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

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19th-century Shuishu manuscript from the Shui archives in Libo, Guizhou

Sui script

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Logographic writing system with some pictographic characters that can be used to write the Sui language (Wei 2003:xxix).

Logographic writing system with some pictographic characters that can be used to write the Sui language (Wei 2003:xxix).

19th-century Shuishu manuscript from the Shui archives in Libo, Guizhou
Manuscript in Sui script
Manuscript in Sui script

Many of these characters appear to be borrowings from Chinese characters and are written backwards, apparently for increased supernatural power.

GB 2312

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Key official character set of the People's Republic of China, used for Simplified Chinese characters.

Key official character set of the People's Republic of China, used for Simplified Chinese characters.

16–55, the first level of Chinese characters, arranged according to Pinyin. (3755 characters).

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Taito (kanji)

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Variant 2: taito
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Daito on a shop in Tsukuba

Taito, daito, or otodo (𱁬/) is a kokuji ("kanji character invented in Japan") written with 84 strokes, and thus the most graphically complex CJK character—collectively referring to Chinese characters and derivatives used in the written Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages.

The code of 法 (meaning "method/law/France") is an example of a fifth digit for an extra part: 34131 (丶十一丶一).

Four-Corner Method

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The code of 法 (meaning "method/law/France") is an example of a fifth digit for an extra part: 34131 (丶十一丶一).

The Four-Corner Method is a character-input method used for encoding Chinese characters into either a computer or a manual typewriter, using four or five numerical digits per character.

Written Cantonese on the packaging of Hong Kong beverage brand Vitasoy

Written Cantonese

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Written form of Cantonese, the most complete written form of Chinese after that for Mandarin Chinese and Classical Chinese.

Written form of Cantonese, the most complete written form of Chinese after that for Mandarin Chinese and Classical Chinese.

Written Cantonese on the packaging of Hong Kong beverage brand Vitasoy
Written Cantonese advertising banner in Mainland China
A Hong Kong billboard in Written Cantonese with a mixture of English words in the typical code switch style of Hong Kong speech.
A Hong Kong political advertisement in Written Cantonese
Political banner in Written Cantonese

Modern Cantonese speakers have therefore developed new characters for words that do not exist and have retained others that have been lost in standard Chinese.

Damaidi

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Location of 3,172 sets of early Chinese petroglyphs, carved into the cliffs which feature 8,453 individual figures.

Location of 3,172 sets of early Chinese petroglyphs, carved into the cliffs which feature 8,453 individual figures.

Archaeologists believe that some of these symbols (over 1,500) bear a resemblance to ancient hieroglyphs of Chinese characters.

Biangbiang noodles

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Biangbiang noodles, alternatively known as youpo chemian (油泼扯面) in Chinese, are a type of noodle popular in the cuisine of China's Shaanxi Province.

Biangbiang noodles, alternatively known as youpo chemian (油泼扯面) in Chinese, are a type of noodle popular in the cuisine of China's Shaanxi Province.

American singer and TV personality in China Slater Rhea writes and explains a biáng character on Xi'an TV.
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⿺⻍⿱宀░
⿺⻍⿱宀🙉
Animated GIF showing the stroke order of the Traditional character for biáng according to the mnemonic, not according to the principles of stroke order.
A Xi'an biangbiang noodle restaurant. The Traditional character for biáng is combined with the Simplified character for miàn.
Biángbiáng miàn in Traditional characters. With exception of the fourth and fifth strokes, the variant of biáng used is the same as the third variant on the list.
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Biangbiang noodles are renowned for being written using a unique character.

Mongolian script and Mongolian Cyrillic on Sukhbaatar's statue in Ulaanbaatar

Mongolian language

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Official language of Mongolia and both the most widely spoken and most-known member of the Mongolic language family.

Official language of Mongolia and both the most widely spoken and most-known member of the Mongolic language family.

Mongolian script and Mongolian Cyrillic on Sukhbaatar's statue in Ulaanbaatar
Modern Mongolian's place on the chronological tree of Mongolic languages
Nova N 176 found in Kyrgyzstan. The manuscript (dating to the 12th century Western Liao) is written in the Mongolic Khitan language using cursive Khitan large script. It has 127 leaves and 15,000 characters.
Edict of Yesün Temür Khan, Emperor Taiding of Yuan (1328). Only the 'Phags-pa script retains the complete Middle Mongol vowel system.
The Secret History of the Mongols which goes back to a lost Mongolian script original is the only document that allows the reconstruction of agreement in social gender in Middle Mongol.

From the 13th to the 15th centuries, Mongolian language texts were written in four scripts (not counting some vocabulary written in Western scripts): Uyghur Mongolian (UM) script (an adaptation of the Uyghur alphabet), 'Phags-pa script (Ph) (used in decrees), Chinese (SM) (The Secret History of the Mongols), and Arabic (AM) (used in dictionaries).

Han-Han Dae Sajeon

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Generic term for Korean hanja-to-hangul dictionaries.

Generic term for Korean hanja-to-hangul dictionaries.

The most comprehensive one, published by Dankook University Publishing, contains 53,667 Chinese characters and 420,269 compound words.

Allography

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Allography, from the Greek for "other writing", has several meanings which all relate to how words and sounds are written down.

Allography, from the Greek for "other writing", has several meanings which all relate to how words and sounds are written down.

In the Chinese script, there exist several graphemes that have more than one written representation.