Written Chinese
The Chinese writing system is logographic, i.e. each characterexpresses a word part.
Called Han Chinese charachters, after the Han Chinese culture to whom it is largely attributed. In Japan, and Korea these charachters were adopted and integrated and are called Kanji, Hanja, respectively.
Originally, characters were simple pictures depicting objects. This gradually became more complex to provide for the depiction of abstract concepts, such as love, or society. There are still a number of characters which are very similar to their original, representational pictures, but most characters used today have evolved to a level of unique sophistication.
The language does'nt have to be learned entirely as wrote, rather the underlying logic and structure are apparent to the initiated. Given its depth and sophistication, it is considered difficult to master for native speakers, and impossible for foreigners who learn it in adulthood.
The numerous languages spoken by the Chinese, Mandarin being one, have gone through centuries of evolution. Much of this change was independent, and divergent, since the Han characters were first codified and standardized.
Chinese charachters on the other hand, are understood as symbols, independently of the language spoken. These symbols could just as easily function with English words replacing the Mandarin or Cantonese.
'Classification
Chinese scholars classify Han charachters by identifying several types of compounds, including 'meaning-meaning' compounds, in which each element of the character contributes to the meaning, and sound-meaning' compounds, in which one component indicates the kind of concept the character describes, and the other hints at the pronunciation.
Due to long language-evolutions, hints within charachters toward pronunciation are often useless and sometimes quite misleading, depending on which language is spoken.
- Two examples of this are shown as a footnote to this article.
'Radicals Each character has a fundamental component, or radical, and this design principle is used in Chinese dictionaries to logically order charachters in sets.
Full characters are ordered according to their initial radical, which fall into roughly 200 types. Then these are subcategorised by their total number of strokes.
- A more detailed discussion of this can be found in the entry on ideographic writing systems).
This principle of categorisation is exploited by everybody who must learn to write Han charachters: The vast number of Chinese characters can be much more easily memorized if they are mentally decomposed into their constituting radicals. The question of how many characters there are is subject of a heated discussion.
In the 18th century, European scholars claimed the total tally to be about 80,000. This number, however, is exaggerated, as the most comprehensive dictionary (the Kangxi Dictionary 康熙字典) lists about 40,000 characters. One reason for large number of characters is that they include all of the different characters in the different variations of Chinese. Popular estimates say that about 3,000 characters are needed to read a Chinese newspaper, and 4,000 to 5,000 constitute a decent education.
Classification of characters
One can classify characters into character sets of which the following are in common use:
- "bai hua" (白話)
- "wen yan" (文言) -- Classical Chinese
- "written colloquial Cantonese" - Cantonese is unique in that is it has a commonly used written character system which is different from "bai hua" or "wen yan"
- "dialectal characters"
Character forms
There are currently two standards for printed Chinese characters. One is the Traditional Writing System, used in Hong Kong, Taiwan and by Overseas Chinese. The Peoples's Republic of China (also Singapore) uses the Simplified Writing System, which uses simplified forms for some of the more complicated characters. In addition most Chinese in writing letters will use some personal simplications for cursive.
The Chinese characters are also used to write the Chinese numerals.
Transcription and Romanization
The official standard transcription of Putonghua into the Latin alphabet is Pinyin, though other systems are still sometimes used, such as the older Wade-Giles. Other Chinese languages are transliterated with more or less adhoc systems, sometimes without a clear standard, sometimes with several.
- From above:
1.For example, the character for "country" (國 'guo2') consists of the outer square (口) which represents the wall/fortress, the radical 'ge1' (戈 meaning lance, a weapon) which represents defense, the radical 'mouth' (口 kou3) which represents population, and a horizontal stroke (一) which represents land. This character falls in the meaning-meaning category.
2.Another example, the character for "mother" (媽 'ma', 1. pitch, in Mandarin) consists of one component meaning "female (女)" and another one meaning "horse (馬)" - now this doesn't mean Chinese view mothers as female horses! The first component (or "radical") simply tells that the character denotes a female entity, whereas the second acts as a pronunciation guide by referring to the word for "horse", which is also pronounced 'ma', though in a different tone.
See also: Chinese language Nu shu