<p>The simplification has a practical purpose, that is to ease learning and daily use. <code>辵</code> is an archaic form that's not used in any modern context. There is no point simplifying it anyway. I doubt that the 简化字小组 ever looked beyond the 4000 most frequently used characters.</p>

<p>There are over 50,000 characters that have ever existed, only about 2000 get a simplified version in 《简化字总表》, if you don't count the radicals and derivatives, the simplified character count wouldn't exceed 400.</p>

<p>For the sake of argument, there could be a few other reasons.</p>

<ol>
<li>They usually take an existing homophone character to substitute the complex one, 後 to 后 for example. 走 and 辵 sounds nothing similar.</li>
<li>There is this principle called 述而不作, which means they try to find existing simplifications and make them standard instead of inventing their own (though in many cases the simplified form is rather obscure). The 辵 to 走 simplification never existed.</li>
<li>辵 is already simple!</li>
</ol>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-06-12T07:23:40.240Z
2016-06-12T07:30:54.310Z
2016-06-12T07:30:54.310Z
Wang Dingwei
<p>This has nothing to do with simplification.「辵」(<strong>chuò</strong>; <em>to alternate between walking and stopping</em>) is the full character form of「辶」, and represents an entirely different word to「走」(<strong>zǒu</strong>).</p>

<p>Also,「走」originally meant <em>to run</em>, depicting a running person「夭」with a foot「止」added later to emphasise this meaning. The meaning <em>walk</em> is Mandarin-specific.</p>

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2018-08-31T12:59:21.033Z
2018-08-31T16:46:08.767Z
2018-08-31T16:46:08.767Z
dROOOze
<p>Why is 走 distinguished from 辵? They both mean to go/walk, according to the dictionary. Why weren't they merged during simplification?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-06-12T06:10:00.153Z
辵 means 'to walk one moment and stop the next' or 'to run'. It's not used in modern Chinese. 走 has a lot more meanings as a verb or a noun, still widely used in modern Chinese.
ElpieKay
<simplified-characters>
Why is 走 distinguished from 辵?
# Why is 走 distinguished from 辵?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2016-06-11)

Why is 走 distinguished from 辵? They both mean to go/walk, according to the dictionary. Why weren't they merged during simplification?

**Tags:** simplified-characters

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: 辵 means 'to walk one moment and stop the next' or 'to run'. It's not used in modern Chinese. 走 has a lot more meanings as a verb or a noun, still widely used in modern Chinese.  

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2016-06-12. Score: 3

The simplification has a practical purpose, that is to ease learning and daily use. `辵` is an archaic form that's not used in any modern context. There is no point simplifying it anyway. I doubt that the 简化字小组 ever looked beyond the 4000 most frequently used characters.

There are over 50,000 characters that have ever existed, only about 2000 get a simplified version in 《简化字总表》, if you don't count the radicals and derivatives, the simplified character count wouldn't exceed 400.

For the sake of argument, there could be a few other reasons.

1. They usually take an existing homophone character to substitute the complex one, 後 to 后 for example. 走 and 辵 sounds nothing similar.
2. There is this principle called 述而不作, which means they try to find existing simplifications and make them standard instead of inventing their own (though in many cases the simplified form is rather obscure). The 辵 to 走 simplification never existed.
3. 辵 is already simple!


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### Answer by username_3 on 2018-08-31. Score: 0

This has nothing to do with simplification.「辵」(**chuò**; *to alternate between walking and stopping*) is the full character form of「辶」, and represents an entirely different word to「走」(**zǒu**).

Also,「走」originally meant *to run*, depicting a running person「夭」with a foot「止」added later to emphasise this meaning. The meaning *walk* is Mandarin-specific.

# `商 甲 enter image description here 後2.4.13 合集17993``西周 金 enter image description here 大盂鼎 集成2837` `篆 enter image description here 說文解字``現代 楷 enter image description here`


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