ArticlesReader.com Menu
Newest Articles
Most Viewed Articles
ArticlesReader.com RSS
Submit Article
Login
Signup
Search the articles

Articles Main Categories
Advice
Animals
Automobiles
Business
Career
Communications
Computer Programming
Computers
Entertainment
Environment
Family
Fashion
Finance
Food
Health & Medical
Home & Garden
Humor
Internet Business
Internet Marketing
Legal
Leisure & Recreation
Marketing
Other
Politics
Reference & Education
Religion
Self Improvement
Sports
Technology & Science
Travel
Writing
Subscribe
Receive alert message from us when new articles submitted to our site for free.

Enter your name

Enter your email

Syndicate

















Related Products
Home::Career

Chinese Writing Characteristics

Author : Rosie Wang
Over the years, Chinese were evolved and developed in the following different ways:

Pictographs

The original written format were found on the markings scratched onto tortoise shells and animal bones, the so-called "oracle bones". These ancient writings were pictures or Pictographs.

Many people tend to think that Chinese characters are all pictographs. Actually, pictographic characters are only one kind of Chinese character, there are only about 600 pictograph characters.

Pictographic Chinese characters are pictures of concrete objects, they are the basic units for forming other Chinese characters.

These are a few examples showing the pictographic characters:

山 Mountain ; 羊 sheep ; 月 moon

Ideographs

As time went on and people needed to express more complex ideas or concepts, pictographs were extended or combined to form ideographs. Ideographs are graphical representations of abstract ideas.

For example:

a sun 日 and a moon 月 together means 'bright' 明

a woman 女 and with a child 子 beside means 'good' 好

The single character ? stands for a tree, two trees together ? refers to a group of trees-grove the character made up of three trees ? means a place full of trees - a forest Phonetic-Semantic Compounds

Over 90% of current Chinese characters are semantic-phonetic compounds.

There are many objects, abstract and ideas that are difficult to express through Pictographs or Ideographs.

For example, 鸟 is the general term for birds, but there are thousands of types of birds in the world, and it is impossible to differentiate each of them by way of pictography or ideography. But this is easily achieved in phonetic-semantic compounds by adding different phonetics to the radical 鸟, e.g. 鸽 ( pigeon ), 鹊 ( crane ), 鸡 ( chicken ) or 鹅 ( goose ).

A phonetic compound consists of a semantic radical and a phonetic radical, the semantic radical indicates its semantic field and the phonetic radical its pronunciation.

The meaning component of the semantic-phonetic compound Chinese character is also called the 'radical'. For example, ' 足 ' is a popular Chinese radical that means 'foot'. The meanings of those characters that contain this radical are related to 'foot' in a certain way.

The phonetic component indicates at least part of the sound. Characters that contain the same phonetic component tend to have similar sounds.

For example, for the character ' 跳' ( jump ), the right part ' 兆' indicates the sound. They share the same vowel.

Phonetic Loans

The phonetic loan is another way of using existing characters. It is an internal borrowing on the basis of pronunciation: a character is used in a new meaning which is expressed by a similar sound in the spoken form. In this way an existing character has acquired a new meaning, but no new character is created.

For example, the character自in the Oracle-Bone Inscriptions was originally pictograph and referred to the nose, but it is now used in the sense of "self" as a result of phonetic loan. The character 来 in the Oracle-Bone Inscriptions was also a pictograph, referring to the wheat, but is now used in the sense of "come" as a phonetic loan.

About the Author

Rosie From Learn Chinese Language Online (http://www.learn-chinese-language-online.com)

The goal of Learn Chinese Language Online (LCLO) is to reduce the Mandarin Learning curve, promote and introduce the most efficient way to grasp the broad foundation of Chinese language.

Spam emails More free articles

Related articles


  1. Tips For Successful Job Hunting: How To Get A Job Without A Resume
  2. How to Turn a Job Search into a Career Find
  3. How to Pick the Best Career For You , Part 2: From Exposure-to-Opportunity
  4. My Landscaping Business is Better Than Your Lanscaping Business...
  5. Why Culinary Education
  6. How To Pick The Best Career For You, Part 1
  7. 4 Internet Job Search Mistakes to Avoid
  8. Get A New Job - Career Choices
  9. Electronic Resume Writing Tips That Boost Your Interview Appointment Success
  10. Travel Light to Work
  11. Sawbones
  12. Whiners Need Not Apply
  13. Discover your passion
  14. Workplace Violence - 8 Tips For Spotting Early Warning Signs
  15. Your Best Job Search Tool May Be Your Computer
  16. Practice Speaking
  17. Smokin’ Up a Storm: Clothing, Smokers, and the Job Interview
  18. Resume That Effectively Promotes You!
  19. What is Contract Programming? An Alternative to the Conformity of Everyday Employment
  20. Ten Great Careers For Computer “Geeks"
  21. The Six Figure Job Search
  22. An RX For Your Résumé
  23. Powerful Phone Interviews
  24. Your Self-Image in the Workplace
  25. Thank-You Notes: An Integral Part of Your Career Design
More related feeds
Cantonese opera
Characteristics. Cantonese opera has much in common with other Chinese theatre genres. Commentators often take pride in the idea that all Chinese theatre styles are but minor variations on a pan-Chinese music-theater tradition, ...

Something about Chinese food
One ancient Chinese food item not developed elsewhere is tofu. This fermented bean product was thought to have been made from about 1000 BCE. The soya bean is tasty and supposedly endowed with healthy characteristics. ...

Chinese Writing Characteristics
A introduction about different styles of Chinese Writing Characteristics.

Decoding ASPM: Part II
This brain area did not arise to make reading and writing possible. It simply arose to make these tasks easier. But what about human populations that have never used alphabetical script? This is notably true for the Chinese, ...

Feature: "Panda Queen" designer dreaming of empire
She could be an ancient witch who prays for rain in a traditional way with two fans in her hands, the Chinese characters of fengshui, or "wind" and "rain" written on them. In another she is sitting on the stairs of a museum, ...

Lantern Festival 2008
In the new Garden of Abundance are stone carvings of the Chinese astrological animals, with plaques of their characteristics. Also in this garden are 100 year old pomegranate trees from China. Mick with his oxes . . . and fruit from one ...

McCain was born in 1936,a "rat" and Obama an "ox" in 1961
It is good to read a Chinese character in the Washington Post to show the readers about Chinese traditional culture of Zodiac. Such culture is also noted in Japan and Korea as well. The zodiac characters work well for my family members ...

Chinese Writing Characteristics
Over the years, Chinese were evolved and developed in the following different ways:. Pictographs. The original written format were found on the markings scratched onto tortoise shells and animal bones, the so-called "oracle bones". ...

batteries schmatteries
I still don't have any batteries, but why would that prevent me from writing? When I think about posting something to my blog, do I imagine that this must necessarily include posting pictures? Why do I feel compelled to put pictures up ...

Just Answers: Chinese Writing Characteristics at www.justanswers ...
ing different ways For example the character 33258 in the Oracle Bone Inscriptions was originally pictograph and referred to the nose but it is now used in the sense of self as a result of phonetic loan. The character 26469 in the ...

 


 

© 2007 articlesreader.com - All Rights Reserved