Second round of simplified Chinese characters
The second round of Chinese character simplification[b] was an aborted script reform promulgated on 20 December 1977 by the People's Republic of China (PRC).
[6] Also released in 1964 was a directive for further simplification in order to improve literacy, with the goal of eventually reducing the number of strokes in commonly used characters to ten or fewer.
In 1975, a second round of simplifications, the Second Scheme, was submitted by the Script Reform Committee of China to the State Council for approval.
[10] The Second Scheme was received extremely poorly, and as early as mid-1978, the Ministry of Education and the Central Propaganda Department were asking publishers of textbooks, newspapers, and other works to stop using the second-round simplifications.
[14][15] The sheer number of characters it changed, the distinction between simplifications intended for immediate use and those for review was not maintained in practice, and its release in the shadow of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1978) have been cited among the chief reasons for its failure.
[9][16][17][18] As a result of the Cultural Revolution, trained experts were expelled and the Second Scheme was compiled by the committee and its staffers without outside consultation, which may also have been a factor.
[19] A two-year delay from 1975 to 1977 was officially blamed on Zhang Chunqiao, a member of the Gang of Four; however, there is little historical evidence to support this.
[20] Against the political backdrop of the Cultural Revolution, a special section known as the "748 Project" was formed with an emphasis on non-experts, under whose supervision the lists grew significantly.
[18][21] The Second Scheme's subsequent rejection by the public has been cited as a case study in a failed attempt to artificially control the direction of a language's evolution.
[24] Political issues aside, Chen Ping objects to the notion that all characters should be reduced to ten or fewer strokes.
[25] Citing several studies, Hannas similarly argues against the lack of differentiation and utility: "it was meaningless to lower the stroke count for its own sake."
[31] However, the possibility of future changes remains,[32] and the difficulties the Chinese writing system presents for information technology have renewed the Romanization debate.
