Campaigners in Hong Kong have launched an online petition to encourage the United Nations to publish official documents in the ancient Chinese script used in the city, a report said Sunday.
More than 150,000 people have signed the petition calling for the return of traditional Chinese characters in UN documents, after the organisation switched to so-called simplified Chinese in the 1970s, the Sunday Morning Post reported.
China devised the simplified system in the 1950s to boost literacy, but the then foreign-controlled southern territories of Hong Kong and Macau, as well as Taiwan, retained the ancient traditional script.
The UN began using the modernised Chinese after it switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.
Hong Kong has three official languages — English, the local Cantonese dialect of Chinese and Chinas official Mandarin dialect.
