Re: THEORY: Expanding in translation?

Yes, Singapore uses the simplified characters (I'm Singaporean, heh).
In addition, Cucumis' first reason, about the altered writing styles
in traditional and simplified Chinese, is not unbelievable.

Part of what has been said, that places that use the traditional
characters (TC) have different writing styles from places that use the
simplified ones (SC), is true. Taiwan and Hong Kong, because of their
greater continuity with the Chinese literary tradition, tend to
continue using more erudite and archaic (not necessarily outdated,
just more formal, perhaps, but definitely more learned, more
difficult, and shorter) expressions. SC tends to be used by mainland
Chinese, which, because of the Communist vernacularisation movement,
has greatly expanded in length.

Other factors, of course, could include the texts in question that are
actually translated, and their subject matter. But from what I do know
anecdotally (obviously I haven't done any studies of the sort),
Taiwanese and Hong Kongers do make a greater distinction between the
verbal and written languages than do mainlanders (even among the most
educated). I suppose that is analogous to mediaeval Europe, on a
smaller scale than the period immediately following the fall of the
Qing dynasty was.

Eugene

On 11/03/2008, Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 5:55 AM,  <MorphemeAddict@...> wrote:
>  > In a message dated 3/10/2008 22:23:50 PM Central Daylight Time,
>  >
>  > conlang@CASSOWARY.ORG writes:
>  >
>
> >  > Isn't Traditional Chinese still preferred in Hong Kong, Singapore,
>  >  > Taiwan etc.?
>  >
>
> >  Yes, traditional hanzi are still preferred in those areas.
>
>
> True for Hong Kong and Taiwan.
>
>  Singapore, on the other hand, uses simplified characters, to the best
>  of my knowledge.
>
>  Cheers,
>
> --
>  Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
>