A report on Chinese characters

Excerpt from a 1436 primer on Chinese characters
Comparative evolution from pictograms to abstract shapes, in cuneiform, Egyptian and Chinese characters
Ox scapula with oracle bone inscription
The Shi Qiang pan, a bronze ritual basin dated to around 900 BC. Long inscriptions on the surface describe the deeds and virtues of the first seven Zhou kings.
A page from a Song dynasty publication in a regular script typeface which resembles the handwriting of Ouyang Xun from Tang Dynasty
The first batch of Simplified Characters introduced in 1935 consisted of 324 characters.
Current (dark green) and former extension (light green) of the use of Chinese characters
The first two lines of the classic Vietnamese epic poem The Tale of Kieu, written in the Nôm script and the modern Vietnamese alphabet. Chinese characters representing Sino-Vietnamese words are shown in green, characters borrowed for similar-sounding native Vietnamese words in purple, and invented characters in brown.
Mongolian text from The Secret History of the Mongols in Chinese transcription, with a glossary on the right of each row
Sample of the cursive script by Chinese Tang dynasty calligrapher Sun Guoting, c. 650 AD
Chinese calligraphy of mixed styles written by Song dynasty (1051–1108 AD) poet Mifu. For centuries, the Chinese literati were expected to master the art of calligraphy.
The first four characters of Thousand Character Classic in different type and script styles. From right to left: seal script, clerical script, regular script, Ming and sans-serif.
Variants of the Chinese character for guī 'turtle', collected c. 1800 from printed sources. The one at left is the traditional form used today in Taiwan and Hong Kong,, though may look slightly different, or even like the second variant from the left, depending on your font (see Wiktionary). The modern simplified forms used in China,, and in Japan, 亀, are most similar to the variant in the middle of the bottom row, though neither is identical. A few more closely resemble the modern simplified form of the character for diàn 'lightning', 电.
Five of the 30 variant characters found in the preface of the Imperial (Kangxi) Dictionary which are not found in the dictionary itself. They are 為 (爲) wèi "due to", 此 cǐ "this", 所 suǒ "place", 能 néng "be able to", 兼 jiān "concurrently". (Although the form of 為 is not very different, and in fact is used today in Japan, the radical 爪 has been obliterated.) Another variant from the preface, 来 for 來 lái "to come", also not listed in the dictionary, has been adopted as the standard in Mainland China and Japan.
The character 次 in Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. If you have an appropriate font installed, you can see the corresponding character in Vietnamese:.
Zhé, "verbose"
Zhèng (unknown meaning)
alternative form of Taito
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Cumulative frequency of simplified Chinese characters in Modern Chinese text
Kanji for 剣道 (Kendo), pronounced differently from the Korean term 劍道 (Kumdo), or the Chinese words 劍道 (jiàndào; it is more common to use the expressions 劍術 jiànshù or 劍法 jiànfǎ in Chinese).
Nàng, "poor enunciation due to snuffle"
Taito, "the appearance of a dragon in flight"
Biáng, a kind of noodle in Shaanxi

Chinese characters are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese.

- Chinese characters
Excerpt from a 1436 primer on Chinese characters

112 related topics with Alpha

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Left: "Chinese character" in Traditional Chinese. Right: "Chinese character" in Simplified Chinese

Chinese family of scripts

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The Chinese family of scripts are writing systems descended from the Chinese Oracle Bone Script and used for a variety of languages in East Asia.

The Chinese family of scripts are writing systems descended from the Chinese Oracle Bone Script and used for a variety of languages in East Asia.

Left: "Chinese character" in Traditional Chinese. Right: "Chinese character" in Simplified Chinese
Ox scapula inscribed with Oracle Bone Script, the ancestor of the Chinese family of scripts
An example of Chinese bronze inscriptions, on a bronze vessel dated to the early Western Zhou period, 11th century BC
Katakana with man'yōgana equivalents (segments of man'yōgana adapted into katakana shown in red, retroactive, ye, yi, and wu not present)
Development of hiragana from man'yōgana (retroactive, ye, yi, and wu not present)
Bronze edict plate with Tangut characters

They include logosyllabic systems such as the Chinese script itself (or hanzi, now in two forms, traditional and simplified), and adaptations to other languages, such as Kanji (Japanese), Hanja (Korean), Chữ Hán and Chữ Nôm (Vietnamese) and Sawndip (Zhuang).

Sino-Korean vocabulary

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Sino-Korean vocabulary or Hanja-eo refers to Korean words of Chinese origin.

Sino-Korean vocabulary or Hanja-eo refers to Korean words of Chinese origin.

Sino-Korean vocabulary includes words borrowed directly from Chinese, as well as new Korean words created from Chinese characters.

A calligraphic nib, with part names

Calligraphy

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Visual art related to writing.

Visual art related to writing.

A calligraphic nib, with part names
Chinese soldier in calligraphy competition
On Calligraphy by Mi Fu, Song Dynasty
Japanese calligraphy: Two chinese characters "平和" meaning "peace" and the signature of the Meiji-period calligrapher Ōura Kanetake, 1910. Horizontal writing.
A page from The Tale of Kiều by Nguyễn Du. 19th century.
A Bön text
A musical instrument (tube zither) with Tagbanwa calligraphy
Bow with Hanunó'o calligraphy
The Brihadisvara Temple, Thanjavur has Tamil and Sanskrit inscriptions from the 11th century.
A painting of Susenyos I (r. 1607–1632) on a Ge'ez prayer scroll meant to dispel evil spirits, Wellcome Collection, London
Folio 27r from the Lindisfarne Gospels (c.700) contains the incipit from the Gospel of Matthew. British Library, London.
Calligraphy in a Latin Bible of 1407 on display in Malmesbury Abbey, England. This Bible was hand-written in Belgium, by Gerard Brils, for reading aloud in a monastery.
Modern Western calligraphy
The phrase Bismillah in an 18th-century Islamic calligraphy from the Ottoman region
Bowl with Kufic Calligraphy, 10th century. Brooklyn Museum
Example showing Nastaliq's proportional rules
Edward Johnston, founder of modern western calligraphy, at work in 1902
An example of Graily Hewitt's calligraphy
Calligraphy by one of Korea's most celebrated calligraphists, Kim Jeong-hui (1786-1856).
Modern Korean calligraphy. Hangeuls meaning "Wiktionary".

Traditional East Asian writing uses the Four Treasures of the Study (文房四寶/文房四宝): ink brushes known as máobǐ (毛筆/毛笔), Chinese ink, paper, and inkstones to write Chinese characters.

Manchu language

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Critically endangered East Asian Tungusic language native to the historical region of Manchuria in Northeast China.

Critically endangered East Asian Tungusic language native to the historical region of Manchuria in Northeast China.

Plaque at the Forbidden City in Beijing, in both Chinese (left, ) and Manchu (right, kiyan cing men)
Official designation for China in Manchu, reads vertically to the next word to the right: "Dulimbai gurun".
The Kangxi Emperor's stele near Lugou Bridge, with parallel Chinese and Manchu text
"Banjin Inenggi" and Manchu linguistic activity by the government and students in Changchun, 2011
Vowels of Manchu.

Today, written Manchu can still be seen on architecture inside the Forbidden City, whose historical signs are written in both Chinese and Manchu.

Zhongguo Guanhua, or Medii Regni Communis Loquela ("Middle Kingdom's Common Speech"), used on the frontispiece of an early Chinese grammar published by Étienne Fourmont (with Arcadio Huang) in 1742

Standard Chinese

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Dialect of Mandarin Chinese that emerged as the lingua franca among speakers of Mandarin and other varieties of Chinese in the 20th century.

Dialect of Mandarin Chinese that emerged as the lingua franca among speakers of Mandarin and other varieties of Chinese in the 20th century.

Zhongguo Guanhua, or Medii Regni Communis Loquela ("Middle Kingdom's Common Speech"), used on the frontispiece of an early Chinese grammar published by Étienne Fourmont (with Arcadio Huang) in 1742
Distribution of Mandarin subgroups in mainland China, as of 1987
Distribution of Chinese dialect groups, including Mandarin (light brown), as of 1987
A poster outside a high school in Yangzhou urges people to "Speak Putonghua to welcome guests from all around, use the language of the civilized (Putonghua) to give your sincere feelings".
Relative pitch contours of the four full tones

Chinese characters were traditionally read from top to bottom, right to left, but in modern usage it is more common to read from left to right.

Ideograms in the Church of the Visitation, Jerusalem. Five of the symbols are pictograms augmented with red bars representing the idea of "no" or "not allowed". The symbol at bottom left is a pictogram conveying the meaning of "silence".

Ideogram

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Graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept, independent of any particular language, and specific words or phrases.

Graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept, independent of any particular language, and specific words or phrases.

Ideograms in the Church of the Visitation, Jerusalem. Five of the symbols are pictograms augmented with red bars representing the idea of "no" or "not allowed". The symbol at bottom left is a pictogram conveying the meaning of "silence".
Dongba symbols, used by the Naxi people as a mnemonic in reciting oral literature
Comparative evolution of Cuneiform, Egyptian and Chinese characters
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The term "ideogram" is often used to describe symbols of writing systems such as Egyptian hieroglyphs, Sumerian cuneiform and Chinese characters.

Jinmeiyō kanji

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Jinmeiyō kanji (人名用漢字) are a set of 863 Chinese characters known as "name kanji" in English.

Dunhuang manuscript (c. 8th century) page from the Yiqiejing yinyi, the oldest extant Chinese dictionary of Buddhist technical terminology

Chinese dictionary

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Significantly longer lexicographical history than any other language.

Significantly longer lexicographical history than any other language.

Dunhuang manuscript (c. 8th century) page from the Yiqiejing yinyi, the oldest extant Chinese dictionary of Buddhist technical terminology
A page from the 1865 reprint of Morrison's Chinese dictionary, the first major Chinese–English dictionary. In this section, words are arranged alphabetically based on Morrison's transcription of Chinese.

The Chinese language has two words for dictionary: zidian (character/logograph dictionary) for written forms, that is, Chinese characters, and cidian (word/phrase dictionary), for spoken forms.

Vietnam

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Country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of 311699 km2 and population of 96 million, making it the world's fifteenth-most populous country.

Country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of 311699 km2 and population of 96 million, making it the world's fifteenth-most populous country.

A Đông Sơn bronze drum, c. 800 BC
Vietnam's territories around 1838
The Grand Palais built for the 1902–1903 world's fair, when Hanoi was French Indochina's capital
Partition of French Indochina after the 1954 Geneva Conference
Three US Fairchild UC-123B aircraft spraying Agent Orange during the Operation Ranch Hand as part of a herbicidal warfare operation depriving the food and vegetation cover of the Việt Cộng, c. 1962–1971
Nature attractions in Vietnam, clockwise from top: Hạ Long Bay, Yến River and Bản-Giốc Waterfalls
Hoàng Liên Sơn mountain range, the range that includes Fansipan which is the highest summit on the Indochinese Peninsula.
Köppen climate classification map of Vietnam.
Nha Trang, a popular beach destination has a tropical savanna climate.
Native species in Vietnam, clockwise from top-right: crested argus, a peafowl, red-shanked douc, Indochinese leopard, saola.
Sa Pa mountain hills with agricultural activities
The National Assembly of Vietnam building in Hanoi
Examples of the Vietnam People's Armed Forces weaponry assets. Clockwise from top right: T-54B tank, Sukhoi Su-27UBK fighter aircraft, Vietnam Coast Guard Hamilton-class cutter, and Vietnam People's Army chemical corps with Type 56.
A Communist Party propaganda poster in Hanoi
Historical GDP per capita development of Vietnam
Tree map showing Vietnam's exports
Vietnam's tallest skyscraper, the Landmark 81 located in Bình Thạnh, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).
Terraced rice fields in Sa Pa
A Vietnamese-made TOPIO 3.0 humanoid ping-pong-playing robot displayed during the 2009 International Robot Exhibition (IREX) in Tokyo.
Vietnamese science students working on an experiment in their university lab.
Hội An, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a major tourist destination.
HCMC–LT–DG section of the North–South Expressway.
Tan Son Nhat International Airport is the busiest airport in the country.
The port of Hai Phong is one of the largest and busiest container ports in Vietnam.
Sơn La Dam in northern Vietnam, the largest hydroelectric dam in Southeast Asia.
In rural areas of Vietnam, piped water systems are operated by a wide variety of institutions including a national organisation, people committees (local government), community groups, co-operatives and private companies.
Development of life expectancy in Vietnam since 1950
Vietnam population pyramid in 2019
District 1, Ho Chi Minh City.
Urbanisation in west Hanoi
Vietnamese calligraphy in Latin alphabet.
Vietnamese traditional white school uniform for girls in the country, the áo dài with the addition of nón lá, a conical hat.
Vietnamese dragon on Emperor Khải Định's c. 1917 scroll in British Library collection.
Ca trù trio performance in northern Vietnam
Some of the notable Vietnamese cuisine, clockwise from top-right: phở noodle, chè thái fruit dessert, chả giò spring roll and bánh mì sandwich.
Vietnam Television (VTV), the main state television station
Special Tết decoration in the country seen during the holiday
Mỹ Đình National Stadium in Hanoi.

In its early history, Vietnamese writing used Chinese characters (chữ Hán) before a different meaning set of Chinese characters known as chữ Nôm developed between the 7th–13th century.

The Song dynasty at its greatest extent in 1111

Song dynasty

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Imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279.

Imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279.

The Song dynasty at its greatest extent in 1111
Emperor Taizu of Song (960–976), a court portrait painting
A portrait of Emperor Taizong of Song ( 976–997)
A wooden Bodhisattva from the Song dynasty (960–1279).
A Liao dynasty polychrome wood-carved statue of Guan Yin, Shanxi Province, China, (907–1125)
A portrait of Emperor Gaozong of Song (r. 1127–1162)
Southern Song in 1142. The western and southern borders remain unchanged from the previous map. However, the north of the Qinling Huaihe Line was under the control of the Jin dynasty. The Xia dynasty's territory generally remained unchanged. In the southwest, the Song dynasty bordered a territory about a sixth its size, the Dali dynasty.
Emperor Taizu of Song, Emperor Taizong of Song, prime minister Zhao Pu and other ministers playing Cuju, an early form of football, by Qian Xuan (1235–1305)
A 12th-century painting by Su Hanchen; a girl waves a peacock feather banner like the one used in dramatical theater to signal an acting leader of troops.
The Donglin Academy, an educational institution equivalent to modern-day college. It was originally built in 1111 during the Northern Song dynasty.
Traction trebuchet on an Early Song Dynasty warship from the Wujing Zongyao. Trebuchets like this were used to launch the earliest type of explosive bombs.
Armoured Song cavalry
The Liaodi Pagoda, the tallest pre-modern Chinese pagoda, built in 1055; it was intended as a Buddhist religious structure, yet served a military purpose as a watchtower for reconnaissance.
Chinese calligraphy of mixed styles written by Song dynasty poet Mi Fu (1051–1107)
Portrait of the Chinese Zen Buddhist Wuzhun Shifan, painted in 1238 AD.
Dried jujubes such as these were imported to Song China from South Asia and the Middle East. An official from Canton was invited to the home of an Arab merchant, and described the jujube as thus: "This fruit is the color of sugar, its skin and its pulp are sweet, and it gives the impression, when you eat it, of having first been cooked in the oven and then allowed to dry."
Earliest known written formula for gunpowder, from the Wujing Zongyao of 1044 AD.
Facsimile of Zhu Shijie's Jade Mirror of Four Unknowns
The Yu Ji Tu, or "Map of the Tracks of Yu", carved into stone in 1137, located in the Stele Forest of Xi'an. This 3 ft squared map features a graduated scale of 100 li for each rectangular grid. China's coastline and river systems are clearly defined and precisely pinpointed on the map. Yu refers to the Chinese deity described in the geographical chapter of the Book of Documents, dated 5th–3rd centuries BCE.
A plan and side view of a canal pound lock, a concept pioneered in 984 by the Assistant Commissioner of Transport for Huainan, the engineer Qiao Weiyo.
are lines of Song dynasty stone statues
Scholars of the Song dynasty claim to have collected ancient relics dating back as far as the Shang dynasty, such as this bronze ding vessel.

This included the universal history text of the Zizhi Tongjian, compiled into 1000 volumes of 9.4 million written Chinese characters.