19 Facts About Traditional characters

Traditional Chinese characters are one type of standard Chinese character sets of the contemporary written Chinese.

The traditional characters had taken shapes since the clerical change and mostly remained in the same structure they took at the introduction of the regular script in the 2nd century.

Traditional Chinese characters remain in common use in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, as well as in most overseas Chinese communities outside Southeast Asia; in addition, Hanja in Korean language remains virtually identical to traditional characters, which is still used to a certain extent in South Korea, despite differing standards used among these countries over some variant Chinese characters.

In Taiwan, the standardisation of traditional characters is stipulated through the promulgation of the Standard Form of National Characters, which is regulated by Taiwan's Ministry of Education.

In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in Mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore in official publications.

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Debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities.

Retronym "Traditional Chinese" is used to contrast traditional characters with "simplified Chinese characters", a standardized character set introduced in the 1950s by the government of the People's Republic of China on Mainland China.

Traditional characters are used informally, primarily in handwriting, but for inscriptions and religious text.

In Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional characters Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times.

In recent years simplified Chinese Traditional characters are used to accommodate Mainland Chinese tourists and immigrants.

The use of simplified Traditional characters has led to residents being concerned about protecting their local heritage.

Nevertheless, simplified Traditional characters might be understood by some Taiwanese people, as it could take little effort to learn them.

Traditional Chinese characters are known by different names within the Chinese-speaking world.

Some users of traditional characters argue that traditional characters are the original form of the Chinese characters and cannot be called "complex".

Similarly, they argue that simplified Traditional characters cannot be called "standard" because they are not used in all Chinese-speaking regions.

Secondly, alternative Traditional characters were used when the same Traditional characters were repeated in context to show that the repetition was intentional rather than a mistake.

In font filenames and descriptions, the acronym TC is used to signify the use of traditional Chinese characters to differentiate fonts that use SC for Simplified Chinese characters.

Furthermore, Traditional characters that are not included in the Joyo list are generally recommended to be printed in their original non-simplified forms, save for a few exceptions.

Traditional Chinese characters are used by non-Chinese ethnic groups, especially the Maniq people—of southern Yala Province of Thailand and northeastern Kedah state of Malaysia—for writing the Kensiu language.