Chinese is one of the oldest written languages in the world. Its history goes back at least 3 thousand years. The inscriptions on it were found on tortoise shells of the Shang Dynasty (1766–1123 BC).
History of Chinese Writing
The Chinese letter is younger than the Sumerian or Egyptian, but there is no evidence that the invention of writing in the Middle Kingdom was in any way stimulated by the writing of the Middle East. The earliest examples of Chinese characters are fortune-telling texts on bones and shells. They consist of a question to the soothsayer and an answer to it. This early writing shows that at the dawn of its development, it was based on pictograms. For example, the word “cow” was depicted with the head of an animal, and “go” with a foot pattern.
Over time, however, Chinese writing underwent many changes, and by the time of the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD) it had lost most of its visualization. Modern hieroglyphs formed during the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. e. Surprisingly, after that they almost did not change. In addition to standard forms, there are also several handwritten forms. The most common are taoshu and sinsha. The first type is very difficult to read for people who do not have special training. Sinshu is a kind of compromise between Tsaoshu’s high speed and standard writing. This form is widely used in modern China.
How many characters are in Chinese?
To represent each dictionary morpheme, the Chinese use single distinctive characters. The vast majority of characters are written versions of pronounced sounds that have semantic meaning. Although the writing system has changed over time due to revolutions and political disasters, its principles, along with symbols, have remained basically the same.
So how many characters are in Chinese? Although their number is tens of thousands (for example, the Zhonghua Tzihai dictionary contains more than 85 thousand logograms), most of them are found only in historical texts, they are incomprehensible or are spelling variations of the same word. A large dictionary usually contains 40 thousand characters, and for reading newspapers it is enough to know 2-3 thousand characters.
Thus, the answer to the question of how many hieroglyphs are in the Chinese language depends on what they are considered. If you use the method used in China, their number is potentially infinite, as well as the limitless number of possible spellings, alternatives, and typographical errors.
Although there are many Chinese dialects, written language is a common form of communication. Even if people do not understand the speech of a resident of another province, they are able to "talk" with a pencil and paper. Chinese writing can be divided into three types: simplified, traditional and phonetic. In addition, there is also a form called "pinin", which is a transcription of Chinese in Latin letters.
Chinese alphabet
The Chinese writing system does not have an alphabet consisting of characters for transmitting units of sound or phonemes. Instead, it consists of a set of signs or logograms that are units of meaning or morpheme (i.e. words). Like any other language, there are thousands of words in Chinese. Therefore, this writing system requires thousands of characters to represent each of its unique morphemes.
When writing various characters use the "alphabet" of the Chinese language, consisting of 12 basic graphic elements. Some characters contain only one or two traits, while others may contain up to 84. Although there are no spaces between Chinese characters, since the end of the 19th century the writing system has been supplemented with some basic punctuation marks. For example, hollow circles mark the end of sentences, and a comma, exclamation point, and question mark are also used .
The Chinese hieroglyphic words originally depicted people, animals or objects, but over the centuries they became more stylized and ceased to resemble what they represented. Although there are about 56 thousand of them, the vast majority of them are unknown to the typical reader - he needs to know only 3,000 of them for literacy. Perhaps this figure most reliably answers the question of how many hieroglyphs are in the Chinese language.
Simplified Logograms
The problem of teaching thousands of characters in 1956 led to the fact that the writing of Chinese characters was simplified. As a result, about 2,000 logograms have become easier to read and write. They are also taught in North Chinese language classes abroad. These characters are simpler, that is, they have fewer graphic elements than traditional ones.
Simplified hieroglyphs existed for hundreds of years, but were officially included in writing only after the founding of the PRC in the 1950s, in order to increase the literacy of the population. People’s daily newspaper, People's Daily, uses simplified logograms; they are used in news and video subtitles. However, people who write correctly may not know the traditional option.
This system is standard in China (except Hong Kong) and Singapore, and traditional Chinese continues to be the standard for Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, Malaysia, Korea, Japan and other countries.
Phonetic letter
Cantonese speakers have created their own phonetic sign system. These characters are used in addition to traditional Chinese characters, for example, in the comics or entertainment sections of newspapers and magazines. Often these characters cannot be found in the dictionary. Unofficial logograms are used to transmit Cantonese.
Pinyin
In an attempt to make Chinese more understandable for the West, China has developed the Pinyin system. To convey words, it uses the Latin alphabet. In 1977, the PRC authorities made a formal request to the United Nations to name the geographical locations of China using the pinyin system. Pinyin is used by those who are more familiar with the Latin alphabet and learn to speak Chinese.