The Chinese language is one of the oldest languages in the world and it is also evolving with the times, something that makes it a current language rather than just an old one. In the past, the Chinese government emphasized the need to keep the Chinese language as pure as it could be, not influenced by any Western cultures that may destroy its integrity. But with the advent of the internet, the rise of China as a world economic and political power, there was seen an evolution of the language that many conservatives approve of.
One evolution is getting the language into the internet. In the past, the internet was solely a medium that the English speaking countries could benefit from and even the keyboards are Western influenced. But with the rise of popularity in the use of the internet. and the more international relationships came to the front, even the keyboard was translated into the Chinese language.
The evolution included computer language that makes it possible to "recognize chinese chracters. , about 32,000 of these. Of course there is still a lot of innovation to be done so the more than 55,000 characters can be duly recognized by the 32,000 is a great improvement. With this number in the computer, the more obscure characters are not as popularly used, resulting to a modernization of the Chinese language.
But the internet was not the only influencing factor here. The Communist Party in the past campaigned to also reduce the number of characters used in the written language to counter illiteracy issues within the population. There was a push to simplify the characters that later on became the most used characters, effectively replacing the more traditional ones.
With the simplification of the Chinese characters and language, there was a democratization of the language. It is a fact that it was just the rich families who were taught the more intricate and obscure Chinese characters leaving the rest of the population wondering on the side. So from the elitist to the populist, the Chinese language is the way it is now, despite the arguments of the purists who want to stick to the more traditional. But with this new and evolving language, there is now a greater chance for the Chinese to step into the global market.
