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It is well-known that language is the carrier of culture，which is always changing with the development of society.English and Chinese are quite different that the former is in Indo-European language family while the latter belongs to Sino-Tibetan language family.However，why we make comparative study of these two languages？ That is because we would like to seek something in common to advance the communication of English countries and China in the tendency of globalization.
From the history of language development we know that the general tendency of the development of language is toward simplicity and directness.Taking English and Chinese as examples，I would like to share something about language simplification through four aspect including spelling，speech sound，vocabulary as well as oral expressions.
First aspect of simplification is in the spelling or writing.
For English，the writing style of English letters changed a lot.Actually the twenty-six English letters such as A，B，C，D and forth we use today come from Latin which derive from Greek that root in Phonecian alphabet.According to research，almost every language originates from pictures.For an instance，“B” originally looked like the primitive two-chambered，far-eastern house，with its one room for the men and the other for the women.The majority of the pictures are more complex than letters we write today.They are becoming more and more simply and direct.The simplification of writing style is obvious in Chinese characters.Through observing calligraphic forms of the same character 象in Oracle-Bone inscription，inscriptions on ancient bronze objects，seal character，official script，regular script，running script，cursive script as well as standard Songti，we can see the written form is becoming simply，which can be showed as following.
Second aspect is in the speech sound.
The simplification of consonant is more convenient to find in English that can be seen from the compound consonant simplification or even disappearing.For instance，in the late Middle Ages，the consonant[h]had disappeared from the initial compound consonants as hr，hl and hn in Old English.Take the word “leap” as an example that its initial form is hleapan.And in the early Modern English，the pronunciation of[k]，[g]and[w]disappeared from kn，gn and wr like words “knee”，“gnaw” and “write”.Besides，in order to make the pronunciation much easier，some consonants had been discarded like[d]disappeared in “sandwich”，“kindness”，ect. The Great Vowel Shift was the watershed between Old English and Early Modern English，which greatly simplified the vowel system.In some cases such change involves Vowel Merge，where two or three vowels have gradually becomes a single vowel in contemporary speech.For example，in East Anglian English，spoken in a region known as East Anglia，in the east of England，certain diphthongs and triphthongs have combined to become monophthongs.For example，sure：[]changed into[]； player：[]into[]； fire：[]into[]； tower：[]into[]； plague：[]into[].And in some multisyllabic words，the vowel between two consonants is usually neglected.For example，people may pronounce family as fam’ly，literature as lit’rature，temperature as temp’rature，memory as mem’ry，opposite as opp’site，police as p’lice，etc.Besides，for some difficult pronunciation，people turn a blind eye to the phoneme like fifth that people may pronounce it as[fifs]instead of[fifs].
According to Wangli（1958），the signification of speech sound is also the tendency of Chinese.In the aspect of onset，the number reduced from thirty-five to twenty-one in our modern Chinese.In the aspect of rhyme，the amount decreased from two hundred and six to thirty-nine in modern Chinese.The compound consonants completely disappeared.
The third aspect is in the vocabulary.With the development of economy and the quickening pace of life，people pay more attention to “economy” that everything must be efficient and convenient.These changes naturally are reflected from the communicative tool language，and as the most active factor in language，vocabulary can directly reflect the requirement of life.Thus，in order to meet the requirements of social development，vocabulary needs to be inevitably simplified.In addition to this，the simplification of speech sound also leads to the vocabulary simplification which can save time and space in communication.Such kind of signification phenomenon mainly reflected in English word-formation like acronym，abbreviation，clipping as well as blending.I just choose the clipping to illustrate the simplicity of English.
Clipping is the word formation process which consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts，which is quite different from abbreviation that has the pronunciation as well as the form.Compared to the original word，such kind of form is easier to read and write.For example，words in back-clipping like ad（advertisement），prof（professor），dorm（dormitory），lab（laboratory） and memo（memorandum）； in front-clipping like quake （earthquake），copter（helicopter），bus（omnibus） and phone （telephone）； in front and back-clipping like flu （influenza），tec（detective），jams（pajamas） and fridge （refrigerator）； in phrase clipping like pop（popular music），pub（public house），perm（permanent waves），zoo（zoological garden） and gents（Gentlemen’s Room）. Except for the vocabulary simplification，we may find the phenomenon from expressions in English and Chinese.With the development of modern science and technology，social communications become frequent.The role of the spoken language in social life is becoming more and more important，and the tendency of colloquial is inevitable.Chinese becomes more and more popular and easier to understand compared with classical Chinese texts，which tends to be colloquial.
To achieve conciseness of expression，the link verb be and some auxiliary verbs in English are used in their contractions in sentences.
You’ll be in time if you hurry.
If you are looking for your file，it’s on the table.
She couldn’t hold back her tears.
By using contractions the sentences are greatly simplified.
Compared with written language，spoken language is not so rigorous and complete that speakers can communicate through gestures and expressions.Sometimes，it is unnecessary to finish the sentence then the hearer could understand the meaning，so elliptical sentence appears.For instance，people use “Pardon” or “Pardon me” to replace “I beg your pardon”； “What” to replace “What did you say”； “Not really.” to deny what the speaker says； “Exactly” or “Absolutely” to affirm what the speaker says.When answering others，elliptical sentence is the first choice.For example，“Yes，I am.”，“No，she didn’t.” and so forth.It really can achieve an effect of conciseness and comprehensiveness to use elliptical sentences.
With the widespread use of ellipsis，there appears a new tendency that some action verbs get their abbreviated forms.
want to = wanna
I wanna go shopping in the afternoon.
going to = gonna
He says he is not gonna leave so soon.
Have to = hafta
I hafta leave now.
In Chinese，the omission of sentence elements is a common phenomenon.
e.g.我比她（的个头或成绩）高。
Such kind of sentence must be used in certain context，so that people could understand the real meaning accordingly.
And in English people often use nouns as adjectives to take place of phrase or subordinate clause or use non-finite verbal forms to replace subordinate clause.
e.g.job hunt = hunt for job
You can buy what you like during the fall sale happening now.
In Chinese the replacement can be found in the abstract forms like “枪杆子” meaning armed struggle； “耍笔杆” meaning writing.
With the rapid development of society，the tendency of language simplification is prominent day by day； the step is accelerating； the forms are becoming diverse.It can be predicted that driven by the principle of convenience and economy，language in the future will still go along the road of simplification and move to a standard，scientific and practical direction that writing，speech sound as well as vocabulary will be much easier.
It is of value to grasp the pulse of language development to learn and apply language better by examining the phenomenon of language simplification.
References：
[1]Liming，xiao，English-Chinese Comparative Studies and Translation.Shanghai：Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press，2010.
[2]Foster，Brian，The Changing English Language.The Macmillan Press Ltd.，1968.
[3]Jespersen，O.Language：Its nature，development and origin.London：George Allen
From the history of language development we know that the general tendency of the development of language is toward simplicity and directness.Taking English and Chinese as examples，I would like to share something about language simplification through four aspect including spelling，speech sound，vocabulary as well as oral expressions.
First aspect of simplification is in the spelling or writing.
For English，the writing style of English letters changed a lot.Actually the twenty-six English letters such as A，B，C，D and forth we use today come from Latin which derive from Greek that root in Phonecian alphabet.According to research，almost every language originates from pictures.For an instance，“B” originally looked like the primitive two-chambered，far-eastern house，with its one room for the men and the other for the women.The majority of the pictures are more complex than letters we write today.They are becoming more and more simply and direct.The simplification of writing style is obvious in Chinese characters.Through observing calligraphic forms of the same character 象in Oracle-Bone inscription，inscriptions on ancient bronze objects，seal character，official script，regular script，running script，cursive script as well as standard Songti，we can see the written form is becoming simply，which can be showed as following.
Second aspect is in the speech sound.
The simplification of consonant is more convenient to find in English that can be seen from the compound consonant simplification or even disappearing.For instance，in the late Middle Ages，the consonant[h]had disappeared from the initial compound consonants as hr，hl and hn in Old English.Take the word “leap” as an example that its initial form is hleapan.And in the early Modern English，the pronunciation of[k]，[g]and[w]disappeared from kn，gn and wr like words “knee”，“gnaw” and “write”.Besides，in order to make the pronunciation much easier，some consonants had been discarded like[d]disappeared in “sandwich”，“kindness”，ect. The Great Vowel Shift was the watershed between Old English and Early Modern English，which greatly simplified the vowel system.In some cases such change involves Vowel Merge，where two or three vowels have gradually becomes a single vowel in contemporary speech.For example，in East Anglian English，spoken in a region known as East Anglia，in the east of England，certain diphthongs and triphthongs have combined to become monophthongs.For example，sure：[]changed into[]； player：[]into[]； fire：[]into[]； tower：[]into[]； plague：[]into[].And in some multisyllabic words，the vowel between two consonants is usually neglected.For example，people may pronounce family as fam’ly，literature as lit’rature，temperature as temp’rature，memory as mem’ry，opposite as opp’site，police as p’lice，etc.Besides，for some difficult pronunciation，people turn a blind eye to the phoneme like fifth that people may pronounce it as[fifs]instead of[fifs].
According to Wangli（1958），the signification of speech sound is also the tendency of Chinese.In the aspect of onset，the number reduced from thirty-five to twenty-one in our modern Chinese.In the aspect of rhyme，the amount decreased from two hundred and six to thirty-nine in modern Chinese.The compound consonants completely disappeared.
The third aspect is in the vocabulary.With the development of economy and the quickening pace of life，people pay more attention to “economy” that everything must be efficient and convenient.These changes naturally are reflected from the communicative tool language，and as the most active factor in language，vocabulary can directly reflect the requirement of life.Thus，in order to meet the requirements of social development，vocabulary needs to be inevitably simplified.In addition to this，the simplification of speech sound also leads to the vocabulary simplification which can save time and space in communication.Such kind of signification phenomenon mainly reflected in English word-formation like acronym，abbreviation，clipping as well as blending.I just choose the clipping to illustrate the simplicity of English.
Clipping is the word formation process which consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts，which is quite different from abbreviation that has the pronunciation as well as the form.Compared to the original word，such kind of form is easier to read and write.For example，words in back-clipping like ad（advertisement），prof（professor），dorm（dormitory），lab（laboratory） and memo（memorandum）； in front-clipping like quake （earthquake），copter（helicopter），bus（omnibus） and phone （telephone）； in front and back-clipping like flu （influenza），tec（detective），jams（pajamas） and fridge （refrigerator）； in phrase clipping like pop（popular music），pub（public house），perm（permanent waves），zoo（zoological garden） and gents（Gentlemen’s Room）. Except for the vocabulary simplification，we may find the phenomenon from expressions in English and Chinese.With the development of modern science and technology，social communications become frequent.The role of the spoken language in social life is becoming more and more important，and the tendency of colloquial is inevitable.Chinese becomes more and more popular and easier to understand compared with classical Chinese texts，which tends to be colloquial.
To achieve conciseness of expression，the link verb be and some auxiliary verbs in English are used in their contractions in sentences.
You’ll be in time if you hurry.
If you are looking for your file，it’s on the table.
She couldn’t hold back her tears.
By using contractions the sentences are greatly simplified.
Compared with written language，spoken language is not so rigorous and complete that speakers can communicate through gestures and expressions.Sometimes，it is unnecessary to finish the sentence then the hearer could understand the meaning，so elliptical sentence appears.For instance，people use “Pardon” or “Pardon me” to replace “I beg your pardon”； “What” to replace “What did you say”； “Not really.” to deny what the speaker says； “Exactly” or “Absolutely” to affirm what the speaker says.When answering others，elliptical sentence is the first choice.For example，“Yes，I am.”，“No，she didn’t.” and so forth.It really can achieve an effect of conciseness and comprehensiveness to use elliptical sentences.
With the widespread use of ellipsis，there appears a new tendency that some action verbs get their abbreviated forms.
want to = wanna
I wanna go shopping in the afternoon.
going to = gonna
He says he is not gonna leave so soon.
Have to = hafta
I hafta leave now.
In Chinese，the omission of sentence elements is a common phenomenon.
e.g.我比她（的个头或成绩）高。
Such kind of sentence must be used in certain context，so that people could understand the real meaning accordingly.
And in English people often use nouns as adjectives to take place of phrase or subordinate clause or use non-finite verbal forms to replace subordinate clause.
e.g.job hunt = hunt for job
You can buy what you like during the fall sale happening now.
In Chinese the replacement can be found in the abstract forms like “枪杆子” meaning armed struggle； “耍笔杆” meaning writing.
With the rapid development of society，the tendency of language simplification is prominent day by day； the step is accelerating； the forms are becoming diverse.It can be predicted that driven by the principle of convenience and economy，language in the future will still go along the road of simplification and move to a standard，scientific and practical direction that writing，speech sound as well as vocabulary will be much easier.
It is of value to grasp the pulse of language development to learn and apply language better by examining the phenomenon of language simplification.
References：
[1]Liming，xiao，English-Chinese Comparative Studies and Translation.Shanghai：Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press，2010.
[2]Foster，Brian，The Changing English Language.The Macmillan Press Ltd.，1968.
[3]Jespersen，O.Language：Its nature，development and origin.London：George Allen