I'm putting together a mnemonic list project that I plan to print. While checking out GitHub, I came across 10 different lists. Most are in various languages, but there are two specifically for CHINESE. One is for TRADITIONAL CHINESE and the other for SIMPLIFIED CHINESE.
I've decided to offer my project in all the languages so everyone can access it in their preferred language.
So, I'm curious about the differences between these two CHINESE lists. If you were in my shoes, would you print BOTH versions? Or just one? And if it's just one, which one should I choose?
Since I'm not Chinese, I'm trying to wrap my head around the key differences between these two lists. I've seen some words that are exactly the same symbols, while others look quite different.
Thanks for your help.
Kresp
Mate, why is this in the bitcoin discussion?
Kind of confused how does this correlate to bitcoin
please specify or explain your project further if it does
have association with bitcoin otherwise I think it would be best
to move this in the off-topic section.
Anyway to answer your questions, simplified chinese is already stated in its name:
simplified it is easier to read for beginners however a native or someone
who really knows chinese could most likely read both but i will just go with traditional
as simplified isnt the one most used i believe
I am not Chinese too but I guess Chinese (Traditional) and Chinese (Simplified) are different in their writings.
It you can try to check, match words in two lists, you can find differences.
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/tree/master/bip-0039
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/chinese_simplified.txt
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/chinese_traditional.txt
Online tool
https://iancoleman.io/bip39/
BIP 39 word list
https://privacypros.io/bip39-word-list/#
If you worry about Chinese lists, you can use English list, an international list that can be easily used by many people. Like your clients use Chinese list but later the person inherits that bitcoin can not use the list in Chinese, it sucks.
I'm not also from the Chinese but from my perspective, since the mnemonic words were writing in both Chinese it means that one of the two does not clearly understand the other language properly.
So if you have to print then it should be in the two languages too, or you can choose the simplified Chinese because I believe it was coined from the traditional chinese language so the chance of traditional Chinese to understand the simplified is high but for the vice to understand it's a little bit difficult.
For most people there is no difference.
The best description I have seen online about the difference between the 2 is this one: https://blog.pangeanic.com/difference-between-traditional-and-simplified-chinese
I would print both. Ink & toner & paper are cheap. Having you or someone else loose access to a wallet because they did not have the correct word list is expensive.
Also, keep in mind, in the PC world there are some subtle differences between the character sets when loaded. I do not think it matters in BTC / crypto. But why risk it.
-Dave
One reason is that traditional and simplified are not just different fonts. The character encodings have differences so the same phrase may result in different seeds.
Another reason is that the words in the lists differ because of how the words were chosen.
Read about it here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/114
@Reatim - My apologies if this was posted in the wrong place. It applies to bitcoin in that I was asking about the mnemonic word lists. But if it should have been elsewhere then please accept my humble apology.
@ DaveF - Thanks for the article on the differences. I found it very interesting and after reading through it I have come to the same conclusion that you suggested. I'm going to just produce BOTH lists. I believe there will be a market for both of them. I will let the Chinese people purchasing the item make the final decision. They will have a choice and can acquire either version.
@odolvlobo - I also found this article interesting. And the fact that the same word can represent a different value on each list is significant! I had not realized the two lists were that different. Ultimately I'm just going to treat them as two separate lists/languages and whenever the person buying my product goes to order it they can pick which of the 10 languages/lists on github they want to order.
I appreciate the insight everyone provided. It was appreciated.
Kresp