Difference between the TRADITIONAL Chinese and SIMPLIFIED Chinese Mnemonic Words

[TheDigitalMan]

I am working on a mnemonic list project that will be printed.  I noticed on git hub that there are 10 different lists.  Most of them are different languages but two of the lists are CHINESE.  One is TRADITIONAL CHINESE while the other is SIMPLIFIED CHINESE.

I have decided I am going to print my project in all the different languages so that people of the various languages can acquire my project in their language.

So I am wondering what the difference is between these two CHINESE lists?  If you were me would you print BOTH lists?  Or just print one and if only one, which one?

I am not Chinese and so I am trying to understand what the fundamental differences are in these two lists.  I've noticed that some of the words seem to be the exact same symbols, while others are clearly different.

Thank you for your time.

Kresp

[1714590269]

1714590269

[1714590269]

1714590269

[Reatim]

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 isn’t the one most used i believe

[Catenaccio]

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.

[Churchillvv]

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.

[DaveF]

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

[odolvlobo]

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

[TheDigitalMan]

@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