During the spring festival of that year, I found &quot;己醜年&quot; in a website. I understood the site stuff wanted to express the year in a classic way, but they were absolutely wrong. &quot;醜&quot; means “ugly, not beautiful” and was simplified into “丑“. &quot;丑&quot; is really a character used in classic Chinese as an element of the Sexagenary cycle.After the simplificaion, “丑&quot; got two meanings, that's right in simplified chinese. However, you can only write &quot;己丑&quot; in traditional form, and &quot;醜&quot; is incorrect.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Ok, there are some other cases, but I think it's enough now, because this answer is not written as research paper. It's time consuming because I have to consult some characters in 《<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_Dictionary" rel="noreferrer">康熙字典</a>》(a very prestigious dictionary written under the order of the emperor ”康熙&quot; in Qing Dynasty).</p>
<p>At last, I want to say that language is not like Math or Physics, and it's hard to find &quot;proof&quot; or &quot;theory&quot; for some phenomena. Perhaps I can't explain why we speak that way, however, it's the way we speak. Take it easy.</p>
<p>Hope this helps.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-17T15:53:20.540Z
+1, very detailed!
dr Hannibal Lecter
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-19T15:00:27.203Z
Very comprehensive!
Georgeee
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-17T05:04:57.803Z
2011-12-22T04:15:41.253Z
2020-06-17T09:50:11.587Z
Huang
<p>This is a spin-off question from this one "<a href="https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/282/determine-radicals-for-simplifed-characters-that-lost-their-traditional-form-com">Determine radicals for simplified characters that lost their traditional form completely</a>" where radicals for simplified characters were discussed.</p>

<p>Now, the question is, how were some characters simplified, sometimes so simplified they lost their original intention and form completely?</p>

<p>One example is:</p>

<p>葉 (leaf) became 叶, where 叶 is basically a mouth (口) and a ten (十) put together.</p>

<p>What's the rationale behind this??<br/>
And why were some complex characters not simplified at all?</p>

<p>For example:</p>

<p>(traditional : simplified : meaning)</p>

<p>單 : 单 : single, also a family name<br/>
嚴 : 严 : strict, also a family name<br/>
嚼 : 嚼 : to chew (here traditional and simplified are identical and yet it's complicated to write)</p>

<p>Note that the two 口 on the top of 單 and 嚴 were transformed into different forms when simplified.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-25T20:47:57.620Z
I can't speak for this character, but reading the Compilation of Cursive Characters (《草字彙》), authored by Shi Liang (石梁) of the Qing Dynasty demystified simplified characters for me *in cases where the radicals disappear*, and actually made them beautiful in a way they had never been before.
magnetar
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-16T16:31:58.887Z
Most simplifications do not follow any rule. If you want to see even stranger simplifications, google for 二简字.
FUZxxl
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-16T21:34:35.683Z
Take a look at the methods and rules of simplification, they're fairly consistent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters#Method_of_simplification
Krazer
<simplified-characters><traditional-characters><traditional-vs-simplified>
How did 葉 (leaf as in vegetation) become 叶 when it was simplified?
# How did 葉 (leaf as in vegetation) become 叶 when it was simplified?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2011-12-16)

This is a spin-off question from this one "[Determine radicals for simplified characters that lost their traditional form completely](https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/282/determine-radicals-for-simplifed-characters-that-lost-their-traditional-form-com)" where radicals for simplified characters were discussed.

Now, the question is, how were some characters simplified, sometimes so simplified they lost their original intention and form completely?

One example is:

葉 (leaf) became 叶, where 叶 is basically a mouth (口) and a ten (十) put together.

What's the rationale behind this??  
And why were some complex characters not simplified at all?

For example:

(traditional : simplified : meaning)

單 : 单 : single, also a family name  
嚴 : 严 : strict, also a family name  
嚼 : 嚼 : to chew (here traditional and simplified are identical and yet it's complicated to write)

Note that the two 口 on the top of 單 and 嚴 were transformed into different forms when simplified.

**Tags:** simplified-characters, traditional-characters, traditional-vs-simplified

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: Most simplifications do not follow any rule. If you want to see even stranger simplifications, google for 二简字.  
> **username_3**: Take a look at the methods and rules of simplification, they're fairly consistent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters#Method_of_simplification  
> **username_1**: I can't speak for this character, but reading the Compilation of Cursive Characters (《草字彙》), authored by Shi Liang (石梁) of the Qing Dynasty demystified simplified characters for me *in cases where the radicals disappear*, and actually made them beautiful in a way they had never been before.  

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_5 on 2011-12-17. Score: 33 | Accepted answer

At the beginning, I want to say that I am a native speaker and love Chinese, but I am not on a research level. It is welcomed that anyone can make comments and supply more info to my answer.

**Introduction**

First, Wikipedia (see the link provided by username_3) is good start to get some background knowledge why we have simplified characters. After the found of the new China (People's Republic of China, P.R.C), the country was out of turmoils and wars and the government decided to simplify the characters (note that before P.R.C, there were some proposals and pratices on simplification). I think one main reason was to allow more people to get well educated, since simplified characters were easier to learn. However, the government didn't make a long-term preparation and thus some characters were not simplified in a "logic" or "scientific" way.

**Main Text**

“叶” is a typical example of a character that was not simplified "properly". So how did characters get simplified? As far as I know, unfortunately, the government didn't issue any official document to explain this. I searched this topic on the internet and I found some useful info, one of them is a [blog](http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4cc726e10100crpt.html), which I think has logic and acceptable explanations.

I will explain more with my own knowledge:

1. 古 (the original characters): One example is "从" and "從". In 《说文》([a famous old dictionary](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi)),"从" is explained to be the orignal form of “從". "从" means "to follow" and it's intuitive (one 人 – *person* – follows another) so "从" is selected.
2. 俗 (the informal characters). In ancient times, few people got well educated and of course, characters were developing too, so there were some "informal" characters, which were popular among not-well-educated people. Two examples are "泪" and "淚". In 《字彙》(a dictionary written in Ming Dynasty), "泪" is explained as the informal form of "淚". "泪" is intuitive, because the left part refers to water, "目" means the eye, and "泪" means *tears*. It's "reasonable" to use “泪" as the simplified form.
3. 异体字 (characters with the same sound and meaning, but different shape). Example: "凶" and "兇". Both have the same pinyin (xiōng) and same meaning (danger), so "凶" is selected because it has less strokes. Also, "凶" is intuitive: isn't it like a man dropped in a trap?
4. 闲置的旧字 (characters used under very rare conditions; they won't appear in most cases). This is how "叶" is simplified. Actually, even now, **"叶" has another pronunciation and meaning**, if you consult it in a dictionary (higher-level) and this is actually the original “叶” in classic chinese. It's "叶 (xié)" as in the word "叶韵" (yùn), which means that some characters have similar or the same vowel so the pronunciations of them sound harmonious ( when rhyming). You can find this phenomenon in classic poems and modern lyrics.

   However, this meaning is very very rarely used and we would say “押(yā)韵" rather than “叶韵" nowadays. 叶 (xié) sounds similar with 葉 (yè) — remember this happened in ancient times —, so some not-well-educated people used 叶 instead of 葉 by mistake, and this mistake was "admitted" in simplification. Another example is "听" and "聽"(tīng) which means *"to hear"*. "听" (yīn) means *"laugh"* as in "听然" in Classic Chinese originally, but this meaning is generally expressed by other words like "哂" or "莞尔" in classic Chinese, so this character is borrowed to express "聽" because of similar sound, even "to hear" has nothing to do with the radical "口" in "听".
5. 草书楷化 (simplification from Cao to Kai). This will explain how "单" and "严" came out. "[草书](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursive_script_%28East_Asia%29)" is a hand-writing font. Have you heard of Chinese Calligraphy? 草(草率) implies that characters are written very casually, so characters are difficult to read but fast to write.[楷(kăi, *paragon*）书](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script) is another font in formal writing. This principle is used to simplify a character so that the shape looks like its shape in 草书. Below are some pictures to show.

Characters are 单, 书, 为, 学, 严, 专 in traditional form, from left to right and the traditional forms are: 單, 書, 為, 學, 嚴, 專. (Remember that 草书 has several schools so the shapes vary somehow. Examples below are based on the font of 黎凡草书 installed on my PC):

![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/f9lkc.jpg)![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/gZjfe.jpg)![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/SkWVm.jpg)![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/y8CcW.jpg)![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/dd1xc.jpg)![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/xXltk.jpg)

6. 同音字 (characters with the same pronunciation). Select a character with the same pronunciation to replace a complex one. Example: "后" and "後". "后" is really a character used in Classic Chinese, meaning “the queen" or "the formal wife of the emperor", and “後" means "to be after something, some time point". "后" is selected as the simplified version of "後" and thus has the meaning "after". This also brings problems: when people want to use traditonal characters in some cases, they may **use wrong characters**. E.g. the year of 2009 was roughly the year of “己丑" in Chinese Lunar Calendar (known as "[Sexagenary cycle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagenary_cycle)").

   During the spring festival of that year, I found "己醜年" in a website. I understood the site stuff wanted to express the year in a classic way, but they were absolutely wrong. "醜" means “ugly, not beautiful” and was simplified into “丑“. "丑" is really a character used in classic Chinese as an element of the Sexagenary cycle.After the simplificaion, “丑" got two meanings, that's right in simplified chinese. However, you can only write "己丑" in traditional form, and "醜" is incorrect.

Ok, there are some other cases, but I think it's enough now, because this answer is not written as research paper. It's time consuming because I have to consult some characters in 《[康熙字典](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_Dictionary)》(a very prestigious dictionary written under the order of the emperor ”康熙" in Qing Dynasty).

At last, I want to say that language is not like Math or Physics, and it's hard to find "proof" or "theory" for some phenomena. Perhaps I can't explain why we speak that way, however, it's the way we speak. Take it easy.

Hope this helps.

> **Comments:**
> **username_7**: +1, very detailed!  
> **username_0**: Very comprehensive!  

---

### Answer by username_4 on 2011-12-19. Score: 10

[Source](http://b8721035.blogspot.com/2009/03/blog-post_23.html):

> 【葉】和【叶】在普通話中雖然讀音相差很遠，但在古音(【葉】的古音為ㄕㄜˋ，是春秋楚國時的一個地方。)和吳方言中讀音相近，所以清末民初時蘇州等地的群眾開始把茶葉、百葉的【葉】寫成【叶】。錢玄同在1922年出版的《國語月刊‧漢字改革號》上提到這種用法。後來，中國人民共和國發布的《簡化字總表》吸收了這一用法，將【葉】簡化為【叶】，但注明【叶韻】的【叶】仍讀ㄒㄧㄝˊ。(時學祥、趙伯平主編的《語林趣話》一書（四川辭書出版社2002年1月出版）第396-397頁)

Although in Mandarin the pronunciation of "葉" and "叶" are very far, however the ancient pronunciation (葉 ancient pronunciation was Shè, and was used for the name of a place in the Chu kingdom during the Spring/Autumn period.) in Wu dialect is the same. So, people in the early Qing dynasty in places like SuZhou started to use "叶" in words like 茶叶(tea leaves), 百叶（literally means: one hundred leaves. In fact, it's a kind of food made of soybean, in the shape like a piece of paper).
[錢玄同](http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%92%B1%E7%8E%84%E5%90%8C) in his 1922 published "國語月刊‧漢字改革號" mentioned this use. Then the Chinese Republic released "簡化字總表" (simplified character table) they implemented this use, taking "叶" as he simplification of "葉". However, the "叶" in "叶韻" is pronounced xié.

Source (時學祥、趙伯平主編的《語林趣話》一書（四川辭書出版社2002年1月出版）第396-397頁)

> **Comments:**
> **username_5**: good source,I am curious how you find it?  
> **username_0**: +1 good source!  

---

### Answer by username_6 on 2019-04-15. Score: 2

「葉」didn't become「叶」from any systematic rules. The character「叶」was a non-standard and old variant of「協」(**xié**; *to cooperate, collaborate*).「葉」and「協」are homophones in some Chinese languages (notably Shanghainese; **hhiq [T5]**), and so this variant of「協」was chosen as a phonetic loan for「葉」in the First Round Simplification.


---

