Chinese Characters

Chinese characters - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.
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Chinese characters
Chinese characters are logograms developed for the
writing of Chinese.[2][3][4] They have been adapted to write Chinese characters
a number of other Asian languages. They remain a key Type Logographic
component of the Japanese writing system where they are
Languages Chinese, Japanese,
known as kanji. Chinese characters constitute the oldest
Korean, Okinawan,
continuously used system of writing in the world.[5] By
virtue of their widespread current use in East Asia, and Vietnamese
historic use throughout the Sinosphere, Chinese characters (formerly), Zhuang
are among the most widely adopted writing systems in the Time Bronze Age China to
world by number of users. Chinese characters number in period present
the tens of thousands, though most of them are minor
Parent Oracle bone script
graphic variants encountered only in historical texts.
systems
Unlike an alphabet, a character-based writing system
Chinese
associates each logogram with an entire sound and thus
characters
may be compared in some aspects to a syllabary.
Direction Left-to-right
Functional literacy in written Chinese requires a knowledge
ISO 15924
of between three and four thousand characters.[6] In Japan,
Hani, 500
2,136 are taught through secondary school (the Jōyō Unicode Han
kanji); hundreds more are in everyday use. Due to post- alias
WWII simplifications of characters in Japan as well as in
China, the Chinese characters used in Japan today are Chinese characters
distinct from those used in China in several respects. There
are various national standard lists of characters, forms, and
pronunciations. Simplified forms of certain characters are
used in mainland China, Singapore, and Malaysia; the
corresponding traditional characters are used in Taiwan,
Hong Kong, Macau, and to a limited extent in South Korea.
In Japan, common characters are written in post-WWII Hanzi (Chinese character) in
Japan-specific simplified forms, while uncommon traditional (left) and simplified form
characters are written in Japanese traditional forms, which (right)
are virtually identical to Chinese traditional forms.
Chinese name
In modern Chinese, the majority of Chinese words today Simplified Chinese
consist of two or more characters.[7] A character almost
always corresponds to a single syllable that is also a Traditional Chinese
morpheme.[8] However, there are a few exceptions to this Literal meaning "Han
general correspondence, including bisyllabic morphemes characters"
(written with two characters), bimorphemic syllables
Transcriptions
(written with two characters) and cases where a single
character represents a polysyllabic word or phrase.[9] Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin hànzì
Modern Chinese has many homophones; thus the same
Bopomofo ˋ ˋ
spoken syllable may be represented by many characters,
depending on meaning. A single character may also have a Gwoyeu Romatzyh Hanntzyh
range of meanings, or sometimes quite distinct meanings; Wade–Giles han4-tzŭ4
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Chinese characters - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters
occasionally these correspond to different pronunciations. IPA [xân.tsɨ]̂

Cognates in the several varieties of Chinese are generally
Wu
written with the same character. In other languages, most
significantly today in Japanese and sometimes in Korean, Shanghainese [høz]
characters are used to represent Chinese loanwords, to Romanization
represent native words independently of the Chinese Gan
pronunciation (e.g., kunyomi in Japanese), and as purely
Romanization hon5-ci5
phonetic elements based on their pronunciation in the
historical variety of Chinese from which they were Hakka
acquired. These foreign adaptations of Chinese Romanization hon55 sii55
pronunciation are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations
Yue: Cantonese
and have been useful in the reconstruction of Middle
Chinese. Yale Romanization hon-jih
Jyutping hon3-zi6
IPA [hɔ̄ːn.tsìː]
Contents Southern Min
Function Hokkien POJ hàn-jī
Principles of formation Teochew Peng'im hang3 ri7

Pictograms Eastern Min
Simple ideograms Fuzhou BUC háng-cê
Associative idea characters (compound conceptual
characters) Middle Chinese
Rebus Middle Chinese xanCdzɨC

Phonetical usage for foreign words Vietnamese name
Phono-semantic compounds Vietnamese Hán tự
Transformed cognates
Hán-Nôm
History
Zhuang name
Legendary origins
Early sign use Zhuang 倱[1]
Oracle bone script Sawgun
Bronze Age: parallel script forms and gradual Korean name
evolution
Unification: seal script, vulgar writing and proto- Hangul 한자
clerical Hanja 漢字
Han dynasty
Transcriptions
Proto-clerical evolving to clerical
Revised Romanization Hanja
Clerical and clerical cursive
Neo-clerical McCune–Reischauer hancha
Semi-cursive Japanese name
Wei to Jin period Kanji 漢字
Regular script
Modern cursive
Hiragana かんじ
Dominance and maturation of regular script Transcriptions

Modern history Revised Hepburn kanji
Adaptation to other languages Kunrei-shiki kanzi
Japanese
Korean
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Okinawan
Vietnamese
Other languages
Transcription of foreign languages
Simplification
Simplification in China
Simplification in Japan
Southeast Asian Chinese communities
North America
Comparisons of traditional Chinese, simplified
Chinese, and Japanese
Written styles
Calligraphy
Typography and design
Variants
Regional standards
Polysyllabic morphemes
Polysyllabic characters
Rare and complex characters
Number of characters
Chinese
Japanese
Modern creation
Indexing
See also
Notes
References
Citations
Works cited
Further reading
External links
Function
When the script was first used in the late 2nd millennium BC, words of Old Chinese were
generally monosyllabic, and each character denoted a single word.[10] Increasing numbers of
polysyllabic words have entered the language from the Western Zhou period to the present day.
It is estimated that about 25–30% of the vocabulary of classic texts from the Warring States
period was polysyllabic, though these words were used far less commonly than monosyllables,
which accounted for 80–90% of occurrences in these texts.[11] The process has accelerated over
the centuries as phonetic change has increased the number of homophones.[12] It has been
estimated that over two thirds of the 3,000 most common words in modern Standard Chinese
are polysyllables, the vast majority of those being disyllables.[13]
The most common process has been to form compounds of existing words, written with the
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characters of the constituent words. Words have also been created by adding affixes,
reduplication and borrowing from other languages.[14] Polysyllabic words are generally written
with one character per syllable.[15][a] In most cases the character denotes a morpheme
descended from an Old Chinese word.[16]
Many characters have multiple readings, with instances denoting different morphemes,
sometimes with different pronunciations. In modern Standard Chinese, one fifth of the 2,400
most common characters have multiple pronunciations. For the 500 most common characters,
the proportion rises to 30%.[17] Often these readings are similar in sound and related in
meaning. In the Old Chinese period, affixes could be added to a word to form a new word,
which was often written with the same character. In many cases the pronunciations diverged
due to subsequent sound change. For example, many additional readings have the Middle
Chinese departing tone, the major source of the 4th tone in modern Standard Chinese. Scholars
now believe that this tone is the reflex of an Old Chinese *-s suffix, with a range of semantic
functions.[18] For example,
/ has readings OC *drjon > MC drjwen > Mod. chuán 'to transmit' and *drjons >
drjwenH > zhuàn 'a record'.[19] (Middle Chinese forms are given in Baxter's transcription, in
which H denotes the departing tone.)
has readings *maj > ma > mó 'to grind' and *majs > maH > mò 'grindstone'.[19]
has readings *sjuk > sjuwk > sù 'to stay overnight' and *sjuks > sjuwH > xiù 'celestial
"mansion"'.[20]
/ has readings *hljot > sywet > shuō 'speak' and *hljots > sywejH > shuì 'exhort'.[21]
Another common alternation is between voiced and voiceless initials (though the voicing
distinction has disappeared on most modern varieties). This is believed to reflect an ancient
prefix, but scholars disagree on whether the voiced or voiceless form is the original root. For
example,
/ has readings *kens > kenH > jiàn 'to see' and *gens > henH > xiàn 'to appear'.[22]
/ has readings *prats > pæjH > bài 'to defeat' and *brats > bæjH > bài 'to be
defeated'.[22] (In this case the pronunciations have converged in Standard Chinese, but not
in some other varieties.)
has readings *tjat > tsyet > zhé 'to bend' and *djat > dzyet > shé 'to break by
bending'.[23]
Principles of formation
Chinese characters represent words of the language using several strategies. A few characters,
including some of the most commonly used, were originally pictograms, which depicted the
objects denoted, or ideograms, in which meaning was expressed iconically. The vast majority
were written using the rebus principle, in which a character for a similarly sounding word was
either simply borrowed or (more commonly) extended with a disambiguating semantic marker
to form a phono-semantic compound character.[24]
The traditional six-fold classification (liùshū 六书 / 六書 "six writings") was first described by
the scholar Xu Shen in the postface of his dictionary Shuowen Jiezi in 100 AD.[25] While this
analysis is sometimes problematic and arguably fails to reflect the complete nature of the
Chinese writing system, it has been perpetuated by its long history and pervasive use.
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Pictograms
xiàngxíngzì
Pictograms are highly stylized and simplified pictures of material

objects. Examples of pictograms include ⽇ rì for "sun", ⽉ yuè for
"moon", and ⽊ mù for "tree" or "wood". Xu Shen placed
approximately 4% of characters in this category. Though few in
number and expressing literal objects, pictograms and ideograms are
nonetheless the basis on which all the more complex characters such
as associative idea characters ( ) and pictophonetic characters
( ) are formed.
Excerpt from a 1436
Pictograms are primary characters in the sense that they, along with primer on Chinese
ideograms (indicative characters i.e. symbols), are the building characters
blocks of compound characters ( ) and picto-phonetic
characters ( ).
Over time pictograms were increasingly

standardized, simplified, and stylized to make
them easier to write. Furthermore, the same
kangxi radical character element can be used to Sun
depict different objects. Thus, the image
depicted by most pictograms is not often
immediately evident. For example may
indicate the mouth, a window as in which
depicts a tall building as a symbol of the idea of
"tall" or the lip of a vessel as in a wine jar Mountain
under a roof as symbol of wealth. That is,
pictograms extended from literal objects to take
on symbolic or metaphoric meanings;
sometimes even displacing the use of the
character as a literal term, or creating
ambiguity, which was resolved though Elephant
character determinants, more commonly but
Evolution of pictograms
less accurately known as "radicals" i.e. concept
keys in the phono-semantic characters.
Simple ideograms
zhǐshìzì
Also called simple indicatives, this small category contains characters that are direct iconic
illustrations. Examples include 上 shàng "up" and 下 xià "down", originally a dot above and
below a line. Indicative characters are symbols for abstract concepts which could not be
depicted literally but nonetheless can be expressed as a visual symbol e.g. concave convex
, flat-and-level
Associative idea characters (compound conceptual characters)
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/ huìyìzì
Also translated as logical aggregates or associative compounds, these characters have been
interpreted as combining two or more pictographic or ideographic characters to suggest a third
meaning. The canonical example is 明 bright. is the association of the two brightest objects
in the sky the sun and moon , brought together to express the idea of "bright". It is
canonical because the term in Chinese (lit. "bright white") means "to understand,
understand". Other commonly cited examples include 休 "rest" (composed of the pictograms ⼈
"person" and ⽊ "tree") and 好 "good" (composed of ⼥ "woman" and ⼦ "child").
Xu Shen placed approximately 13% of characters in this category, but many of his examples are
now believed to be phono-semantic compounds whose origin has been obscured by subsequent
changes in their form.[26] Peter Boodberg and William Boltz go so far as to deny that any of the
compound characters devised in ancient times were of this type, maintaining that now-lost
"secondary readings" are responsible for the apparent absence of phonetic indicators,[27] but
their arguments have been rejected by other scholars.[28]
In contrast, associative compound characters are common among characters coined in Japan.
Also, a few characters coined in China in modern times, such as 鉑 platinum, "white metal" (see
chemical elements in East Asian languages) belong to this category.
Rebus
jiǎjièzì
Also called borrowings or phonetic loan characters, the rebus category covers cases where an
existing character is used to represent an unrelated word with similar or identical
pronunciation; sometimes the old meaning is then lost completely, as with characters such as
⾃ zì, which has lost its original meaning of "nose" completely and exclusively means "oneself",
or 萬 wàn, which originally meant "scorpion" but is now used only in the sense of "ten
thousand".
Rebus was pivotal in the history of writing in China insofar as it represented the stage at which
logographic writing could become purely phonetic (phonographic). Chinese characters used
purely for their sound values are attested in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period
manuscripts, in which zhi ⽒ was used to write shi 是 and vice versa, just lines apart; the same
happened with shao for Zhao 趙, with the characters in question being homophonous or
nearly homophonous at the time.[29]
Phonetical usage for foreign words
Chinese characters are used rebus-like and exclusively for their phonetic value when
transcribing words of foreign origin, such as ancient Buddhist terms or modern foreign names.
For example, the word for the country "Romania" is (Luó Mǎ Ní Yà), in which the
Chinese characters are only used for their sounds and do not provide any meaning.[30] This
usage is similar to that of the Japanese Katakana, although the Katakanas use a special set of
simplified forms of Chinese characters, in order to advertize their value as purely phonetic
symbols. The same rebus principle for names in particular has also been used in Egyptian
hieroglyphs and Maya hieroglyphs.[31] In the Chinese usage, in a few instances, the characters
used for pronunciation might be carefully chosen in order to connote a specific meaning, as
regularly happens for brand names: Coca-Cola is translated phonetically as (Kěkǒu
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Kělè), but the characters were carefully selected so as to have the additional meaning of
"Delicious and Enjoyable".[30][31]
Phono-semantic compounds
/ xíngshēngzì
Semantic-phonetic
compounds or
Structures of compounds, with red marked positions of radicals
pictophonetic
compounds are by far
the most numerous
characters. These characters are composed of at least two parts. A semantic component, often a
character key as a clue to the topic to which the character refers, often in an abbreviated form,
The semantic component suggests the general meaning of the compound character. The
phonetic component suggests the pronunciation of the compound character. In most cases the
semantic indicator is also the radical under which the character is listed in dictionaries.
Because Chinese is replete in homophones phonetic elements may also carry semantic content.
In some rare examples phono-semantic characters may also convey pictorial content. Each
Chinese character is an attempt to combine sound, image, and idea in a mutually reinforcing
fashion.
Examples of phono-semantic characters include 河 hé "river", 湖 hú "lake", 流 liú "stream", 沖

chōng "surge", 滑 huá "slippery". All these characters have on the left a radical of three short
strokes ( ), which is a reduced form of the character shuǐ meaning "water", indicating that
the character has a semantic connection with water. The right-hand side in each case is a
phonetic indicator. For example, in the case of 沖 chōng (Old Chinese *ɡ-ljuŋ[32]) "surge", the
phonetic indicator is 中 zhōng (Old Chinese *k-ljuŋ[33]), which by itself means "middle". In this
case it can be seen that the pronunciation of the character is slightly different from that of its
phonetic indicator; the effect of historical sound change means that the composition of such
characters can sometimes seem arbitrary today.
In general, phonetic components do not determine the exact pronunciation of a character, but
only give a clue to a its pronunciation. While some characters take the exact pronunciation of
their phonetic component, others take only the initial or final sounds.[34] In fact, some
characters' pronunciations may not correspond to the pronunciations of their phonetic parts at
all, which is sometimes the case with characters after having undergone simplification. The 8
characters in the following table all take for their phonetic part, however, as it is readily
apparent, none of them take the pronunciation of , which is yě (Old Chinese *lajʔ). As the
table below shows, the sound changes that have taken place since the Shang/Zhou period when
most of these characters were created can be dramatic, to the point of not providing any useful
hint of the modern pronunciation.
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8 PHONO-SEMANTIC COMPOUNDS WITH PHONETIC PART (YĚ)[35]
Phonetic
Character Semantic part pinyin meaning
part
(originally a pictograph of a grammatical particle;

(none) yě
vagina)[36] also
water chí pool
/ / horse chí gallop
bow (bend) chí relaxation
flag shī application
earth dì (de) ground
person tā he
female tā she
/ (archaic tuō drag

hand
form)
Xu Shen (c. 100 AD) placed approximately 82% of characters into this category, while in the
Kangxi Dictionary (1716 AD) the number is closer to 90%, due to the extremely productive use
of this technique to extend the Chinese vocabulary. The Chu Nom characters of Vietnam were
created using this principle.
This method is used to form new characters, for example 钚 / 鈈 bù ("plutonium") is the metal
radical ⾦ jīn plus the phonetic component 不 bù, described in Chinese as "不 gives sound, ⾦
gives meaning". Many Chinese names of elements in the periodic table and many other
chemistry-related characters were formed this way. In fact, it is possible to tell from a Chinese
periodic table at a glance which elements are metal (⾦), solid nonmetal (⽯, "stone"), liquid
(氵), or gas (⽓).
Occasionally a bisyllabic word is written with two characters that contain the same radical, as in
蝴蝶 húdié "butterfly", where both characters have the insect radical ⾍. A notable example is
pipa (a Chinese lute, also a fruit, the loquat, of similar shape) – originally written as 批把 with
the hand radical ( ), referring to the down and up strokes when playing this instrument, which
was then changed to 枇杷 (tree radical ⽊), which is still used for the fruit, while the character
was changed to 琵琶 when referring to the instrument (radical 玨 ) .[37] In other cases a
compound word may coincidentally share a radical without this being meaningful.
Transformed cognates
/ zhuǎnzhùzì
The smallest category of characters is also the least understood.[38] In the postface to the
Shuowen Jiezi, Xu Shen gave as an example the characters 考 kǎo "to verify" and ⽼ lǎo "old",
which had similar Old Chinese pronunciations (*khuʔ and *C-ruʔ respectively[39]) and may
once have been the same word, meaning "elderly person", but became lexicalized into two
separate words. The term does not appear in the body of the dictionary, and is often omitted
from modern systems.[40]
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History
Legendary origins
According to legend, Chinese characters were invented by

Cangjie, a bureaucrat under the legendary Yellow Emperor.
Inspired by his study of the animals of the world, the
landscape of the earth and the stars in the sky, Cangjie is
said to have invented symbols called zì ( 字 ) – the first
Chinese characters. The legend relates that on the day the
characters were created, grain rained down from the sky
and that night the people heard ghosts wailing and demons
crying because the human beings could no longer be
cheated.[41]
Early sign use
In recent decades, a series of inscribed graphs and pictures

have been found at Neolithic sites in China, including Jiahu Comparative evolution from
(c. 6500 BC), Dadiwan and Damaidi from the 6th pictograms to abstract shapes, in
millennium BC, and Banpo (5th millennium BC). Often cuneiform, Egyptian and Chinese
these finds are accompanied by media reports that push characters
back the purported beginnings of Chinese writing by
thousands of years.[42][43] However, because these marks
occur singly, without any implied context, and are made crudely and simply, Qiu Xigui
concluded that "we do not have any basis for stating that these constituted writing nor is there
reason to conclude that they were ancestral to Shang dynasty Chinese characters."[44] They do
however demonstrate a history of sign use in the Yellow River valley during the Neolithic
through to the Shang period.[43]
Oracle bone script
The earliest confirmed evidence of the Chinese script yet discovered is the body of inscriptions
carved on bronze vessels and oracle bones from the late Shang dynasty (c.
1250–1050 BC).[45][46] The earliest of these is dated to around 1200 BC.[47][48] In 1899, pieces
of these bones were being sold as "dragon bones" for medicinal purposes, when scholars
identified the symbols on them as Chinese writing. By 1928, the source of the bones had been
traced to a village near Anyang in Henan Province, which was excavated by the Academia
Sinica between 1928 and 1937. Over 150,000 fragments have been found.[45]
Oracle bone inscriptions are records of divinations performed in communication with royal
ancestral spirits.[45] The shortest are only a few characters long, while the longest are thirty to
forty characters in length. The Shang king would communicate with his ancestors on topics
relating to the royal family, military success, weather forecasting, ritual sacrifices, and related
topics by means of scapulimancy, and the answers would be recorded on the divination
material itself.[45]
The oracle-bone script is a well-developed writing system,[49][50] suggesting that the Chinese
script's origins may lie earlier than the late second millennium BC.[51] Although these
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divinatory inscriptions are the earliest surviving evidence of

ancient Chinese writing, it is widely believed that writing was used
for many other non-official purposes, but that the materials upon
which non-divinatory writing was done – likely wood and bamboo
– were less durable than bone and shell and have since decayed
away.[51]
Bronze Age: parallel script forms and gradual

evolution
The traditional picture of an orderly series of scripts, each one

invented suddenly and then completely displacing the previous
one, has been conclusively demonstrated to be fiction by the
archaeological finds and scholarly research of the later 20th and Ox scapula with oracle
early 21st centuries.[52] Gradual evolution and the coexistence of bone inscription
two or more scripts was more often the case. As early as the Shang
dynasty, oracle-bone script coexisted as a simplified form
alongside the normal script of bamboo books (preserved in typical bronze inscriptions), as well
as the extra-elaborate pictorial forms (often clan emblems) found on many bronzes.
Based on studies of these bronze inscriptions, it is clear

that, from the Shang dynasty writing to that of the Western
Zhou and early Eastern Zhou, the mainstream script
evolved in a slow, unbroken fashion, until assuming the
form that is now known as seal script in the late Eastern
Zhou in the state of Qin, without any clear line of division.
[53][54] Meanwhile, other scripts had evolved, especially in
the eastern and southern areas during the late Zhou
Left: Bronze fāngzūn ( ) ritual dynasty, including regional forms, such as the gǔwén
wine container dated about ("ancient forms") of the eastern Warring States preserved
1000 BC. The inscription cast in as variant forms in the Han dynasty character dictionary
bronze on the vessel Shuowen Jiezi, as well as decorative forms such as bird and
commemorates a gift of cowrie insect scripts.
shells (then used as currency in
China) from someone of presumably
elite status in Zhou dynasty society. Unification: seal script, vulgar writing and
Right: Bronze fāngyí ( ) ritual proto-clerical
container dated about 1000 BC. An
inscription of some 180 Chinese
Seal script, which had evolved slowly in the state of Qin
characters appears twice on the
during the Eastern Zhou dynasty, became standardized and
vessel. The inscription comments on
adopted as the formal script for all of China in the Qin
state rituals that accompanied court
dynasty (leading to a popular misconception that it was
ceremony, recorded by an official
invented at that time), and was still widely used for
scribe.
decorative engraving and seals (name chops, or signets) in
the Han dynasty period. However, despite the Qin script
standardization, more than one script remained in use at
the time. For example, a little-known, rectilinear and roughly executed kind of common
(vulgar) writing had for centuries coexisted with the more formal seal script in the Qin state,
and the popularity of this vulgar writing grew as the use of writing itself became more
widespread.[55] By the Warring States period, an immature form of clerical script called "early
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clerical" or "proto-clerical" had already developed in the state of Qin[56] based upon this vulgar
writing, and with influence from seal script as well.[57] The coexistence of the three scripts –
small seal, vulgar and proto-clerical, with the latter evolving gradually in the Qin to early Han
dynasties into clerical script – runs counter to the traditional belief that the Qin dynasty had
one script only, and that clerical script was suddenly invented in the early Han dynasty from
the small seal script.
Han dynasty
Proto-clerical evolving to clerical
Proto-clerical script, which had emerged by the time of the Warring States period from vulgar
Qin writing, matured gradually, and by the early Western Han period, it was little different
from that of the Qin.[58] Recently discovered bamboo slips show the script becoming mature
clerical script by the middle-to-late reign of Emperor Wu of the Western Han,[59] who ruled
from 141 to 87 BC.
Clerical and clerical cursive
Contrary to the popular belief of there being only one script per period, there were in fact
multiple scripts in use during the Han period.[60] Although mature clerical script, also called ⼋
分 (bāfēn)[61] script, was dominant at that time, an early type of cursive script was also in use by
the Han by at least as early as 24 BC (during the very late Western Han period),[b]
incorporating cursive forms popular at the time, well as many elements from the vulgar writing
of the Warring State of Qin.[62] By around the time of the Eastern Jin dynasty, this Han cursive
became known as 章草 zhāngcǎo (also known as ⾪草 / 隸草 lìcǎo today), or in English
sometimes clerical cursive, ancient cursive, or draft cursive. Some believe that the name, based
on 章 zhāng meaning "orderly", arose because the script was a more orderly form[63] of cursive
than the modern form, which emerged during the Eastern Jin dynasty and is still in use today,
called 今草 jīncǎo or "modern cursive".[64]
Neo-clerical
Around the mid-Eastern Han period,[63] a simplified and easier-to-write form of clerical script
appeared, which Qiu terms "neo-clerical" (新⾪体 / 新隸體, xīnlìtǐ).[65] By the late Eastern Han,
this had become the dominant daily script,[63] although the formal, mature bāfēn ( ⼋分 )
clerical script remained in use for formal works such as engraved stelae.[63] Qiu describes this
neo-clerical script as a transition between clerical and regular script,[63] and it remained in use
through the Cao Wei and Jin dynasties.[66]
Semi-cursive
By the late Eastern Han period, an early form of semi-cursive script appeared,[65] developing
out of a cursively written form of neo-clerical script[c] and simple cursive.[67] This semi-cursive
script was traditionally attributed to Liu Desheng c. 147–188 AD,[66][d] although such
attributions refer to early masters of a script rather than to their actual inventors, since the
scripts generally evolved into being over time. Qiu gives examples of early semi-cursive script,
showing that it had popular origins rather than being purely Liu's invention.[68]
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Wei to Jin period
Regular script
Regular script has been attributed to Zhong Yao (c. 151–230 AD), during the period at the end
of the Han dynasty in the state of Cao Wei. Zhong Yao has been called the "father of regular
script". However, some scholars[69] postulate that one person alone could not have developed a
new script which was universally adopted, but could only have been a contributor to its gradual
formation. The earliest surviving pieces written in regular script are copies of Zhong Yao's
works, including at least one copied by Wang Xizhi. This new script, which is the dominant
modern Chinese script, developed out of a neatly written form of early semi-cursive, with
addition of the pause (顿/頓 dùn) technique to end horizontal strokes, plus heavy tails on
strokes which are written to the downward-right diagonal.[70] Thus, early regular script
emerged from a neat, formal form of semi-cursive, which had itself emerged from neo-clerical
(a simplified, convenient form of clerical script). It then matured further in the Eastern Jin
dynasty in the hands of the "Sage of Calligraphy", Wang Xizhi, and his son Wang Xianzhi. It
was not, however, in widespread use at that time, and most writers continued using neo-
clerical, or a somewhat semi-cursive form of it, for daily writing,[70] while the conservative
bafen clerical script remained in use on some stelae, alongside some semi-cursive, but
primarily neo-clerical.[71]
Modern cursive
Meanwhile, modern cursive script slowly emerged from the clerical cursive (zhāngcǎo) script
during the Cao Wei to Jin period, under the influence of both semi-cursive and the newly
emerged regular script.[72] Cursive was formalized in the hands of a few master calligraphers,
the most famous and influential of whom was Wang Xizhi.[e]
Dominance and maturation of regular script
It was not until the Northern and Southern dynasties that regular script rose to dominant
status.[73] During that period, regular script continued evolving stylistically, reaching full
maturity in the early Tang dynasty. Some call the writing of the early Tang calligrapher Ouyang
Xun (557–641) the first mature regular script. After this point, although developments in the
art of calligraphy and in character simplification still lay ahead, there were no more major
stages of evolution for the mainstream script.
Modern history
Although most of the simplified Chinese characters in use today are the result of the works
moderated by the government of the People's Republic of China in the 1950s and 60s, character
simplification predates the republic's formation in 1949. One of the earliest proponents of
character simplification was Lufei Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should
be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-
imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China. In the 1930s and 1940s,
discussions on character simplification took place within the Kuomintang government, and
many Chinese intellectuals and writers have long maintained that character simplification
would help boost literacy in China. In many world languages, literacy has been promoted as a
justification for spelling reforms. The People's Republic of China issued its first round of official
12 of 43 24/05/20, 05:35
character simplifications in two documents, the first in 1956 and the second in 1964. In the
1950s and 1960s, while confusion about simplified characters was still rampant, transitional
characters that mixed simplified parts with yet-to-be simplified parts of characters together
appeared briefly, then disappeared.
"Han unification" was an effort by the authors of Unicode and the Universal Character Set to
map multiple character sets of the so-called CJK languages (Chinese/Japanese/Korean) into a
single set of unified characters and was completed for the purposes of Unicode in 1991
(Unicode 1.0).
Apart from Chinese ones, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese normative medium of record-
keeping, written historical narratives and official communication are in adaptations and
variations of Chinese script.[74]
Adaptation to other languages

The Chinese script spread to Korea together with
Buddhism from the 2nd century BC to 5th century AD
(hanja).[75] This was adopted for recording the Japanese
language from the 5th century AD.[f]
Chinese characters were first used in Vietnam during the

millennium of Chinese rule starting in 111 BC. They were
used to write Classical Chinese and adapted around the
13th century to create the Nôm script to write Vietnamese. Current (dark green) and former
extension (light green) of the use of
Currently, the only non-Chinese language outside of China Chinese characters
that regularly uses the Chinese script is Japanese. Vietnam
abandoned their use in the early 20th century in favour of a
Latin-based script, and Korea in the late 20th century in favour of its homegrown hangul script,
although as Korea switched much more recently, many Koreans still learn them to read texts
written before then, or in some cases to disambiguate homophones.
Japanese
Chinese characters adapted to write Japanese words are known as kanji. Chinese words
borrowed into Japanese could be written with Chinese characters, while native Japanese words
could also be written using the character(s) for a Chinese word of similar meaning. Most kanji
have both the native (and often multi-syllabic) Japanese pronunciation, known as kun'yomi,
and the (mono-syllabic) Chinese-based pronunciation, known as on'yomi. For example, the
native Japanese word katana is written as 刀 in kanji, which uses the native pronunciation
since the word is native to Japanese, while the Chinese loanword nihontō (meaning "Japanese
sword") is written as 日本刀, which uses the Chinese-based pronunciation. While nowadays
loanwords from non-Sinosphere languages are usually just written in katakana, one of the two
syllabary systems of Japanese, loanwords that were borrowed into Japanese before the Meiji
Period were typically written with Chinese characters whose on'yomi had the same
pronunciation as the loanword itself, words like Amerika (kanji: 亜米利加, katakana: アメリカ,
meaning: America), karuta (kanji: 歌留多, 加留多, katakana: カルタ, meaning: card, letter),
and tempura (kanji: 天婦羅, 天麩羅, katakana: テンプラ, meaning: tempura), although the
meanings of the characters used often had no relation to the words themselves. Kanji that are
used to only represent the sounds of a word are called ateji. While foreign loanwords in
13 of 43 24/05/20, 05:35
Japanese words are usually written only in kana, there are some words that normally use ateji
to this day, like kurabu (ateji: 楽部, katakana: クラブ, meaning: club) and sushi (ateji: 寿司,
katakana: スシ). Because there have been multiple layers of borrowing into Japanese, a single
character may have several readings in Japanese.[76]
Written Japanese also includes a pair of syllabaries known as kana, derived by simplifying
Chinese characters selected to represent syllables of Japanese. The syllabaries differ because
they sometimes selected different characters for a syllable, and because they used different
strategies to reduce these characters for easy writing: the angular katakana were obtained by
selecting a part of each character, while hiragana were derived from the cursive forms of whole
characters.[77] Modern Japanese writing uses a composite system, using kanji for word stems,
hiragana for inflexional endings and grammatical words, and katakana to transcribe non-
Chinese loanwords as well as serve as a method to emphasize native words (similar to how
italics are used in Romance languages).[78]
Korean
In times past, until the 15th century, in Korea, Literary Chinese was the dominant form of
written communication prior to the creation of hangul, the Korean alphabet. Much of the
vocabulary, especially in the realms of science and sociology, comes directly from Chinese,
comparable to Latin or Greek root words in European languages. However, due to the lack of
tones in Modern Standard Korean,[79] as the words were imported from Chinese, many
dissimilar characters and syllables took on identical pronunciations, and subsequently identical
spelling in hangul. Chinese characters are sometimes used to this day for either clarification in
a practical manner, or to give a distinguished appearance, as knowledge of Chinese characters
is considered by many Koreans a high class attribute and an indispensable part of a classical
education. It is also observed that the preference for Chinese characters is treated as being
conservative and Confucian.
In South Korea, hanja have become a politically contentious issue, with some urging a
"purification" of the national language and culture by abandoning their use. Efforts to re-
extend Hanja education to elementary schools in the 2015 were met with generally negative
reaction from the public and from teachers' organizations.[80]
In South Korea, educational policy on characters has swung back and forth, often swayed by
education ministers' personal opinions. At present, middle and high school students (grades 7
to 12) are taught 1,800 characters,[81] albeit with the principal focus on recognition, with the
aim of achieving newspaper literacy.
There is a clear trend toward the exclusive use of hangul in day-to-day South Korean society.
Hanja are still used to some extent, particularly in newspapers, weddings, place names and
calligraphy (although it is nowhere near the extent of kanji use in day-to-day Japanese society).
Hanja is also extensively used in situations where ambiguity must be avoided, such as academic
papers, high-level corporate reports, government documents, and newspapers; this is due to
the large number of homonyms that have resulted from extensive borrowing of Chinese words.
The issue of ambiguity is the main hurdle in any effort to "cleanse" the Korean language of
Chinese characters. Characters convey meaning visually, while alphabets convey guidance to
pronunciation, which in turn hints at meaning. As an example, in Korean dictionaries, the
phonetic entry for 기사 gisa yields more than 30 different entries. In the past, this ambiguity
had been efficiently resolved by parenthetically displaying the associated hanja. While hanja is
sometimes used for Sino-Korean vocabulary, native Korean words are rarely, if ever, written in
14 of 43 24/05/20, 05:35
hanja.
When learning how to write hanja, students are taught to memorize the native Korean
pronunciation for the hanja's meaning and the Sino-Korean pronunciations (the pronunciation
based on the Chinese pronunciation of the characters) for each hanja respectively so that
students know what the syllable and meaning is for a particular hanja. For example, the name
for the hanja 水 is 물 수 (mul-su) in which 물 (mul) is the native Korean pronunciation for
"water", while 수 (su) is the Sino-Korean pronunciation of the character. The naming of hanja is
similar to if "water" were named "water-aqua", "horse-equus", or "gold-aurum" based on a
hybridization of both the English and the Latin names. Other examples include 사람 인 (saram-
in) for 人 "person/people", 큰 대 (keun-dae) for 大 "big/large//great", 작을 소 (jakeul-so) for 小
"small/little", 아래 하 (arae-ha) for 下 "underneath/below/low", 아비 부 (abi-bu) for 父
"father", and 나라이름 한 (naraireum-han) for 韓 "Han/Korea".[82]
In North Korea, the hanja system was once completely banned since June 1949 due to fears of
collapsed containment of the country; during the 1950s, Kim Il Sung had condemned all sorts
of foreign languages (even the newly proposed New Korean Orthography). The ban continued
into the 21st century. However, a textbook for university history departments containing 3,323
distinct characters was published in 1971. In the 1990s, school children were still expected to
learn 2,000 characters (more than in South Korea or Japan).[83]
After Kim Jong Il, the second ruler of North Korea, died in December 2011, Kim Jong Un
stepped up and began mandating the use of Hanja as a source of definition for the Korean
language. Currently, it is said that North Korea teaches around 3,000 Hanja characters to
North Korean students, and in some cases, the characters appear within advertisements and
newspapers. However, it is also said that the authorities implore students not to use the
characters in public.[84] Due to North Korea's strict isolationism, accurate reports about hanja
use in North Korea are hard to obtain.
Okinawan
Chinese characters are thought to have been first introduced to the Ryukyu Islands in 1265 by a
Japanese Buddhist monk.[85] After the Okinawan kingdoms became tributaries of Ming China,
especially the Ryukyu Kingdom, Classical Chinese was used in court documents, but hiragana
was mostly used for popular writing and poetry. After Ryukyu became a vassal of Japan's
Satsuma Domain, Chinese characters became more popular, as well as the use of Kanbun. In
modern Okinawan, which is labeled as a Japanese dialect by the Japanese government,
katakana and hiragana are mostly used to write Okinawan, but Chinese characters are still
used.
Vietnamese
Although Chinese characters in Vietnam are now limited to ceremonial uses, they were once in
widespread use. Until the early 20th century, Literary Chinese was used in Vietnam for all
official and scholarly writing. Around the 13th century the Nôm script was developed to record
folk literature in the Vietnamese language. The script used Chinese characters to represent both
borrowed Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and native words with similar pronunciation or
meaning. In addition thousands of new compound characters were created to write Vietnamese
words. This process resulted in a highly complex system that was never mastered by more than
5% of the population.[86] Both Literary Chinese and Nôm were replaced in the early 20th
century by Vietnamese written with the Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet.[87][88]
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Other languages
Several minority languages of south and

southwest China were formerly written "My mother eats vegetarian food at the pagoda every
with scripts based on Hanzi but also Sunday", written in the modern Vietnamese alphabet
including many locally created characters. (blue) and Nom. Characters borrowed unchanged from
The most extensive is the sawndip script Chinese are shown in green, while invented characters
for the Zhuang language of Guangxi which are brown.
is still used to this day. Other languages
written with such scripts include Miao, Yao,
Bouyei, Mulam, Kam, Bai and Hani.[89] All these languages are now officially written using
Latin-based scripts, while Chinese characters are still used for the Mulam language. Even today
for Zhuang, according to survey, the traditional sawndip script has twice as many users as the
official Latin script.[90]
The foreign dynasties that ruled northern China between the 10th and 13th centuries developed
scripts that were inspired by Hanzi but did not use them directly: the Khitan large script,
Khitan small script, Tangut script and Jurchen script. Other scripts in China that borrowed or
adapted a few Chinese characters but are otherwise distinct include Geba script, Sui script, Yi
script and the Lisu syllabary.[89]
Transcription of foreign languages
Along with Persian and Arabic, Chinese characters were

also used as a foreign script to write the Mongolian
language, where characters were used to phonetically
transcribe Mongolian sounds. Most notably, the only
surviving copies of The Secret History of the Mongols were
written in such a manner; the Chinese characters 忙豁侖紐
察脫 [ ⼘ ] 察安 is the rendering of Mongγol-un niγuca
tobčiyan, the title in Mongolian.
Hanzi was also used to phonetically transcribe the Manchu

language in the Qing dynasty.
According to the Rev. John Gulick: "The inhabitants of

other Asiatic nations, who have had occasion to represent
the words of their several languages by Chinese characters,
have as a rule used unaspirated characters for the sounds,
g, d, b. The Muslims from Arabia and Persia have followed
this method … The Mongols, Manchu, and Japanese also Mongolian text from The Secret
constantly select unaspirated characters to represent the History of the Mongols in Chinese
sounds g, d, b, and j of their languages. These surrounding transcription, with a glossary on the
Asiatic nations, in writing Chinese words in their own right of each row
alphabets, have uniformly used g, d, b, etc., to represent the
unaspirated sounds."[91]
Simplification
Chinese character simplification is the overall reduction of the number of strokes in the regular
script of a set of Chinese characters.
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Simplification in China
The use of traditional Chinese characters versus simplified Chinese characters varies greatly,
and can depend on both the local customs and the medium. Before the official reform,
character simplifications were not officially sanctioned and generally adopted vulgar variants
and idiosyncratic substitutions. Orthodox variants were mandatory in printed works, while the
(unofficial) simplified characters would be used in everyday writing or quick notes. Since the
1950s, and especially with the publication of the 1964 list, the People's Republic of China has
officially adopted simplified Chinese characters for use in mainland China, while Hong Kong,
Macau, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) were not affected by the reform. There is no
absolute rule for using either system, and often it is determined by what the target audience
understands, as well as the upbringing of the writer.
Although most often associated with the People's Republic of China, character simplification
predates the 1949 communist victory. Caoshu, cursive written text, almost always includes
character simplification, and simplified forms have always existed in print, albeit not for the
most formal works. In the 1930s and 1940s, discussions on character simplification took place
within the Kuomintang government, and a large number of Chinese intellectuals and writers
have long maintained that character simplification would help boost literacy in China. Indeed,
this desire by the Kuomintang to simplify the Chinese writing system (inherited and
implemented by the Communist Party of China) also nursed aspirations of some for the
adoption of a phonetic script based on the Latin script, and spawned such inventions as the
Gwoyeu Romatzyh.
The People's Republic of China issued its first round of official character simplifications in two
documents, the first in 1956 and the second in 1964. A second round of character
simplifications (known as erjian, or "second round simplified characters") was promulgated in
1977. It was poorly received, and in 1986 the authorities rescinded the second round
completely, while making six revisions to the 1964 list, including the restoration of three
traditional characters that had been simplified: 叠 dié, 覆 fù, 像 xiàng.
The majority of simplified characters are drawn from conventional abbreviated forms, or
ancient standard forms.[92] For example, the orthodox character 來 lái ("come") was written
with the structure 来 in the clerical script (⾪书 / 隸書, lìshū) of the Han dynasty. This clerical
form uses one fewer stroke, and was thus adopted as a simplified form. The character 雲 yún
("cloud") was written with the structure 云 in the oracle bone script of the Shang dynasty, and
had remained in use later as a phonetic loan in the meaning of "to say" while the ⾬ radical was
added to differentiate meanings. The simplified form adopts the original structure.
Simplification in Japan
In the years after World War II, the Japanese government also instituted a series of
orthographic reforms. Some characters were given simplified forms called shinjitai (新字体, lit.
"new character forms"); the older forms were then labelled the kyūjitai ( 旧字体 , lit. "old
character forms"). The number of characters in common use was restricted, and formal lists of
characters to be learned during each grade of school were established, first the 1850-character
tōyō kanji (当用漢字) list in 1945, the 1945-character jōyō kanji (常用漢字) list in 1981, and a
2136-character reformed version of the jōyō kanji in 2010. Many variant forms of characters
and obscure alternatives for common characters were officially discouraged. This was done
with the goal of facilitating learning for children and simplifying kanji use in literature and
periodicals. These are simply guidelines, hence many characters outside these standards are
17 of 43 24/05/20, 05:35
still widely known and commonly used, especially those used for personal and place names (for
the latter, see jinmeiyō kanji), as well as for some common words such as "dragon" (竜/龍,
tatsu) in which both old and new forms of the character are both acceptable and widely known
amongst native Japanese speakers.
Southeast Asian Chinese communities
Singapore underwent three successive rounds of character simplification. These resulted in

some simplifications that differed from those used in mainland China. It ultimately adopted the
reforms of the People's Republic of China in their entirety as official, and has implemented
them in the educational system. However, unlike in China, personal names may still be
registered in traditional characters.
Malaysia started teaching a set of simplified characters at schools in 1981, which were also
completely identical to the Mainland China simplifications. Chinese newspapers in Malaysia
are published in either set of characters, typically with the headlines in traditional Chinese
while the body is in simplified Chinese.
Although in both countries the use of simplified characters is universal among the younger
Chinese generation, a large majority of the older Chinese literate generation still use the
traditional characters. Chinese shop signs are also generally written in traditional characters.
In the Philippines, most Chinese schools and businesses still use the traditional characters and
bopomofo, owing from influence from the Republic of China (Taiwan) due to the shared
Hokkien heritage. Recently, however, more Chinese schools now use both simplified characters
and pinyin. Since most readers of Chinese newspapers in the Philippines belong to the older
generation, they are still published largely using traditional characters.
North America
Public and private Chinese signage in the United States and Canada most often use traditional
characters.[93] There is some effort to get municipal governments to implement more
simplified character signage due to recent immigration from mainland China.[94] Most
community newspapers printed in North America are also printed in traditional characters.
Comparisons of traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, and Japanese
The following is a comparison of Chinese characters in the Standard Form of National

Characters, a common traditional Chinese standard used in Taiwan, the Table of General
Standard Chinese Characters, the standard for Mainland Chinese jiantizi (simplified), and the
jōyō kanji, the standard for Japanese kanji. Generally, the jōyō kanji are more similar to fantizi
(traditional) than jiantizi are to fantizi. "Simplified" refers to having significant differences
from the Taiwan standard, not necessarily being a newly created character or a newly
performed substitution. The characters in the Hong Kong standard and the Kangxi Dictionary
are also known as "Traditional," but are not shown.
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Comparisons of a sample of traditional Chinese characters, simplified Chinese characters, and simplified
Japanese characters in their modern standardized forms ()
Chinese
Japanese Meaning
Traditional Simplified
電 electricity
買 buy
車 car, vehicle
紅 red
無 nothing
東 east
馬 horse
風 wind
Simplified in mainland China only, not 愛 love

Japan
(Some radicals were simplified)
時 time
鳥 bird
島 island
語 language, word
頭 head
魚 fish
園 garden
長 long, grow
紙 paper
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書 book, document
見 watch, see
響 echo, sound
仮 false, day off, borrow
仏 Buddha
徳 moral, virtue
kowtow, pray to,

拝 worship
黒 black
氷 ice
Simplified in Japan, not Mainland China rabbit

(In some cases this represents the
adoption
of different variants as standard)
妬 jealousy
毎 every
壌 soil
歩 step
巣 nest
恵 grace
苺 strawberry
円 circle
Simplified differently in Mainland China

and Japan 聴 listen
実 real
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証 certificate, proof
竜 dragon
売 sell
亀 turtle, tortoise
芸 art, arts
戦 fight, war
縄 rope, criterion
絵 picture, painting
鉄 iron, metal
図 picture, diagram
団 group, regiment
転 turn
広 wide, broad
悪 bad, evil, hate
豊 abundant
脳 brain
雑 miscellaneous
pressure,
圧 compression
鶏 chicken
総 overall
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価 price
楽 fun, music
帰 return, revert
気 air
庁 hall, office
発 emit, send
渋 astringent
労 labor
剣 sword
歳 age, years
権 authority, right
焼 burn
賛 praise
両 two, both
訳 translate
観 look, watch
営 camp, battalion
処 processing
歯 teeth
駅 station
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桜 cherry
産 production
薬 medicine
読 read
顔 face
画 picture
声 sound, voice
学 learn
体 body
点 dot, point
麦 wheat
虫 insect
Simplified (almost) identically in Mainland

China and Japan 旧 old, bygone, past
会 be able to, meeting
万 ten-thousand
盗 thief, steal
宝 treasure
国 country
医 medicine
双 pair
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昼 noon, day
触 contact
来 come
黄 yellow
区 ward, district
Written styles
There are numerous styles, or scripts, in which Chinese
characters can be written, deriving from various
calligraphic and historical models. Most of these originated
in China and are now common, with minor variations, in
all countries where Chinese characters are used.
The Shang dynasty oracle bone script and the Zhou dynasty
scripts found on Chinese bronze inscriptions are no longer
used; the oldest script that is still in use today is the Seal
Script (篆書(篆书), zhuànshū). It evolved organically out of
the Spring and Autumn period Zhou script, and was
adopted in a standardized form under the first Emperor of
China, Qin Shi Huang. The seal script, as the name
suggests, is now used only in artistic seals. Few people are
still able to read it effortlessly today, although the art of
carving a traditional seal in the script remains alive; some
calligraphers also work in this style.
Scripts that are still used regularly are the "Clerical Script"
(隸書(⾪书), lìshū) of the Qin dynasty to the Han dynasty,
Sample of the cursive script by
the Weibei (魏碑, wèibēi), the "Regular Script" (楷書(楷书),
Chinese Tang dynasty calligrapher
kǎishū), which is used mostly for printing, and the "Semi- Sun Guoting, c. 650 AD
cursive Script" ( ⾏書 ( ⾏书 ), xíngshū), used mostly for
handwriting.
The cursive script (草書(草书), cǎoshū, literally "grass script") is used informally. The basic
character shapes are suggested, rather than explicitly realized, and the abbreviations are
sometimes extreme. Despite being cursive to the point where individual strokes are no longer
differentiable and the characters often illegible to the untrained eye, this script (also known as
draft) is highly revered for the beauty and freedom that it embodies. Some of the simplified
Chinese characters adopted by the People's Republic of China, and some simplified characters
used in Japan, are derived from the cursive script. The Japanese hiragana script is also derived
from this script.
There also exist scripts created outside China, such as the Japanese Edomoji styles; these have
tended to remain restricted to their countries of origin, rather than spreading to other countries
24 of 43 24/05/20, 05:35
like the Chinese scripts.
Calligraphy
The art of writing Chinese characters is called Chinese

calligraphy. It is usually done with ink brushes. In ancient
China, Chinese calligraphy is one of the Four Arts of the Chinese
Scholars. There is a minimalist set of rules of Chinese
calligraphy. Every character from the Chinese scripts is built
into a uniform shape by means of assigning it a geometric area
in which the character must occur. Each character has a set
number of brushstrokes; none must be added or taken away
from the character to enhance it visually, lest the meaning be
lost. Finally, strict regularity is not required, meaning the
strokes may be accentuated for dramatic effect of individual
style. Calligraphy was the means by which scholars could mark
their thoughts and teachings for immortality, and as such, Chinese calligraphy of mixed
represent some of the most precious treasures that can be found styles written by Song dynasty
from ancient China. (1051–1108 AD) poet Mifu. For
centuries, the Chinese literati
were expected to master the
Typography and design
art of calligraphy.
There are three major families of typefaces used in Chinese

typography:
Song/Ming
Sans-serif
Regular script
Ming and sans-serif are the most popular in body text and
are based on regular script for Chinese characters akin to
Western serif and sans-serif typefaces, respectively.
Regular script typefaces emulate regular script.
The Song typeface (宋体 / 宋體, sòngtǐ) is known as the

Ming typeface ( 明朝 , minchō) in Japan, and it is also
somewhat more commonly known as the Ming typeface (明
体 / 明體, míngtǐ) than the Song typeface in Taiwan and
Hong Kong. The names of these styles come from the Song
and Ming dynasties, when block printing flourished in
China. A page from a Ming dynasty edition
of the Book of Qi
Sans-serif typefaces, called black typeface ( ⿊体 / ⿊體 ,
hēitǐ) in Chinese and Gothic typeface ( ゴシック体 ) in
Japanese, are characterized by simple lines of even thickness for each stroke, akin to sans-serif
styles such as Arial and Helvetica in Western typography.
Regular script typefaces are also commonly used, but not as common as Ming or sans-serif
typefaces for body text. Regular script typefaces are often used to teach students Chinese
characters, and often aim to match the standard forms of the region where they are meant to be
used. Most typefaces in the Song dynasty were regular script typefaces which resembled a
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particular person's handwriting (e.g. the handwriting of

Ouyang Xun, Yan Zhenqing, or Liu Gongquan), while most
modern regular script typefaces tend toward anonymity
and regularity.
Variants
Just as Roman letters have a characteristic shape (lower-
case letters mostly occupying the x-height, with ascenders The first four characters of
or descenders on some letters), Chinese characters occupy Thousand Character Classic in
a more or less square area in which the components of different type and script styles. From
every character are written to fit in order to maintain a right to left: seal script, clerical
uniform size and shape, especially with small printed script, regular script, Ming and sans-
characters in Ming and sans-serif styles. Because of this, serif.
beginners often practise writing on squared graph paper,
and the Chinese sometimes use the term "Square-Block
Characters" ( ⽅块字 / ⽅塊字 , fāngkuàizì), sometimes
translated as tetragraph,[95] in reference to Chinese
characters.
Despite standardization, some nonstandard forms are

commonly used, especially in handwriting. In older
sources, even authoritative ones, variant characters are
commonplace. For example, in the preface to the Imperial
Dictionary, there are 30 variant characters which are not
found in the dictionary itself.[96] A few of these are
reproduced at right.
Regional standards
The nature of Chinese characters makes it very easy to

produce allographs (variants) for many characters, and
there have been many efforts at orthographical
standardization throughout history. In recent times, the A page from a Song dynasty
widespread usage of the characters in several nations has publication in a regular script
typeface which resembles the
prevented any particular system becoming universally
handwriting of Ouyang Xun
adopted and the standard form of many Chinese characters
thus varies in different regions.
Mainland China adopted simplified Chinese characters in 1956. They are also used in Singapore
and Malaysia. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
Postwar Japan has used its own less drastically simplified characters, Shinjitai, since 1946,
while South Korea has limited its use of Chinese characters, and Vietnam and North Korea have
completely abolished their use in favour of Vietnamese alphabet and Hangul, respectively.
The standard character forms of each region are described in:
The List of Frequently Used Characters in Modern Chinese for Mainland China.
The List of Forms of Frequently Used Characters for Hong Kong.
The Standard Form of National Characters for Taiwan.
The list of Jōyō kanji for Japan.
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The Han-Han Dae Sajeon (de facto) for Korea.
In addition to strictness in character size and shape,

Chinese characters are written with very precise rules. The Variants of the Chinese character
most important rules regard the strokes employed, stroke for guī 'turtle', collected c. 1800 from
placement, and stroke order. Just as each region that uses printed sources. The one at left is
Chinese characters has standardized character forms, each the traditional form used today in
also has standardized stroke orders, with each standard Taiwan and Hong Kong, , though
being different. Most characters can be written with just may look slightly different, or
even like the second variant from
one correct stroke order, though some words also have
the left, depending on your font (see
many valid stroke orders, which may occasionally result in
Wiktionary). The modern simplified
different stroke counts. Some characters are also written
forms used in China, , and in
with different stroke orders due to character simplification.
Japan, 亀, are most similar to the
variant in the middle of the bottom
Polysyllabic morphemes row, though neither is identical. A
few more closely resemble the
Chinese characters are primarily morphosyllabic, meaning modern simplified form of the
that most Chinese morphemes are monosyllabic and are character for diàn 'lightning', .
written with a single character, though in modern Chinese
most words are disyllabic and dimorphemic, consisting of
two syllables, each of which is a morpheme. In modern
Chinese 10% of morphemes only occur as part of a given
compound. However, a few morphemes are disyllabic,
Five of the 30 variant characters
some of them dating back to Classical Chinese.[97]
found in the preface of the Imperial
Excluding foreign loan words, these are typically words for
(Kangxi) Dictionary which are not
plants and small animals. They are usually written with a
found in the dictionary itself. They
pair of phono-semantic compound characters sharing a
are ( ) wèi "due to", cǐ "this",
common radical. Examples are 蝴蝶 húdié "butterfly" and
suǒ "place", néng "be able to",
珊瑚 shānhú "coral". Note that the 蝴 hú of húdié and the
jiān "concurrently". (Although the
瑚 hú of shānhú have the same phonetic, 胡, but different form of is not very different, and
radicals ("insect" and "jade", respectively). Neither exists as in fact is used today in Japan, the
an independent morpheme except as a poetic abbreviation radical has been obliterated.)
of the disyllabic word. Another variant from the preface,
for lái "to come", also not listed in
the dictionary, has been adopted as
Polysyllabic characters
the standard in Mainland China and
Japan.
In certain cases compound words and set phrases may be
contracted into single characters. Some of these can be
considered logograms, where characters represent whole
words rather than syllable-morphemes, though these are
generally instead considered ligatures or abbreviations
(similar to scribal abbreviations, such as & for "et"), and as
non-standard. These do see use, particularly in The character in Simplified and
handwriting or decoration, but also in some cases in print. Traditional Chinese, Japanese, and
In Chinese, these ligatures are called héwén (合⽂), héshū Korean. If you have an appropriate
( 合書 ) or hétǐzì ( 合体字 ), and in the special case of font installed, you can see the
combining two characters, these are known as "two-syllable corresponding character in
Chinese characters" (双⾳节汉字, 雙⾳節漢字). Vietnamese: 次.
A commonly seen example is the double happiness symbol
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囍, formed as a ligature of 喜喜 and referred to by its disyllabic name (simplified Chinese: 双喜;
traditional Chinese: 雙喜 ; pinyin: shuāngxǐ). In handwriting, numbers are very frequently
squeezed into one space or combined – common ligatures include 廿 niàn, "twenty", normally
read as ⼆⼗ èrshí, 〺 sà, "thirty", normally read as 三⼗ sānshí, and 卌 xì "forty", normally read
as 四⼗ "sìshí". Calendars often use numeral ligatures in order to save space; for example, the
"21st of March" can be read as 三⽉廿⼀. In some cases counters are also merged into one
character, such as 七⼗⼈ qīshí rén "seventy people". Another common abbreviation is 门 with a
"T" written inside it, for 問題, 问题, wèntí ("question; problem"), where the "T" is from pinyin
for the second syllable tí 题.[9] Since polysyllabic characters are often non-standard, they are
often excluded in character dictionaries.
Modern examples particularly include Chinese characters for SI units. In Chinese these units
are disyllabic and standardly written with two characters, as 厘⽶ límǐ "centimeter" (厘 centi-,
⽶ meter) or 千⽡ qiānwǎ "kilowatt". However, in the 19th century these were often written via
compound characters, pronounced disyllabically, such as 瓩 for 千⽡ or 糎 for 厘⽶ – some of
these characters were also used in Japan, where they were pronounced with borrowed
European readings instead. These have now fallen out of general use, but are occasionally seen.
Less systematic examples include 圕 túshūguǎn "library", a contraction of 圖書館,[98][99]
The use of such contractions is as old as Chinese characters themselves, and they have
frequently been found in religious or ritual use. In the Oracle Bone script, personal names,
ritual items, and even phrases such as 受又(祐) shòu yòu "receive blessings" are commonly
contracted into single characters. A dramatic example is that in medieval manuscripts 菩薩
púsà "bodhisattva" (simplified: 菩萨) is sometimes written with a single character formed of a
2×2 grid of four ⼗ (derived from the grass radical over two ⼗).[9] However, for the sake of
consistency and standardization, the CPC seeks to limit the use of such polysyllabic characters
in public writing to ensure that every character only has one syllable.[100]
Conversely, with the fusion of the diminutive -er suffix in Mandarin, some monosyllabic words
may even be written with two characters, as in 花⼉ huār "flower", which was formerly
disyllabic.
In most other languages that use the Chinese family of scripts, notably Korean, Vietnamese,
and Zhuang, Chinese characters are typically monosyllabic, but in Japanese a single character
is generally used to represent a borrowed monosyllabic Chinese morpheme (the on'yomi), a
polysyllabic native Japanese morpheme (the kun'yomi), or even (in rare cases) a foreign
loanword. These uses are completely standard and unexceptional.
Rare and complex characters
Often a character not commonly used (a "rare" or "variant" character) will appear in a personal
or place name in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese (see Chinese name, Japanese
name, Korean name, and Vietnamese name, respectively). This has caused problems as many
computer encoding systems include only the most common characters and exclude the less
often used characters. This is especially a problem for personal names which often contain rare
or classical, antiquated characters.
One man who has encountered this problem is Taiwanese politician Yu Shyi-kun, due to the
rarity of the last character in his name. Newspapers have dealt with this problem in varying
ways, including using software to combine two existing, similar characters, including a picture
of the personality, or, especially as is the case with Yu Shyi-kun, simply substituting a
homophone for the rare character in the hope that the reader would be able to make the correct
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inference. Taiwanese political posters, movie posters etc. will often add the bopomofo phonetic
symbols next to such a character. Japanese newspapers may render such names and words in
katakana instead, and it is accepted practice for people to write names for which they are
unsure of the correct kanji in katakana instead.
There are also some extremely complex characters which have understandably become rather
rare. According to Joël Bellassen (1989), the most complex Chinese character is /
(U+2A6A5) zhé listen , meaning "verbose" and containing sixty-four strokes; this character
fell from use around the 5th century. It might be argued, however, that while containing the
most strokes, it is not necessarily the most complex character (in terms of difficulty), as it
simply requires writing the same sixteen-stroke character ⿓ lóng (lit. "dragon") four times in
the space for one. Another 64-stroke character is / (U+2053B) zhèng composed of 興
xīng/xìng (lit. "flourish") four times.
One of the most complex characters found in modern Chinese dictionaries[g] is 齉 (U+9F49)
(nàng, listen , pictured below, middle image), meaning "snuffle" (that is, a pronunciation
marred by a blocked nose), with "just" thirty-six strokes. Another stroke-rich character is
(bìng), with 39 strokes, meaning the loud noise thunder. However, these are not in common
use. The most complex character that can be input using the Microsoft New Phonetic IME
2002a for traditional Chinese is 龘 (dá, "the appearance of a dragon flying"). It is composed of
the dragon radical represented three times, for a total of 16 × 3 = 48 strokes. Among the most
complex characters in modern dictionaries and also in frequent modern use are 籲 (yù, "to
implore"), with 32 strokes; 鬱 (yù, "luxuriant, lush; gloomy"), with 29 strokes, as in 憂鬱
(yōuyù, "depressed"); 豔 (yàn, "colorful"), with 28 strokes; and 釁 (xìn, "quarrel"), with 25
strokes, as in 挑釁 (tiǎoxìn, "to pick a fight"). Also in occasional modern use is 鱻 (xiān "fresh";
variant of 鮮 xiān) with 33 strokes.
In Japanese, an 84-stroke kokuji exists: , normally read taito. It is composed of three

"cloud" ( 雲 ) characters on top of the abovementioned triple "dragon" character ( ). Also
meaning "the appearance of a dragon in flight", it has been pronounced おとど otodo, たいと
taito, and だいと daito.[101] The most elaborate character in the jōyō kanji list is the 29-stroke
鬱, meaning "depression" or "melancholy".
The most complex Chinese character still in use may be biáng (pictured right, bottom), with 58
strokes, which refers to Biang biang noodles, a type of noodle from China's Shaanxi province.
This character along with the syllable biáng cannot be found in dictionaries. The fact that it
represents a syllable that does not exist in any Standard Chinese word means that it could be
classified as a dialectal character.
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Zhé, "verbose" Zhèng (unknown Nàng, "poor Taito, "the

meaning) enunciation due to appearance of a
snuffle" dragon in flight"
alternative form of Biáng, a kind of

Taito noodle in Shaanxi
Number of characters
The total number of Chinese characters from past to present remains unknowable because new
ones are being developed all the time – for instance, brands may create new characters when
none of the existing ones allow for the intended meaning – or they have been invented by
whoever wrote them and have never been adopted as official characters. Chinese characters are
theoretically an open set and anyone can create new characters, though such inventions are
rarely included in official character sets.[102] The number of entries in major Chinese
dictionaries is the best means of estimating the historical growth of character inventory.
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Number of characters in monolingual Chinese

dictionaries
Year Name of dictionary Number of characters
100 Shuowen Jiezi 9,353[103]
230 Shenglei 11,520[103]
350 Zilin 12,824[103]
543 Yupian 16,917[104][105]
601 Qieyun 12,158[106]
732 Tangyun 15,000[103]
753 Yunhai jingyuan 26,911[107]
997 Longkan Shoujian 26,430[108]
1011 Guangyun 26,194[105][109]
1066 Leipian 31,319[107]
1039 Jiyun 53,525[110]
1615 Zihui 33,179[105][111]
1675 Zhengzitong 33,440[112]
1716 Kangxi Zidian 47,035[105][113]
1916 Zhonghua Da Zidian 48,000[105]
1989 Hanyu Da Zidian 54,678[103]
1994 Zhonghua Zihai 85,568[114]
2004 Yitizi Zidian 106,230[115]

Number of characters in bilingual Chinese dictionaries
Year Country Name of dictionary Number of characters
2003 Japan Dai Kan-Wa Jiten 50,305
2008 South Korea Han-Han Dae Sajeon 53,667
Even the Zhonghua Zihai does not include characters in the Chinese family of scripts created to
represent non-Chinese languages, except the unique characters in use in Japan and Korea.
Characters formed by Chinese principles in other languages include the roughly 1,500
Japanese-made kokuji given in the Kokuji no Jiten,[116] the Korean-made gukja, the over
10,000 Sawndip characters still in use in Guangxi, and the almost 20,000 Nôm characters
formerly used in Vietnam. More divergent descendants of Chinese script include Tangut script,
which created over 5,000 characters with similar strokes but different formation principles to
Chinese characters.
Modified radicals and new variants are two common reasons for the ever-increasing number of
characters. There are about 300 radicals and 100 are in common use. Creating a new character
by modifying the radical is an easy way to disambiguate homographs among xíngshēngzì
pictophonetic compounds. This practice began long before the standardization of Chinese
script by Qin Shi Huang and continues to the present day. The traditional 3rd-person pronoun
tā (他 "he, she, it"), which is written with the "person radical", illustrates modifying significs to
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form new characters. In modern usage, there is a graphic distinction between tā (她 "she") with
the "woman radical", tā (牠 "it") with the "animal radical", tā (它 "it") with the "roof radical",
and tā ( 祂 "He") with the "deity radical", One consequence of modifying radicals is the
fossilization of rare and obscure variant logographs, some of which are not even used in
Classical Chinese. For instance, he 和 "harmony, peace", which combines the "grain radical"
with the "mouth radical", has infrequent variants 咊 with the radicals reversed and 龢 with the
"flute radical".
Chinese
Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese

words, as the majority of modern Chinese words, unlike
their Old Chinese and Middle Chinese counterparts, are
written with two or more characters, each character
representing one syllable and/or morpheme. Knowing the
meanings of the individual characters of a word will often
allow the general meaning of the word to be inferred, but
this is not always the case.
Cumulative frequency of simplified
Studies in China have shown that literate individuals know
Chinese characters in Modern
and use between 3,000 and 4,000 characters. Specialists in
Chinese text[117]
classical literature or history, who would often encounter
characters no longer in use, are estimated to have a
working vocabulary of between 5,000 and 6,000
characters.[6]
In China, which uses simplified Chinese characters, the Xiàndài Hànyǔ Chángyòng Zìbiǎo (现
代汉语常⽤字表 , Chart of Common Characters of Modern Chinese) lists 2,500 common
characters and 1,000 less-than-common characters, while the Xiàndài Hànyǔ Tōngyòng
Zìbiǎo (现代汉语通⽤字表, Chart of Generally Utilized Characters of Modern Chinese) lists
7,000 characters, including the 3,500 characters already listed above. GB2312, an early version
of the national encoding standard used in the People's Republic of China, has 6,763 code
points. GB18030, the modern, mandatory standard, has a much higher number. The New
Hànyǔ Shuǐpíng Kǎoshì (汉语⽔平考试, Chinese Proficiency Test) covers approximately 2,600
characters at its highest level (level six).[118]
In the Republic of China (Taiwan), which uses traditional Chinese characters, the Ministry of
Education's Chángyòng Guózì Biāozhǔn Zìtǐ Biǎo (常⽤國字標準字體表, Chart of Standard
Forms of Common National Characters) lists 4,808 characters; the Cì Chángyòng Guózì
Biāozhǔn Zìtǐ Biǎo (次常⽤國字標準字體表, Chart of Standard Forms of Less-Than-Common
National Characters) lists another 6,341 characters. The Chinese Standard Interchange Code
(CNS11643)—the official national encoding standard—supports 48,027 characters, while the
most widely used encoding scheme, BIG-5, supports only 13,053.
In Hong Kong, which uses traditional Chinese characters, the Education and Manpower
Bureau's Soengjung Zi Zijing Biu (常⽤字字形表), intended for use in elementary and junior
secondary education, lists a total of 4,759 characters.
In addition, there are a number of dialect characters (⽅⾔字) that are not generally used in
formal written Chinese but represent colloquial terms in nonstandard varieties of Chinese. In
general, it is common practice to use standard characters to transcribe Chinese dialects when
obvious cognates with words in Standard Mandarin exist. However, when no obvious cognate
32 of 43 24/05/20, 05:35
could be found for a word, due to factors like irregular sound change or semantic drift in the
meanings of characters, or the word originates from a non-Chinese source like a substratum
from an earlier displaced language or a later borrowing from another language family, then
characters are borrowed and used according to the rebus principle or invented in an ad hoc
manner to transcribe it. These new characters are generally phonosemantic compounds (e.g.,
, 'person' in Min), although a few are compound ideographs (e.g., , 'bad', in Northeast
Mandarin). Except in the case of Written Cantonese, there is no official orthography, and there
may be several ways to write a dialectal word, often one that is etymologically correct and one
or several that are based on the current pronunciation (e.g., (etymological) vs.
(phonetic), 'eat' (low-register) in Shanghainese). Speakers of a dialect will generally recognize a
dialectal word if it is transcribed according to phonetic considerations, while the etymologically
correct form may be more difficult or impossible to recognize. For example, few Gan speakers
would recognize the character meaning 'to lean' in their dialect, because this character ( ) has
become archaic in Standard Mandarin. The historically "correct" transcription is often so
obscure that it is uncovered only after considerable scholarly research into philology and
historical phonology and may be disputed by other researchers.
As an exception, Written Cantonese is in widespread use in Hong Kong, even for certain formal
documents, due to the former British colonial administration's recognition of Cantonese for use
for official purposes. In Taiwan, there is also a body of semi-official characters used to
represent Taiwanese Hokkien and Hakka. For example, the vernacular character 㓾 ,
pronounced cii11 in Hakka, means "to kill".[119] Other varieties of Chinese with a significant
number of speakers, like Shanghainese Wu, Gan Chinese, and Sichuanese, also have their own
series of characters, but these are not often seen, except on advertising billboards directed
toward locals and are not used in formal settings except to give precise transcriptions of witness
statements in legal proceedings. Written Standard Mandarin is the preference for all mainland
regions.
Japanese
In Japanese there are 2,136 jōyō kanji (常用漢字, lit. "frequently used Chinese characters")
designated by the Japanese Ministry of Education; these are taught during primary and
secondary school. The list is a recommendation, not a restriction, and many characters missing
from it are still in common use.[120]
One area where character usage is officially restricted is in names, which may contain only
government-approved characters. Since the jōyō kanji list excludes many characters that have
been used in personal and place names for generations, an additional list, referred to as the
jinmeiyō kanji (人名用漢字, lit. "kanji for use in personal names"), is published.[121] It currently
contains 983 characters.
Today, a well-educated Japanese person may know upwards of 3,500 characters. The kanji
kentei (日本漢字能力検定試験, Nihon Kanji Nōryoku Kentei Shiken or Test of Japanese Kanji
Aptitude) tests a speaker's ability to read and write kanji. The highest level of the kanji kentei
tests on approximately 6,000 kanji,[122][123] though in practice few people attain (or need to
attain) this level.
Modern creation
New characters can in principle be coined at any time, just as new words can be, but they may
not be adopted. Significant historically recent coinages date to scientific terms of the 19th
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century. Specifically, Chinese coined new characters for chemical elements – see chemical
elements in East Asian languages – which continue to be used and taught in schools in China
and Taiwan. In Japan, in the Meiji era (specifically, late 19th century), new characters were
coined for some (but not all) SI units, such as 粁 ( 米 "meter" + 千 "thousand, kilo-") for
kilometer. These kokuji (Japanese-coinages) have found use in China as well – see Chinese
characters for SI units for details.
While new characters can be easily coined by writing on paper, they are difficult to represent on
a computer – they must generally be represented as a picture, rather than as text – which
presents a significant barrier to their use or widespread adoption. Compare this with the use of
symbols as names in 20th century musical albums such as Led Zeppelin IV (1971) and Love
Symbol Album (1993); an album cover may potentially contain any graphics, but in writing and
other computation these symbols are difficult to use.
Indexing
Dozens of indexing schemes have been created for arranging Chinese characters in Chinese
dictionaries. The great majority of these schemes have appeared in only a single dictionary;
only one such system has achieved truly widespread use. This is the system of radicals (see for
example, the 214 so-called Kangxi radicals).
Chinese character dictionaries often allow users to locate entries in several ways. Many
Chinese, Japanese, and Korean dictionaries of Chinese characters list characters in radical
order: characters are grouped together by radical, and radicals containing fewer strokes come
before radicals containing more strokes (radical-and-stroke sorting). Under each radical,
characters are listed by their total number of strokes. It is often also possible to search for
characters by sound, using pinyin (in Chinese dictionaries), zhuyin (in Taiwanese dictionaries),
kana (in Japanese dictionaries) or hangul (in Korean dictionaries). Most dictionaries also allow
searches by total number of strokes, and individual dictionaries often allow other search
methods as well.
For instance, to look up the character where the sound is not known, e.g., 松 (pine tree), the
user first determines which part of the character is the radical (here ⽊ ), then counts the
number of strokes in the radical (four), and turns to the radical index (usually located on the
inside front or back cover of the dictionary). Under the number "4" for radical stroke count, the
user locates ⽊, then turns to the page number listed, which is the start of the listing of all the
characters containing this radical. This page will have a sub-index giving remainder stroke
numbers (for the non-radical portions of characters) and page numbers. The right half of the
character also contains four strokes, so the user locates the number 4, and turns to the page
number given. From there, the user must scan the entries to locate the character he or she is
seeking. Some dictionaries have a sub-index which lists every character containing each radical,
and if the user knows the number of strokes in the non-radical portion of the character, he or
she can locate the correct page directly.
Another dictionary system is the four corner method, where characters are classified according
to the shape of each of the four corners.
Most modern Chinese dictionaries and Chinese dictionaries sold to English speakers use the
traditional radical-based character index in a section at the front, while the main body of the
dictionary arranges the main character entries alphabetically according to their pinyin spelling.
To find a character with unknown sound using one of these dictionaries, the reader finds the
radical and stroke number of the character, as before, and locates the character in the radical
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index. The character's entry will have the character's pronunciation in pinyin written down; the
reader then turns to the main dictionary section and looks up the pinyin spelling alphabetically.
See also
Adoption of Chinese literary culture
Chinese family of scripts
Character amnesia
Chinese character encoding
Chinese input methods for computers
Chinese numerals, or how to write numbers with Chinese characters
Chinese punctuation
Eight Principles of Yong
Stroke order
Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts
List of languages written in Chinese characters and derivatives of Chinese characters
Romanization of Chinese
Transcription into Chinese characters
Notes
a. Abbreviations are occasionally used – see § Polysyllabic characters.
b. Qiu 2000, pp. 132–133 provides archaeological evidence for this dating, in contrast to
unsubstantiated claims dating the beginning of cursive anywhere from the Qin to the
Eastern Han.
c. Qiu 2000, pp. 140–141 mentions examples of neo-clerical with "strong overtones of cursive
script" from the late Eastern Han.
d. Liu is said to have taught Zhong Yao and Wang Xizhi.
e. Wáng Xīzhī is so credited in essays by other calligraphers in the 6th to early 7th centuries,
and most of his extant pieces are in modern cursive script.[72]
f. cf. Inariyama Sword
g. (U+9F49) nàng is found, for instance, on p. 707 of ( ) A Chinese–

English Dictionary, (Revised Edition) Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press,
Beijing, 1995. ISBN 978-7-5600-0739-7.
References
Citations
1. Guǎngxī Zhuàngzú zìzhìqū shǎoshù mínzú gǔjí zhěnglǐ chūbǎn guīhuà lǐngdǎo xiǎozǔ
, ed. (1989). Sawndip Sawdenj – Gǔ
Zhuàng zì zìdiǎn [Dictionary of the Old Zhuang Script] (2nd ed.). Nanning:
Guangxi minzu chubanshe. ISBN 978-7-5363-0614-1.
2. World Health Organization (2007). WHO international standard terminologies on traditional
medicine in the Western Pacific Region (http://www.wpro.who.int/publications/PUB_978929
0612483/en/). Retrieved 22 June 2015.
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3. Shieh (2011). "The Unified Phonetic Transcription for Teaching and Learning Chinese
Languages" (http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ946645) Turkish Online Journal of Educational
Technology, 10: 355–369.
4. Potowski, Kim (2010). Language Diversity in the USA. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. p. 82. ISBN 978-0-521-74533-8.
5. "History of Chinese Writing Shown in the Museums" (http://en.artintern.net/index.php/news/
main/html/1/1101). CCTV online. Retrieved 2010-03-20.
6. Norman 1988, p. 73.
7. Wood, Clare Patricia; Connelly, Vincent (2009). Contemporary perspectives on reading and
spelling (https://books.google.com/books?id=z6d5AgAAQBAJ). New York: Routledge.
p. 203. ISBN 978-0-415-49716-9. "Often, the Chinese character can function as an
independent unit in sentences, but sometimes it must be paired with another character or
more to form a word. [...] Most words consist of two or more characters, and more than 80
per cent make use of lexical compounding of morphemes (Packard, 2000)."
8. "East Asian Languages at" (http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/east_asian_languages.ht
ml). Pinyin.info. Retrieved 2018-02-28.
9. Victor Mair, "Polysyllabic characters in Chinese writing" (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nl
l/?p=3330), Language Log, 2011 August 2
10. Norman 1988, p. 58.
11. Wilkinson 2012, p. 22.
12. Norman 1988, p. 112.
13. Yip 2000, p. 18.
14. Norman 1988, pp. 155–156.
15. Norman 1988, p. 74.
16. Norman 1988, pp. 74–75.
17. Swofford, Mark (2010). "Chinese characters with multiple pronunciations" (http://pinyin.info/
chinese_characters/). pinyin.info. Retrieved 4 July 2016.
18. Baxter (1992), pp. 315–317.
19. Baxter (1992), p. 315.
20. Baxter (1992), p. 316.
21. Baxter (1992), pp. 197, 305.
22. Baxter (1992), p. 218.
23. Baxter (1992), p. 219.
24. Norman 1988, pp. 58–61.
25. Norman 1988, pp. 67–69.
26. Sampson & Chen 2013, p. 261.
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Translated by Zhang Liqing. Columbus: National East Asian Languages Resource
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Further reading
Galambos, Imre (2006). Orthography of early Chinese writing: evidence from newly
excavated manuscripts (http://shahon.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Galambos-2006-Ort
hography-of-early-Chinese-writing.pdf) (PDF). Budapest: Eötvös Loránd University.
ISBN 978-963-463-811-7.
Early works of historical interest
Samuel Wells Williams (1842). Easy lessons in Chinese: or progressive exercises to

facilitate the study of that language (https://archive.org/details/easylessonsinch01willgoog).
Printed at the Office of the Chinese Repository.
Herbert Allen Giles (1892). A Chinese-English dictionary, Volume 1 (https://books.google.co
m/?id=l3EgAQAAMAAJ). B. Quaritch. p. 1415.
P. Poletti (1896). A Chinese and English dictionary, arranged according to radicals and sub-
radicals (https://archive.org/details/achineseandengl00polegoog). Printed at the American
Presbyterian mission press.
William Edward Soothill (1900). The student's four thousand [characters] and general
pocket dictionary (https://books.google.com/?id=8nwuAAAAYAAJ) (2 ed.). American
Presbyterian Mission Press.
John Chalmers (1882). An account of the structure of Chinese characters under 300
primary forms: after the Shwoh-wan, 100 A.D., and the phonetic Shwoh-wan, 1833 (https://
archive.org/details/anaccountstruct01chalgoog). Trübner & co.
Chinese and English dictionary: compiled from reliable authors (https://books.google.com/?i
d=rDQrAAAAYAAJ). American Tract Society. 1893.
Joseph Edkins (1876). Introduction to the study of the Chinese characters (https://books.go
41 of 43 24/05/20, 05:35
ogle.com/?id=_YdBAAAAYAAJ). Trübner & co. p. 314.

Walter Henry Medhurst (1842). Chinese and English dictionary: containing all the words in
the Chinese imperial dictionary; arranged according to the radicals. 2 volumes (https://book
s.google.com/?id=h380AQAAIAAJ). Parapattan: Walter Henry Medhurst.
Tai Tung (Dai Tong ) (1954). The Six Scripts Or the Principles of Chinese Writing (http
s://books.google.com/?id=fkc7AAAAIAAJ). Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 978-1-107-60515-2. Translated by L.C. Hopkins with a Memoir of the Translator by W.
Perceval Yetts
External links
History and construction of Chinese characters
Excerpt from Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems (http://www.pinyin.in
fo/readings/texts/visible/index.html) by John DeFrancis, © 1989 by the University of Hawai`i
Press. Used by permission of the University of Hawai`i Press.
Online dictionaries and character reference
Chinese Text Project Dictionary (http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en) Comprehensive

character dictionary including data for all Chinese characters in Unicode, and exemplary
usage from early Chinese texts.
Evolution of Chinese Characters (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/chinese_evolution.htm)
Zhongwen.com (http://zhongwen.com/): a searchable dictionary with information about
character formation
Richard Sears, Chinese Etymology (https://web.archive.org/web/20100620163409/http://chi
neseetymology.org/).
Da, Jun, Chinese text computing (http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese-computing/) – statistics on
use of Chinese characters
Chinese characters in computing
Unihan Database (https://www.unicode.org/charts/unihan.html): Chinese, Japanese, and

Korean references, readings, and meanings for all the Chinese and Chinese-derived
characters in the Unicode character set
cchar.com Chinese Character Software (http://www.cchar.com/): Step by step pictures
showing how to write Chinese characters.
Daoulagad Han (http://www.cymraeg.ru/daoulagad.html) – Mobile OCR hanzi dictionary,
OCR interface to the UniHan database
Early works of historical interest
Chinese and English dictionary: compiled from reliable authors (https://books.google.com/?i

d=rDQrAAAAYAAJ). American Tract Society. 1893. Retrieved 2011-05-15.
Kangxi (Emperor of China) (1842). Chinese and English dictionary: containing all the words
in the Chinese imperial dictionary; arranged according to the radicals, Volume 1 (https://boo
ks.google.com/?id=h380AQAAIAAJ). Printed at Parapattan. Retrieved 2011-05-15.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chinese_characters&oldid=958386446"
42 of 43 24/05/20, 05:35
This page was last edited on 23 May 2020, at 14:18 (UTC).
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By
using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the
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Chinese characters - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.

occasionally these correspond to different pronunciations. IPA [xân.tsɨ]̂

Principles of formation Teochew Peng'im hang3 ri7

Rebus Middle Chinese xanCdzɨC

Dominance and maturation of regular script Transcriptions

Pictograms are highly stylized and simplified pictures of material

Over time pictograms were increasingly

Associative idea characters (compound conceptual characters)

Phonetical usage for foreign words

Examples of phono-semantic characters include 河 hé "river", 湖 hú "lake", 流 liú "stream", 沖

8 PHONO-SEMANTIC COMPOUNDS WITH PHONETIC PART (YĚ)[35]

(originally a pictograph of a grammatical particle;

water chí pool

/ / horse chí gallop

bow (bend) chí relaxation

flag shī application

earth dì (de) ground

/ (archaic tuō drag

According to legend, Chinese characters were invented by

Early sign use

In recent decades, a series of inscribed graphs and pictures

Oracle bone script

divinatory inscriptions are the earliest surviving evidence of

Bronze Age: parallel script forms and gradual

The traditional picture of an orderly series of scripts, each one

Based on studies of these bronze inscriptions, it is clear

Proto-clerical evolving to clerical

Clerical and clerical cursive

Wei to Jin period

Dominance and maturation of regular script

Adaptation to other languages

Chinese characters were first used in Vietnam during the

Several minority languages of south and

Transcription of foreign languages

Along with Persian and Arabic, Chinese characters were

Hanzi was also used to phonetically transcribe the Manchu

According to the Rev. John Gulick: "The inhabitants of

Southeast Asian Chinese communities

Singapore underwent three successive rounds of character simplification. These resulted in

Comparisons of traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, and Japanese

The following is a comparison of Chinese characters in the Standard Form of National

Simplified in mainland China only, not 愛 love

仮 false, day off, borrow

kowtow, pray to,

Simplified in Japan, not Mainland China rabbit

Simplified differently in Mainland China

悪 bad, evil, hate

Simplified (almost) identically in Mainland

会 be able to, meeting

like the Chinese scripts.

The art of writing Chinese characters is called Chinese

There are three major families of typefaces used in Chinese

The Song typeface (宋体 / 宋體, sòngtǐ) is known as the

particular person's handwriting (e.g. the handwriting of

Despite standardization, some nonstandard forms are

The nature of Chinese characters makes it very easy to

The standard character forms of each region are described in:

The Han-Han Dae Sajeon (de facto) for Korea.