<p>People outside Chinese region may think any type of character form change in Mainland China are &quot;simplifications&quot;, which is not true. The example in your question is actually <strong>glyph</strong> differences, which are called &quot;<strong>New Character Forms</strong>&quot; or &quot;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xin_zixing" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Xin Zixing</a>&quot;. It regulates the orthodox form of parts of glyphs, while &quot;simplification&quot; deals with &quot;which parts are used to form a character&quot;.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-05-01T01:29:19.673Z
Other than the PRC's simplification of Chinese words (簡體), there is always a simplified form of words in writing (簡寫), as opposed to the traditional word form正統繁體, that has nothing to do with Xin Zixing. Many of the PRC's simplified words were directly carried over from the old simplified words in writing.
r13
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-05-12T06:53:48.783Z
Do you mean the orthography opposed to Classical glyphs (傳承字形)?
Winfred Huang
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-03-31T08:08:59.740Z
2021-03-31T08:08:59.740Z
Winfred Huang
<p>Why is 遙 simplified into 遥? The second does not really look simpler - except in this unfortunate digital form that I now see that certainly was of no consideration to those who enacted simplification - and it takes the same number of strokes to write. It seems an awful lot of effort to enact such a change for the little apparent return in simplicity.</p>
<p>More specifically, what criterion was followed for this simplification?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-03-30T19:25:13.687Z
「遙」was not simplified into「遥」, the latter has long existed as a variant form, and was chosen as the standard form. You can see this pattern in the PRC's [Table of General Standard Chinese Characters](https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E9%80%9A%E7%94%A8%E8%A7%84%E8%8C%83%E6%B1%89%E5%AD%97%E8%A1%A8), where the traditional form of「谣」is defined as「謡」, rather than「謠」. Also check out these answers for more details on the simplification process: https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/36750, https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/36360
wang_xiao_ming
<simplified-characters><traditional-vs-simplified>
Explanation for simplification of 遙
# Explanation for simplification of 遙

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-03-30)

Why is 遙 simplified into 遥? The second does not really look simpler - except in this unfortunate digital form that I now see that certainly was of no consideration to those who enacted simplification - and it takes the same number of strokes to write. It seems an awful lot of effort to enact such a change for the little apparent return in simplicity.

More specifically, what criterion was followed for this simplification?

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

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: 「遙」was not simplified into「遥」, the latter has long existed as a variant form, and was chosen as the standard form. You can see this pattern in the PRC's [Table of General Standard Chinese Characters](https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E9%80%9A%E7%94%A8%E8%A7%84%E8%8C%83%E6%B1%89%E5%AD%97%E8%A1%A8), where the traditional form of「谣」is defined as「謡」, rather than「謠」. Also check out these answers for more details on the simplification process: https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/36750, https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/36360  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2021-03-31. Score: 1

People outside Chinese region may think any type of character form change in Mainland China are "simplifications", which is not true. The example in your question is actually **glyph** differences, which are called "**New Character Forms**" or "[Xin Zixing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xin_zixing)". It regulates the orthodox form of parts of glyphs, while "simplification" deals with "which parts are used to form a character".

> **Comments:**
> **username_3**: Other than the PRC's simplification of Chinese words (簡體), there is always a simplified form of words in writing (簡寫), as opposed to the traditional word form正統繁體, that has nothing to do with Xin Zixing. Many of the PRC's simplified words were directly carried over from the old simplified words in writing.  
> **username_2**: Do you mean the orthography opposed to Classical glyphs (傳承字形)?  

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