Written Chinese

Written Chinese
Chinese中文
Hanyu PinyinZhōngwén
Literal meaningChinese writing
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinZhōngwén
Bopomofoㄓㄨㄥ ㄨㄣˊ
Gwoyeu RomatzyhJongwen
Wade–GilesChung1-wen2
Tongyong PinyinJhong-wún
Yale RomanizationJūng-wén
IPA[ʈʂʊ́ŋ.wə̌n]
Wu
Romanizationtson1 ven1
Hakka
RomanizationChung-Vun
Yue: Cantonese
Yale RomanizationJūng mán
Jyutpingzung1 man4*2
Canton RomanizationZung1 men4*2
IPA
Southern Min
Hokkien POJTiong-bûn
Eastern Min
Fuzhou BUCDṳng-ùng
Han writing[a]
Simplified Chinese汉文
Traditional Chinese漢文
Hanyu PinyinHànwén
Literal meaningHan writing
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinHànwén
Bopomofoㄏㄢˋ ㄨㄣˊ
Gwoyeu RomatzyhHannwen
Wade–GilesHan4-wen2
Tongyong PinyinHàn-wún
IPA[xân.wə̌n]

Written Chinese is a writing system that uses Chinese characters and other symbols to represent the Chinese languages. Chinese characters do not directly represent pronunciation, unlike letters in an alphabet or syllabograms in a syllabary. Rather, the writing system is morphosyllabic: characters are one spoken syllable in length, but generally correspond to morphemes in the language, which may either be independent words, or part of a polysyllabic word. Most characters are constructed from smaller components that may reflect the character's meaning or pronunciation.[1] Literacy requires the memorization of thousands of characters; college-educated Chinese speakers know approximately 4,000.[2][3] This has led in part to the adoption of complementary transliteration systems as a means of representing the pronunciation of Chinese.[4]

Chinese writing is first attested during the late Shang dynasty (c. 1250 – c. 1050 BCE),[5][6][7] but the process of creating characters is thought to have begun centuries earlier during the Late Neolithic and early Bronze Age (c. 2500–2000 BCE).[8] After a period of variation and evolution, Chinese characters were standardized under the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE).[9] Over the millennia, these characters have evolved into well-developed styles of Chinese calligraphy.[10] As the varieties of Chinese diverged, a situation of diglossia developed, with speakers of mutually unintelligible varieties able to communicate through writing using Literary Chinese.[11] In the early 20th century, Literary Chinese was replaced in large part with written vernacular Chinese, largely corresponding to Standard Chinese, a form based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. Although most other varieties of Chinese are not written, there are traditions of written Cantonese, written Shanghainese and written Hokkien, among others.


Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

  1. ^ DeFrancis (1984), p. 84.
  2. ^ DeFrancis (1968).
  3. ^ Norman (1988), p. 73.
  4. ^ Ramsey (1987), p. 143.
  5. ^ Boltz, William G. (1986). "Early Chinese Writing". World Archaeology. 17 (3): 420–436. doi:10.1080/00438243.1986.9979980. ISSN 0043-8243. JSTOR 124705.
  6. ^ Keightley, David N. (1996). "Art, Ancestors, and the Origins of Writing in China". Representations (56): 68–95. doi:10.2307/2928708. ISSN 0734-6018. JSTOR 2928708.
  7. ^ DeFrancis, John (1989). "Chinese". Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-1207-2 – via pinyin.info.
  8. ^ Norman (1988), pp. 64–65; Demattè (2022).
  9. ^ Norman (1988), p. 63.
  10. ^ Norman (1988), pp. 65–70.
  11. ^ DeFrancis (1984), pp. 155–156.

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