gnu copypasta (modified)
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Traditional/Simplified Chinese, is in fact, Mandarin/Chinese, or as I've recently taken to calling it, Mandarin plus Chinese. Traditional/Simplified Chinese is not a language unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning written language made useful by the words, pronunciation and syntax comprising a full language as defined by linguists.Many computer users write a modified version of Mandarin every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of Mandarin Chinese which is widely used today is often called Chinese, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically Mandarin, developed by the Nationalism Project.
There really is a Traditional/Simplified Chinese, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the language they use. Traditional/Simplified Chinese is the writing system: the set of symbols that allocates representations to the words that you use. The writing system is an essential part of a written language, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete language. Traditional/Simplified Chinese is normally used in combination with the Mandarin language: the whole language is basically Mandarin written in Traditional/Simplified Chinese, or Mandarin/Chinese. So-called Traditional/Simplified Chinese are really written forms of Mandarin/Chinese!