The Chinese Writing System

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Imre Galambos
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Script ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Warring States Period ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Warring States ◽  
System P ◽  
Archaeological Materials ◽  
Chinese Writing System ◽  
Chinese Writing

The Chinese script is one of the major writing systems of the world and has over three thousand years of recorded history. Native accounts of its origin have been extremely influential and remain part of the general discourse, even though newly discovered archaeological materials in many cases challenge the traditional view. The earliest known examples of Chinese characters survive on oracle bones, and these are essentially ancestral to all modern forms of written Chinese, even though the script went through great changes during the following millennia. One of the most important such changes was the Qin-Han transition from the scripts of the Warring States period to that of the dynastic era. In the medieval period, the Chinese script was adopted for other languages in East and Central Asia, and in some cases was modified to create new Sinoform scripts (e.g., Khitan, Jurchen, and Tangut).

scholarly journals Neurocognitive Basis of Dyslexia in Different Writing Systems

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Liu ◽  
James R. Booth
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Dyslexia ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Chinese Writing System ◽  
Chinese Writing ◽  
Alphabetic Writing

An important issue in dyslexia research is whether developmental dyslexia in different writing systems has a common neurocognitive basis across writing systems or whether there are specific neurocognitive alterations. In this chapter, we review studies that investigate the neurocognitive basis of dyslexia in Chinese, a logographic writing system, and compare the findings of these studies with dyslexia in alphabetic writing systems. We begin with a brief review of the characteristics of the Chinese writing system because to fully understand the commonality and specificity in the neural basis of Chinese dyslexia one must understand how logographic writing systems are structured differently than alphabetic systems.

A typology of readings of Chinese characters in traditional Zhuang manuscripts

2009 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
David HOLM ◽  
David HOLM
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Character ◽  
Southern China ◽  
Chinese Characters ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Chinese Writing System ◽  
Standard Chinese ◽  
Chinese Writing

The Old Zhuang Script is an instance of a borrowed Chinese character script. Zhuang is the current designation for the northern and central Tai languages spoken in Guangxi in southern China. On the basis of a corpus of traditional texts, as recited by traditional owners, this article presents a typology of Zhuang readings of the standard Chinese characters in these texts. While some categories represent phonetic or semantic readings of Chinese characters, others correspond neither semantically nor phonetically to Chinese graphs, and often involve serial borrowing. The implications of this typology for the study of writing systems, and the Chinese writing system in particular, would seem to be considerable.

THE CHINESE ‘IDEOGRAPHIC’ SCRIPT: EVOLUTION OF PERCEPTIONS (BASED ON THE 19TH CENTURY AUTHORS)

2020 ◽  
pp. 210-218
Author(s):  
Ksenia A. Kozha ◽  
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Chinese Script ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
History Of Research ◽  
Hieroglyphic Writing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Chinese Writing System ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Chinese Writing

The article explores briefly the history of research in one of the most arguable topics in Sinological linguistics — the definition of an ideographic script, i. e. the Chinese writing system perceptions in the Russian and Western sinology of the 19th century. J.-F. Champolion’s and T. Young’s discoveries of the nature of hieroglyphic script, its function and evolution, as well as their decipherment of the ancient Egyptians texts, naturally influenced the broad field of oriental linguistics, having stimulated researches of other hieroglyphic writing systems. The present article touches briefly upon works of the American scholars P. DuPanceau and S. Andrews, the British naturalist G. T. Lay, the French diplomat J.-M. Callery and the well-renowned Russian sinologists I. Bičurin and V. P. Vasilyev. Basing on the selection of works, relevant to the article’s subject matter, the author aims to illustrate the evolution of Sinological knowledge in one of its most arguable topics — the nature hieroglyphic script, its structure and modification over time. Selected passages from the above mentioned authors, their exchange of opinions and comments to each other’s works tend to demonstrate the development of the research methodology itself — the gradual shift from labelling the Chinese script with ideographic stamp to the recognition of its phono-semantic dimensions and its transformation towards a phonetic system of writing.

scholarly journals The Chinese Script in the Chinese Scriptworld

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward McDonald
Keyword(s):  
Visual Language ◽  
Chinese Script ◽  
Chinese Characters ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Cultural Characteristics ◽  
The West ◽  
The World ◽  
Chinese Writing System ◽  
Chinese Writing ◽  
Contemporary Chinese

The exclusivist ideology characterizing the Chinese writing system as “ideographs” was constructed in the West, and later reimported into China where it influenced popular and nationalistic understandings of the characters. For the West, the Chinese script held out the promise, embraced particularly eagerly by the literary and artistic worlds, of a visual language not complicated by questions of sound, and thus by the arbitrary impositions of individual languages (Bush). For China, the Chinese script came to function as one of the key cultural characteristics marking the Chinese off from the rest of the world (Shen). This paper will attempt to provide some conceptual groundwork for understanding these complex and overlapping discourses, and set out the fundamental graphological basis through which the differing functions of Chinese characters in both the historical and the contemporary Chinese Scriptworld (Handel) can be understood.

scholarly journals The Emergence of Written Language: From Numeracy to Literacy

2020 ◽  
pp. 25-36
Author(s):  
Hye K. Pae
Keyword(s):  
Written Language ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Sign System ◽  
Greek Alphabet ◽  
Chinese Writing System ◽  
Chinese Writing

Abstract This chapter reviews how written signs first emerged and developed into systematic writing systems. The first sign system appeared to fulfill accounting purposes for the preservation of private properties in antiquity. Initial written signs, including plain tallies, complex tokens, and tokens in clay envelopes, are reviewed. Written signs before the emergence of the Greek alphabet, such as cuneiforms and hieroglyphs, are also reviewed. As agricultural culture and urbanization took place, writing systems became more multifaceted and systematized. The characteristics of true alphabets are discussed. For a comparison purpose, the Chinese writing system is briefly mentioned. The chapter ends with a discussion of the transition from numeracy to literacy.

scholarly journals On Sino-Turkic, a First Glance (北俗初探)

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 436-476
Author(s):  
An-King Lim ◽  
林安 慶
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
National Language ◽  
List Type ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
Chinese Writing System ◽  
Chinese Writing

When Turkic-speaking Tabghatch conquered China in 386 ce and ruled her for nearly 200 years, they, being minority rulers, elected to take up Chinese writing system and language as the official means of communication with its subject population. They also ended up adopting the writing system to script the Turkic language for their Turkic population resulting into a Xianbei National Language (xnl). This work describes 7 cases of Turkic-rooted Sinitic functional expressions, all featuring the word 的 [d-], supported with historical citations in Chinese documents, believed to be cultural continua of the xnl: 1) The constative preterite -dI, -dXŋ → the constative 的 [də], 底 [di], 端 [duan] 2) The nominalizer -dOk+ in free relative clause → Sinitc 的 [də], 底 [di], 得 [də] in free relative clause 3) The nominalizer -dOk+ in bound relative clause → Sinitic 底 [di], 的 [də] in bound relative clause 4) The adverb of manner suffix +tI/+dI → the adverb of manner suffixes 地 [di], 底 [di], 的 [də] 5) The locative-ablative case suffixes +dA/+tA → the locative suffixes 底 [di], 頭 [tou], 的 [də] 6) The perfect participle -dOk → the perfect participles 得 [də], 的 [di] 7) The completive perfect formative ïd- → the completive perfect formatives 得 [də], 的 [di]

Historiography, thought, and intellectual development during the Springs and Autumns Period

2020 ◽  
pp. 511-527
Author(s):  
Yuri Pines
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Intellectual Development ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Warring States Period ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Historical Texts ◽  
Warring States ◽  
System P ◽  
Zuo Zhuan

This chapter explores the historiography and political thought of the Springs and Autumns period. It analyzes major historical texts from the period—the Springs and Autumns Annals (Chunqiu) and the Zuo zhuan—addressing their nature, audience, and (especially in the case of the Zuo zhuan) the nature of their primary sources. The multiplicity of genres in the Springs and Autumns period historiography is contrasted with the proliferation of didactic anecdotes as major building blocks of historical knowledge during the subsequent Warring States period. The second part of the chapter explores major aspects of the Springs and Autumns period’s political thought as reflected in the Zuo zhuan. The marked aristocratic nature of this thought is contrasted with major trends of the subsequent Warring States period. The discussion focuses on the views of multistate order, concepts of rulership and ruler-minister relations, and views of social hierarchy and the importance of the ritual system.

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