Chinese written language

U 4 E00 .. U 9 FAF U 3400 .. U 4 DBF U 20000 .. U 2 A6DF

The Chinese writing system (Chinese文字, Pinyin wenzi, font ') fixes the Chinese languages ​​, especially the high Chinese, with Chinese characters. It is thus a central carrier of Chinese culture and also served as the basis for Japanese fonts (Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana ), a Vietnamese font ( chu nom ) and one of the Korean fonts ( Hanja ).

In total there are about 87,000 characters, many of which are, however, rarely used. For everyday needs the knowledge of 3,000 to 5,000 characters is needed.

• 5.1 Direction
• 5.2 Together spellings of words
• 5.3 Punctuation
• 5.4 print set

• 6.1 From antiquity to modern times
• 6.2 computer

Overview

A character usually represents a syllable as a phonetic structure of a morpheme. However, the Chinese font is not a phonographic syllabary as the Korean, because identical syllables are not reproduced in each case by a single character, but different morphemes with the same sound structure are represented by different characters. The Chinese writing system is therefore called Morphemschrift or morphosyllabische writing and represents the only remaining common writing system, which relies not primarily on the phonetics of a language, but in the majority of its characters also significant referencing (semantic ) carries elements.

The Chinese writing consists mainly of logograms, for phonetic spelling of foreign words but some of them are occasionally used as phonetic symbols. In general, a character is assigned a syllable. Chinese writing is used in particular for the posting of the high Chinese: in China and Singapore in the simplified abbreviation, Taiwan and Hong Kong still in the traditional long - form characters. As a cultural export reached the Chinese writing about 600-800 AD. also in neighboring countries and is used even today in South Korea and Japan as part of the national systems of writing. There, too, the traditional characters are used in Japan since shortly after the Second World War, however, in a moderately simplified form.

By the end of the imperial period, the Chinese script was mainly for writing the classical literary language文言, Wenyan used, which was only a educated elite of course. Since then, the Chinese script is mainly used for writing the standard written language白话文báihuàwén that grammatically similar to the modern northern dialects and can be learned more easily than Wenyan by the speakers southern Chinese languages. The Chinese writing system is used today, despite the heterogeneous linguistic situation all Chinese who can read báihuàwén ( by which debate ever), as a national medium of communication. For this reason many shows on Chinese television are subtitled with the Chinese character for example. Besides the pure font competence also the spoken standard Chinese ( putonghua ) is now by the modern media and the widespread information but gradually become the norm.

Since the 15th century exists in the province of Hunan, a specially developed on the basis of the Chinese font for use by women alone script which was used by them, the Nüshu.

Importance

The importance of writing in China constituted mainly from two aspects.

• It documents the more than three thousand years old written culture of the Chinese people, thereby strengthening the national consciousness.
• Their mastery denotes degrees of social prestige in modern Chinese society.

In Europe, it is generally assumed, the condition for the invention of writing is the need for management (of grain, water) have been. Writings would have therefore developed in the earliest times, preferably in empires with established, agriculture based people or hydraulic cultures (such as the Sumerians, Egyptians ). In China, however, it is generally felt that oldest written fragments that you could get to see are the inscriptions on oracle bones. This means figuratively, it prevails the opinion, Scripture is born from the motivation to construct a medium for communication with an otherworldly, shamanic spirit world. The origins of Chinese writing is therefore suggested something magical.

It has now set up linearly with time and complete running sequences of character variants in China, but the continuity of Scripture in the Chinese language history can be traced only to the Shang Dynasty. The connection to even older archaeological finds is current research topic.

Unlike in European writing systems they tried to find in Chinese only at the beginning of the Latinisierungsbestrebungen explicit written characters as representatives of individual smallest sounds of the language. As the official units of written language, however, remain to this day the traditional Chinese culture of the characters (which usually represent whole syllables ).

The meaning of Scripture is constituted in modern China in particular by the fact that the education monopoly is no longer at a specific social class, as in ancient China, the officials or scholars as well as in the European Middle Ages, the Latin the clergy. Events such as the movement of the fourth of May and the Baihua movement contributed to the prestige of a vernacular as opposed to the classical language of education increased, and the claim was to spread the culture of writing in the entire nation. Today the view that writing and reading skills is a cultural tradition that is sought for all Chinese alike prevails, and accordingly, the communist government combats illiteracy (or rather illiteracy ). Writing competence is due to these social developments in modern China, as well, bound in many other modern states to degrees of social prestige.

Historical development of Chinese writing

History to the People's Republic of China

The Chinese script is over 3000 years old and thus has the longest unbroken tradition in East Asia. The oldest found so far Chinese characters are in beef bones (especially in the shoulder blade, so-called oracle bones ) and turtle shell ( to prophesy hunting, etc.) incised symbols from the period around 1400 BC, were discovered in 1899 in Anyang. It is believed that at that time there were already 5000 different characters.

Middle of the first millennium BC, the picture writing developed into a marketable script, which was in a position to fully map the syntax and semantics of some of the former languages ​​in the area of ​​present-day People's Republic of China. With the Chinese unification under the first Emperor Qin Shi Huang in 221 BC a large font unification took place.

In conjunction with the since unification ( Qin Dynasty ) established bureaucratic state, the Chinese written language was made ​​possible by their use in the entire catchment area of ​​the Chinese Empire the lingua franca that united the various Chinese speech communities together and a relative unity of the Chinese cultural area.

In China, politicians and civil servants had to be good writers in the 20th century, when they wanted to gain influence - and not, as in the West, good speakers. In many places describes how big the disappointment of many Chinese was when she heard politicians speak like Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping for the first time.

Writing reform in the People's Republic of China

On 28 January 1956, the " approach to the simplification of Chinese characters" adopted at the 23rd plenary meeting of the State Council of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and published on 31 January by the daily newspaper " Renmin Ribao ". With the simplification of the characters was also resorted to a large number of overrides that were already used in handwritten texts written in the period of Northern and Southern Dynasties. In the Tang Dynasty, many abbreviations of poets already been used. In the Kingdom of the Taiping rebels abbreviations have also been used, of which more than 50 pieces in the " plan to reduce the Chinese characters" in the People's Republic of China were established. The commitment to the introduction of short character starts with the activities of the intellectuals of the May Fourth movement, such as Qian Xuantong.

Examples of simplifications are图图for ( tú, map ) ,龙龙for ( lóng, dragon) and单for单( dān, individually ). Methods of simplification were for example the compound of points ( mǎ马, Horse, became马) on lines, the omission of dashes or dots ( do为and为wèi, became为) or the combining of two or three traditional characters to a short sign ( were fù复and复to the simplified characters复summarized ).

The document, however reforms in the People's Republic of China are not only related to the reduction of the number of strokes in a character, but also on the definition of a standardized text of a character, the definition of a standardized font, the determination of the amount of characters in common use, and on a systematization of the characters, for example in the arrangement in dictionaries.

Parallel to the simplified characters, the traditional long characters may not be used until today in part and reverse since the increasing relaxations in the People's Republic more and more in everyday life back. However, it is not possible for an average educated Chinese to read the traditional characters of ancient texts that have not been transferred.

In Taiwan and Hong Kong and Macao, the tradition of writing has been retained with traditional characters until today because there / 1959 were not carried out the reforms of 1958. It is also common in overseas Chinese. Thus, the symbolic meaning of the characters and radicals remained recognizable. In handwritten texts, however, a whole series of short overrides are traditionally consistently, which partly correspond to the abbreviation of the People's Republic of China.

The government of Singapore has the signature reforms of the People's Republic of China connected and used since the 1970s also simplified Chinese characters and a horizontal writing style.

Furthermore, there are currents, campaigning for the reintroduction of the traditional characters. At a conference on 30 and 31 October, 2007 Beijing scholars from the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan have decided to unify the written language of common words is largely based on traditional characters. This is not a total re-introduction of traditional characters, the symbols have been replaced, but that the co-existence of traditional characters in the People's Republic of China is tolerated.

How many characters?

The Shuo Wen Jie zì, a dictionary from the year 100 AD, contains 9,353 different characters ( not counting variants in 1163 ); Kangxi zìdiǎn from 1716 contains 40 545 different characters and Zhōnghuá zìhǎi中华 字 海of 1994 contains approximately 87,000 different characters and variants.

Article 7 of the rules on combating illiteracy of the PRC from 1993 defines reading and writing skills in Chinese than the control from 1500 to 2000 characters.

Fonts

One can in particular following the course of Chinese history fonts outside of text -processing devices comprise:

Typeface

Direction

The Direction of Chinese writing was placed in the pre-modern period generally vertically from top to bottom, and the resulting columns were from right to left. (Chinese竖排/竖排, Pinyin shùpái; jap :縦 書きtategaki )

Since the writing reform is usually written as in European books in rows from left to right and arranged from top to bottom lines in the People's Republic of China in books.

In Taiwan, printed books literary content, however, still read from top to bottom. This applies, however, only a limited extent for newspapers and magazines and non-fiction texts and reference books. In ads, and more often in advertising, is when the text name and Western (brand) appear, from left to right the spelling used. In calligraphy and poems there are almost only the writing direction from top to bottom.

In Japan, you will find both variants, where literary texts are printed in columns rather, factual texts rather in rows. In both papers is mixed use, resulting in more opportunities for an attractive layout without extremely short lines (or narrow columns).

From top to bottom printed books, so in Taiwan printed and most Japanese are opened "back" in contrast to the European books. If you look at the front page, so the spine is so right and not, as in Europe left. Books in which the characters are arranged from left to right, have the title page on the usual for us page and be opened and read as European books.

Inscriptions over portals and doors are often written in the People's Republic of China from right to left. In Japan Portal headings are rather - as in Europe - in rows from left to right, at temples and shrines, however, almost exclusively traditionally written from right to left. In Taiwan, the inscriptions run on temple gates and altars from right to left.

Together spellings of words

Chinese words consist mostly of several characters. Originally, in ancient classical Chinese, especially in the written language, most words from only one or two characters. The increasing extension of the words, however, has increasingly strengthened in the 20th century since the founding of the Republic.

In Chinese writing, which is played with Chinese characters that are not word boundaries, as labeled, for example with spaces, because the characters all have the same distance from each other. As for Chinese writing, which is reproduced in the Latin alphabet, is propagated in the People's Republic of China since 1988, the co- spellings of words.

Punctuation

The punctuation (标点/标点, biāodiǎn ) in its current form was introduced in the 20th century by the contact with the West only gradually. However, already be detected in the early historical bone inscriptions incised lines, which probably served to distinguish semantic units. In ancient Chinese texts punctuation was unusual that readers might write the breaks (读/读, Dou ) even in the texts. This mostly consisted of a small circle. " " (圈, Quan ) or a point (点/点, diǎn ). The process of writing Into the punctuation in the text since the Han period as a sentence break (句 读/句 读, Judou ) refers. Great scholars could be seen on the sovereign nature of their punctuation set. Still be found in Taiwanese bookstores editions of classics, in which the punctuation famous scholar is quoted.

Since September 1951, the punctuation in the People's Republic of China is officially regulated. According to the 1990 level, there are 16 punctuation marks that correspond closely to common in the West and are used similarly. Especially are the final set of the dot "." (句号/句号, Juhao, see also the "circle" above) and the enumerations gliedernde " lying " comma "," (顿号/顿号, dùnhào ).

Print set

When printing Chinese texts are all characters, including punctuation marks, set in the same size, roughly square imaginary box. Different characters walking distance - see for example the Latin m compared to the i - there is not so. In order to recognize the details of the most complicated characters with 20 or more strokes yet, the typeface may not hold be too small. In rarer character is often next to or above is very small given the pronunciation ( by Zhuyin, in the PRC until 1956 and in Taiwan to date, or by furigana in Japan).

Spaces between words are not common in the Chinese script. Thus there is no clear definition of the term " word" in the languages ​​that use the Chinese writing. Often even native speakers do not agree on whether a particular item in a sentence has a suffix or your own word.

A line of text, once it is full, wrap at any point; Separation rules do not exist. Only just before a punctuation mark is not separated, in this case a character is transferred to the next line.

Written media

From antiquity to modern times

As a special signature media of Ancient China silk and bamboo, which was cut and described in narrow boards apply (such as Guodian bamboo texts). Both can be found not in European antiquity; prevailed in Europe for the use of wax tablets, papyrus and parchment.

As one of the first civilizations of China used the paper. As the inventor of the paper of Cai Lun Chinese (蔡伦/蔡伦) is worshiped, is said to have had the breakthrough idea for the development of low-cost carrier writing in 105 AD. It was only in the 12th century came paper to Europe, in 1250, the paper was also used in Germany, there also produced the late 14th century.

The Chinese used a brush and black ink and red bar to their Calligraphy characters on paper and silk. As the inventor of the brush applies in China Meng Tian (蒙恬). Ink is made in China since the Han period from the soot of pine wood and marketed as ink stone in the trade. Seal impressions were known long before the 14th century. Brush, ink, ink stone and paper are still valid today as the four treasures of the traditional scholarly room.

Despite the invention of paper the government foreign exchange Xiping (熹平) of Emperor Han Lingdi are from the fourth year of the Eastern Han Dynasty ( 175 AD) receive important ( oldest) Chinese stone carvings, the classic works of the Confucian school, such as " Shijing " (The Book of songs), " Shangshu " ( Book of History ), " Yili " ( etiquette and rites ), " Yijing " ( I Ching ), " Chunqiu " ( the Spring and autumn Annals ), " Gongyangchuan ", " Lun Yu " ( Analects of Confucius ) have conserved. More stone engravings are the three classic " Shangshu ", " Chunqiu ", " Zuozhuan " from the second year of the reign Zhengshi the Wei Dynasty (241 AD), which in the fonts " Antique Chinese writing " ( guwen ), " seal script of the Emperor Qin "and" simplified Chinese official script " are fixed.

With the support of missionaries, the book printing prevailed in China and led to the development of the print media, for example, the Shanghai Daily newspaper Shenbao.

In the modern day use is written with the usual in the West writing instruments; in writing instruction in the elementary schools of Taiwan mostly with pencil in special exercise books with square writing boxes.

Computer

Today, Chinese characters are often written on the computer with modern text processing with the aid of various input systems for the Chinese script. Initially, this development started in the professional environment. Already in the 90s text systems were so inexpensive that they were almost everyone. Today they are specifically installed on PCs in the Chinese -speaking countries and in Japan as a matter of course.

The input of text on the PC using a write speed per set, which corresponds approximately to that which can reach, for example German word processor with German keyboards. This new error types occur in the Chinese -speaking world and in Japan as an unwanted side effect in the case of Chinese and Japanese texts.

When writing handwriting, however, lack the proposals to make the computer-based input systems in the dialog. Accustomed to their input dialogs younger Chinese and Japanese have therefore often been writing difficulties, rarely used characters or to express handwritten errors. You can use these characters but then look up by input system on their mobile phone or handheld electronic dictionaries that are already often very extensive, because in them the contents of several conventional dictionaries is equal saved.

Calligraphy

The calligraphy is a highly respected art in China. Here are contacted with a brush the characters peppy on paper. These writings are just as art objects such as paintings. It is even common in Chinese painting to integrate characters in the image; Buddhist mandalas are in the Chinese cultural sphere, unlike in South Asia, designed more with characters than with pictorial representations.

In Japan, according to the basic principle of wabi-sabi often sought a not beautiful in the classic sense, but deliberately " raw " and unfinished appearance as opposed to China.

Calligraphic art is often as paired vertical and horizontal writing tablets name badges adorn the typical Chinese garden. They are almost inseparable from the garden structures and form important decorative elements in the Chinese landscape garden. The content of the boards and signs related to the environment of the building in general. Often there are lines from famous poems in which specific features of the scene are indicated.

Your artistic high point of the calligraphy along with other forms of art in the Tang Dynasty ( 618-907 ). The art of the then famous calligraphers - such as Wang Xizhi, Yan Zhenqing, Ou Yangxun and Liu Zongyuan - are considered today as priceless treasures.

The value of the " beautiful writing " is set very high in China. This can be seen about the fact that the Republic of China in Taiwan calligraphic work of these with states, when the official biographies of their former president ( here for Sun Yat-sen ).

Lautumschriften

A character represented in the majority of cases a syllable. To listen to the pronunciation of a ( rare ) character, was used in ancient China since the Sui Dynasty and Tang Dynasty rhyme dictionaries, in which has not been described, according to a syllable by specifying the phone, but Chinese by specifying two ( more common ) Script. The first coincided with the initial sound of this syllable, the second with the final sound ( fanqie System).

The first attempts to transcribe the Chinese language went in 1588 by the Italian missionary Matteo Ricci and the French missionary Nicolas Trigault from. The missionaries tried to fix the sounds of the Chinese spoken language with letters from the Latin alphabet.

1892 developed Lu Zhuangzhang (卢 戆 章/卢 戆 章), a transcription for the dialect of Xiamen, calling them " qieyin xinzi " (切音 新 字, new characters for divided lute '). He is considered the first Chinese designed a transcription system for the Chinese language. According to his design, the Movement for the transcription of the Chinese language (切音 字 运动/切音 字 运动, Movement for the sign of divided lute ') called at the end of the Qing Dynasty in China " qieyinzi yundong ". Lu Zhuangzhang already had the idea of ​​a single language and script for all of China.

Until the founding of the Republic of China nearly thirty other transcription systems have been produced. Of this total, those from Latin letters from about a quarter. The goal was to be able to learn the Chinese language easier and thus in the course of modernization efforts to advance science and education. Among these transcription systems was the concept of Wang Zhao (王 照), which was influenced by Japanese Kana in developing his concept.

The idea to use a single Chinese language, can already be found at the official in the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, the name guanhua ( official language ), or Mandarin is derived from the Chinese. The idea to avoid fragmentation in dialect groups in China, and the idea of the need for a common national language within the heterogeneous linguistic situation in China was significantly especially after the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the founding of the Republic of China.

1913 therefore called the Beiyang Government, the "Conference for the Unification of Pronunciation " (读音 统一 会/读音 统一 会, tǒngyī Hui dùyīn ) a. At the conference it was decided that the " Zhuyin Zimu " (National Phonetic Alphabet ) (注音字母) introduce. The script reform in China thus went hand in hand with a language reform. It is in this transcription system, unlike the writings of the missionaries created a phonetic spelling of Chinese characters truncated.

Until the seizure of power by the Communist Party in 1949 further transcription systems originated from the Latin alphabet. The most important are:

• The " Gwoyeu Romatzyh " (国语 罗马 字/国语 罗马 字, Guoyu Luomazi, Romanization of the National Language ' )
• The " Sin Wenz " (拉丁 化 新 文字/拉丁 化 新 文字, Ladinghua Xin Wenzi, New Roman script ')

The Gwoyeu Romatzyh Yuen Ren Chao comes from / Pinyin: Zhao Yuanren (赵元任/赵元任) and was submitted to the Ministry of Education for publication on 14 September 1926.

The Sin Wenz has its antecedents in the Soviet Union. At the height of the Soviet Latinisierungsbewegung designed members of the Communist Party of China, who were in Russia, and Soviet linguists a transcription system for the Chinese language with the Latin alphabet, which handed down to China in 1933 and " Ladinghua Xin Wenzi " was called. It triggered the mass language movement (拉丁 化 群众运动/拉丁 化 群众运动, Ladinghua qunzhong yundong ), in which it laid claim to national distribution. It spread out from 1934 by Shanghai. A prominent advocate was Lu Xun. However, it was banned by the Guomindang, and also in the conquered territories of the Japanese had to be stopped its spread. But in areas controlled by the Communists areas it was used in evening schools and put after the seizure of power by the Communists in 1949 the basis for the development of Pinyin.

In addition to some oriented to the language of the translator's special forms ( especially in the other East Asian languages) today are built for high Chinese mainly three systems: Developed in the early 20th century Latin transliteration of Wade- Giles, the non-Latin transliteration Zhuyin, which in Taiwan is still common, and that introduced by the simplification of the characters in the PRC based Latin Pinyin.

The Pinyin was approved in 1982 by the ISO as an international standard for the transliteration of the Chinese.

Due to the various systems comes partly existing non-uniformity of phonetic transcription into existence, Mao Zedong and Mao Tse -Tung.

For other Chinese languages ​​such as Cantonese, Lautumschriften are also being developed, but these are far less mature than the Mandarin systems.