Talk:Chinese characters/Archive 1

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Boohoo

Hanja and Kanji get their own articles, but not Hanzi. Actually, much of this article (esp the classification section) focuses on Chinese (really Chinese) characters only ("Chinese scholars classify Han characters..."). How about splitting this article to parallel the Korean and Japanese articles? --Jiang 16:14, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. How about discuss the common characteristics among C,J,K, and V in this article, then language-specific issues in the separate articles? --Sewing 22:00, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

agreed. This article is very Chinese Chinese character-centric. I also dispute the accuracy of the following statement regarding the character for "east": "All in all it represents a sun rising through trees; this character falls in the radical-radical category." If I'm not mistaken, Kenneth Henshall, while giving the above as a convenient mnemonic, says that in fact this is NOT the character's true etymology.Exploding Boy 13:53, Jan 28, 2004 (UTC)

---

Changed the example for different character meanings. The character for mother in Japanese is also used in Chinese, although its a somewhat formal usage. Roadrunner 05:25, 7 February 2004 (UTC)

?

what's this "and other languages" in the img caption? obviously, the intended meaning is "in traditional Chinese script", never mind the language here. 62.167.121.85 22:29, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It's obviously referring to the other languages which use or formerly used Chinese charcters: Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese — Hippietrail 14:02, 4 January 2005 (UTC)

Unclear phrasing

I don't follow the phrasing 'As in all spoken Chinese, each Chinese character is read as a single syllabic unit.' in the intro. What is as in all spoken Chinese? Is this trying to say that Chinese morphemes tend to be monosyllabic? That's the only meaning I can draw from it, but I can't tell if it was intended. Also, I think it would be interesting to point out that the script is not entirely logosyllabic. E.g. the suffix -r is segmental, so 花兒 is a single syllable (at least in Beijing), while 三十 is sometimes abbreviated to a single disyllabic character 卅. (And of course there's a trisyllabic if unofficial character for túshūguǎn 'library'.) Also, about 10% of native Chinese morphemes are disyllabic (insect and plant names, mostly, shānhú 'coral', etc.), so, while the characters used to write them are syllabic, they aren't morphemes. (There are thousands of such examples in the Classics.) I think the article is detailed enough to include such idiosyncracies. Besides, let's face it, they're fun! kwami 20:05, 2005 Jun 10 (UTC)

Revision has been made on the article in response to your first paragraph. As for the phrase 花兒 (pinyin: hua ér), it should be pronounced with two syllables in Standard Mandarin; huar is the pronunciation of Beijing dialect. The character 卅, meaning thirty, is pronounced sà, while 廿, twenty, and 卌, forty, should be correctly pronounced as niàn and xì respectively. It is true though, that people tend to pronounce these characters in the disyllabic way you have mentioned, because their correct pronunciations are somewhat profound even for native speakers.
And yes, a morpheme can be disyllabic in Chinese; furthermore these disyllabic morphemes have a tendency of sharing the same consonant or vowel. This definitely worth a note.
By the way what is the unofficial trisyllabic character of "library" you mentioned? Never heard of something like that before. Care to upload an image of this? Very curious about it. -- G.S.K.Lee 17:02, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I found it in the standard Unicode character set, actually, so either it's relatively common, or else it's an old character that's been co-opted for this use: 圕 túshūguǎn 'library'. I found several such words, though the others are all disyllabic: 瓩 qiānwǎ 'kilowatt', 閅 wèntí 'question', etc. (Actually, I've only seen wèntí as a simplified character, with the three-stroke gate radical.) I think it's interesting that these display three different types of character formation: 圕 is iconic (writings in an enclosure), 瓩 is graphic (a simple conflation of the two characters for the word), and 閅 appears to be phonetic (perhaps originating in a dialect where the word for 'gate' is homonymous with the first morpheme in 'question', since m and w are often cognate?). kwami 19:22, 2005 Jun 24 (UTC)

These characters are no more than a modern curiosity, and they are written out properly as, for all practical purposes, 圖書館, 千瓦, 問題. I myself have only seen 瓩, which would be used in lists, spreadsheets etc. when all the units have one character (so that the whole thing looks neat), but one wouldn't use it in a normal piece of writing. It would be very misleading if one writes about bisyllabic characters as if they were commnplace. -- KittySaturn 10:15, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Let's use these images

Wikimedia Commons has some cool images, included animated ones, of Han characters. Why don't we use them? See Commons:Category:Chinese characters. — Chameleon 15:20, 17 June 2005 (UTC)

question on external link

I don't understand the relevancy of the link "A Typographic Outcry: a curious perspective". Can someone elaborate? The link also exists in Logogram and Writing_system. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Saiwing (talk • contribs) 11:47, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Major Revision

I'm recently working on revising this page, and will keep making a major change on it. The previous version seems not to be systematically organized, citations are heavily insufficient, the lead is too long (8 paragraphs), and a few links shown at the bottom are actually a personal letter and an advertising for tattoo service.

Future possible changes: 1. to replacing "writing styles" with the evolution of writing. 2. As chinese charactes are used in more than Chinese culture, it'll be nice for adding how and why it has been adopted in other cultures. 3. to make a basic comparison table for illustrating different coding systems. 4. to vertify info in Orthography as citations are heavily omitted. 5. to make sub-headings in Dictionary and make a graphical illustration.

If you find the current revision not a cup of you tea, please take a look on the changes, keep the newly added information which may be useful, before you click to buttom to abolish all changes. That'd be weird. --Yau 10:33, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

To Mandel, the style of page is generally poor and that's why we need to revise it. Please contribute to the page more than simply clicking a buttom to keep abolishing all changes. Please quote the content you find undesirable, try to copyedit or make a change on this. Vandalism will be no good making the page better. --Yau 10:56, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Yau made major revisions to the article, I reverted them. True, some of them were good, but they were too mixed up with the bad. Stylistically it has become very poor, as some of the later parts of the artice is - crammed with information. Not that this article don't need help, it does, but the way is not to do it badly or poorly. I am of the opinion that to do so many major things, you need to discuss it here. The parts about Japanese, Vietnamese or Korean language is gone. If you want to shift details, move them below - don't delete them.

The English is poor. Example: "a complete writing system in Chinese character was developed 3500 years ago, namely the oldest surviving writing system.", "In Chinese tradition, characters only correspond to single syllable, but unlike alphabet language, pronunciation for characters varies in dialects. The loose relationship of phonetics and characters made it possible to spread to various culture under other language families." This level of writing isn't good enough for the lead.

The only thing Yau discussed was a basic character level for literacy. He was not given license to ax so many important things from the lead. Mandel 10:58, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

most information in the previous 8-paragraph lead is not deleted, but were moved to relevant sub-heading.

1. explanation for pictogram were moved to "pictogram" under "formation of character"

2. detailed examples of 形音字 pictophonetics were moved to "pictophonetics" under the same section

3. detailed explanation were removed as it's already discussed in the section below and Simplfied Chinese characters.

4. explanation on Japanese, korean, vietnamese were summarized in the lead, it will be expanded to separate section later.

5. audio file were mistakenly deleted. Thanks for reminding me.

6. pronunciation of chinese characters in other languages were replaced by a table.

please also check the legend of origin of Chinese character discussed below. --Yau 12:09, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Your level of English is unfortunately not good enough to make those changes. eg "buttom", "vertify" plus a number of grammar mistakes there. There are sound files missing which you simply deleted, you have not explained why you have done a number of things, like substituting poorer English for better one. Sure, the lead is too long, the trick to do it is to move the last two or three paragraphs below. If you want to know how to do it, I can show you, but only when you stop reverting my reverts. Mandel 11:30, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

It's always nice to have native speakers to help us polish the grammar, typo and writing style, but it doesn't mean to abolish all changes. The help from non-hong kong english or chinglish or singaporean english speaker is important.

As it's a major change on the page, i moved the discussion up. (As far as i know, wikipedia doesn't have rule in discussion order. At least even the etnry for "wikipedia" doesn't follow it. ) --Yau 12:10, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

It is a de facto working convention employed by all Wikipedians. I challenge you to find a page otherwise. Mandel 12:23, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

One way is to work with a ethnic Chinese Wikipedia with native-level fluency. One I know is User:Ran but I don't know whether he's still active. You can contact him. I am not usually very active here nowadays so sorry I can't be of much help. Mandel 12:29, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I think Mandel is trying to mix up different issues on the recent revision on this discussion. He seems to suggest that non native speakers are disqualified to edit any lead. It's quite incorrect because native speakers may not always be an expert on a particular topic. Mandel also spent many efforts in complaining that the post order of discussion is not followed, so he has the right to abolish and destroy all comments. That is also not true. The guideline of wikipedia is a general guideline, not a rule. If the discussion will largely affect what the page will be, i think it's appropriate to move it upper.

Frankly, it's disappointed that after Mandel spent so many efforts in writting several messages of complaint, spamming the same content to different pages, speculating the age of other wikipedian and continously abolishing all latest changes, he said he's actually not an active member and he can't take any time in improving the pages. It's very interesting --Yau 17:10, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Uh OK guys, would everyone please cool down first? I'm sure that everyone is trying to improve the article here, so there is no need to hurl accusations of vandalism at anyone. A few things first: (actually more-or-less a rehash of what Mailer diablo said:)

1. On Wikipedia talk page discussions are usually carried out at the end. If you're worried that nobody would see the discussion at the bottom, don't be. Don't move it up, because everyone checks the bottom of the talk page first. In other words, nobody checks the discussion that is right below the table of contents.
2. Since this has turned into an edit war now, I think it's only fair to ask that both of you guys stop editing the article page for the time being (or at least not make edits that would likely be reverted by the other,) and mutually work out each section that any one of you believe needs improvement...

There are several behaviours to avoid:

1. Removing talk page content (especially when there is a content dispute going on)
2. Revert warring! (Even though we all love to revert, we must resist the urge)
3. Incivility, (meaning no personal attacks, no insinuation of malicious intent)
4. Assuming bad faith

I'm afraid I can't be of much help in the actual content, my Chinese proficiency is down the drains after 2 years of nobody to talk to in Chinese besides my folks. Now I'm off to sleep... sorry. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 10:08, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. As long as there's no inconsiderate attempt to revert and potentially start an edit war, I think the article will be kept improving. I expect Mandel has more ideas on how this article should look like, what content should be added or modified, how to find out the citations heavily missed. Looking forward to making productive discussion with you and it can surely contribute to the article more than abolishing all tables, citations, and retriving link for for tattoo service and personal website. :> --Yau 12:36, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Character formation

Who was in charge to announce new characters? Who came up with the abstract radicals? Especially, is there something like a rule or standard how characters are composed? Thanks, --Abdull 09:59, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps there should be mention in the article that new character formation is almost defunct. There was a long period of Chinese history in which new characters were created by the thousands. They were then collected into the character dictionaries. But new characters are pretty rare nowadays. (The last big bout of character formation would have been when they had to come up with new characters for chemical elements).

As for who came up with the abstract radicals, I don't think I've ever seen a source for that, any more than I've seen a source for the invention of characters themselves.

Given that new characters are not being created, I'm not sure how relevant it is to talk about rules for character formation. There are certainly rules but I'm not sure if they've ever been formalised. Bathrobe 10:16, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Sound file and character usage

I replaced Chamaeleons sound file with the old one I recorded. Neither of us are natives, but his pronunciation is a tad awkward; the "h" is pronounced with too much friction (it can be pronounced [x] before "u" and "e", but not "a") and the "z" isn't really affricated at all and sounds very voiced to me.

Also, please cut down on the amount Chinese characters in prose, especially of names and concepts that are already linked to a separate articles. I don't believe they should be used in prose without being placed within quotes, italicized or something similar. To me the following layout seems like improper English: "The character 是 is one of the most common in modern Chinese."

Peter ^Isotalo 09:36, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Compressed Characters

Have no idea how to name this in English, but might be interesting to mention characters like , , and . -- G.S.K.Lee 04:45, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that is a good idea!

Bathrobe 06:23, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

児 changed to 兒

児 is a calligraphic, simplified variant; I've changed it to the standard 兒 form. Dragonbones

If 児 is the form in your Chinese-derived script and you wish to see it remain, please add this parenthetically afterwards; the mainstream Chinese form should predominate, as this is the "Chinese" character page.Dragonbones 02:30, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Not all simplified characters were created in 20th century China

Article says: "In China itself, thousands of simplified characters were created and adopted in Mainland China between 1956 and 1964, to eradicate mass illiteracy". Adopted yes, but many of these were created long, long before, for convenience in writing; some simplifications simply choose a simpler extant form, whether a cursive one, or one from an earlier stage in the script such as clerical (e.g., the simplif. form of 來 is actually its clerical form). I'd like to see a bit more sophisticated description here. Dragonbones 15:57, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

You can edit it yourself! Be Bold! -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 02:52, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Will do, thanks! Am doing my research now to ensure accuracy. Cheers! Dragonbones 14:17, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Done; "created and adopted" changed to adopted; and added " Many of the simplifications adopted had been in use in informal contexts for a long time, as more convenient alternatives to their more complex standard forms; some even date all the way back to the first and late second millennia BC."Dragonbones 15:07, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I had added "; some even date all the way back to the first and late second millennia BC" but have temporarily removed it until I can add late second millennia BC examples; I think 隊->队 qualifies, as it mirrors the oracle bone form (but with the person inverted). Am checking with a paleographer and Chinese expert now. Dragonbones 04:16, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

evolution of seal script

There appears in general to be a very poor understanding of the evolution of the Chinese script, from pre-oracle bone times to the early kai3 standard period, which is understandable, given the veritable paucity of accurate, scholarly information in English on the topic. I have been studying this period intensively for a number of years and will be applying what I have learned to revamp this section of the article.

My first major point edited is that Qin Shihuang did not invent seal script. It evolved organically out of the Zhou bronze script, and was adopted in a standardized form under his direction. I'll add scholarly references upon request, but any competent study of late Western Zhou through Qin period bronze inscriptions and stelae will support this conclusion. Dragonbones 15:55, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Radical

The literal translation of bushou was incorrect; although the two characters separately could have meant "part and initial" as per previous version, in the context of Shuowen Jiezi, the intent was "section head", as the bushou were the graphic components which headed up each section in the dictionary. The main page on radical is correct, giving "section header", fundamentally the same thing.Dragonbones 15:24, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem with the term ‘radical’ is as follows: First, when the earliest European sinologists decomposed Chinese characters, they attempted to apply to them the terms for decomposing the inflected words of European languages, namely radix or radical (the semantic root of a word, which provides its core meaning) and termination (the portion which changes when inflected, showing case, time and mood). Since the majority of Chinese characters are semantic-phonetic compounds, they applied the term radical to the semantic part, but they couldn’t apply the word ‘termination’ to the phonetic part since it does not take a terminal position.

Then, the 部首 bùshǒu (section heads) which organize dictionaries somehow got mistranslated as ‘radicals’ as well, creating confusion which has lasted up until the present. Many students are therefore under the misimpression that the component under which a character is indexed in the dictionary is its semantic component. This is not necessarily so, even if it happens to be true in many or even a majority of cases, and a careful examination of the characters under the first half dozen 部首 bùshǒu sections of the dictionary will amply demonstrate this.

The solution is to avoid the term ‘radical’ entirely. For the meaning-bearing component, the term widely used by scholars is ‘semantic’ component, while the section heads in the dictionary may be termed simply bùshǒu, and explained to students as, for example, the ‘header’ or ‘key’ or ‘index’ component under which the character is listed in dictionaries. Dragonbones 08:15, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

On phonetic loan graphs

The original wording said phonetic loans occur when "a native spoken word has no corresponding character". This is incorrect. Phonetic loans often occur under such circumstances, but the lack of an extant character is not a necessary condition; phonetic loans even when a character already exists are quite common, e.g., due to excessive complexity of the extant graph, or due to the irrelevance of its phonetic component due to phonetic drift. Dragonbones 16:15, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Also, I'd like to know where these non-standard terms, radical-radical, radical-phonetic, changed-annotation and improvisational came from. It is grossly misleading to term 形聲字 xíngshēngzì as radical-phonetic compounds, because 'radical' and 'semantic' are not synonymous. The radical is merely the portion chosen for dictionary indexing. While it may be in the majority of cases the semantic component, it is certainly not in all cases, and the blurring of the two is unacceptably imprecise. (The term 'radical' is problematic from the get-go, of course, being a mis-application of the decomposition of inflected words of European languages upon Chinese characters, which are of a fundamentally different nature.) I believe that we should go with terms accepted by influential scholars such as Keightley, Qiu Xigui and so forth; alternate terms which are widely known could be added parenthetically, within limits. Dragonbones 16:15, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

You might like to look at the Chinese character classification and Kanji pages, where the same classification is shown but with different terminology in each. The original section on phonetic loan graphs, with some of the existing terminology, was written by a user called User:Wshun back in June 2003. And despite repeated revisions, some of the original terms remain.

Bathrobe 06:05, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up; I'm now editing them for consistency of terminology, and to ensure they don't repeat misinformation (e.g., most oracle bones are ideographs). Dragonbones 02:24, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Some editing

I have edited the "Origins" section of this article, adding some archaeological information from respectable mainstream modern sources as well as deleting the purely speculative point about the non-Chinese origin of the Chinese script, which is not a mainstream theory proposed by respectable scholars. Also, it is clear that the original text is logically self-contradictory, for instance it says the original Chinese script is probably not Sino-Tibetan and then goes on to say that it is probably derived from the Miao peoples, forgetting the fact that the Miao people is Sino-Tibetan. Also, from a historical point of view, it is very unlikely for the Oracle Bone Script to be invented by the Miao people, for during the second millennium BC they lived in simple farming societies without the social need for any writing. In contrast, the Chinese peoples of the North China Plain had already developed into a state society which clearly had a use for writing. Moreover, modern archaeological evidence show the presence of a proto-script used by the late Neolithic Longshan Culture in North China, a culture which is culturally directly ancestral to the later bronze age Erlitou Culture and the Shang Dynasty. This makes the speculation that Chinese writing came from the south even more unlikely.

Furthermore, on the basis of linguistic analysis, it seems that the individual logographs of the Chinese script is quite well-suited for mono-syllabic Sino-Tibetan languages such as Chinese. I see no good reason to insist the unlikely speculation that the original Chinese script was not Sino-Tibetan.

Also, the Bronze Script was actually a contemporary of the Oracle Script in the Shang Dynasty, rather than invented in the Western Zhou Dynasty.

Archaeological and historical evidence also makes it very likely that both the Shang and Zhou are Chinese peoples, inheriting the same general cultural framework derived from the late Neolithic Longshan Culture. There is no good reason to insist on a radical break in culture and ethnic composition at the Shang-Zhou transition. Posted by unknown user at 131.111.8.98.

The point that the Bronze script was contemporary to the Oracle Bone Script (note, I strongly prefer the term "oracle bone script" to "oracle script")is good but pls note that there is a period of evolution in the bronze medium, from the Shang to the early W. Zhou to the late W. Zhou and so on, down to the small seal script. Let's all remember not to use the term bronze script in a way that would suggest a consistent structural or stylistic form (not that you've done so -- just a heads up for all). I'll expand on the problem of the term "bronze script" shortly. Dragonbones 11:47, 18 March 2006 w/ edit on 21st (UTC)

regarding the addition of "(known as the Bronze script) which is very similar to the Oracle Bone Script." following the mention of a handful of Shang characters found on pottery and bronzes, I'd like to point out two problems. First, the characters on bronzes in the Shang were often quite different in style from their counterparts on OB; the soft clay models allowed the more complex pictorial representations, while the hard OB required simplification and more rectilinearity. I've added "but more complex and pictorial than " to reflect this. Second, the problem with the term bronze script is this: bronze is a medium, not a script. Characters in the scripts of various times have been cast in bronze, from the middle or late Shang to the present. The characters cast in bronze in the Shang period reflect the highly pictorially flavored style of what is presumed to have been the main form of writing, with brush on perishable media. This style differs from that of characters cast in bronze during, say, the middle of the Zhou dynasty, when the bulk of the surviving writing is on bronzes. Due to bronze characters being the predominant surviving form of writing from most of the Zhou period, the term bronze script has traditionally been used to refer to the writing of that period, rather than the writing of the Shang period. True, the writing of the Zhou period (primarily surviving on bronzes) evolved organically from that of the Shang (specifically, the style exhibited on bronzes), but to speak of them as one script is imprecise and an oversimplification. In the next section I changed 'script' to 'scripts' to reflect this. Dragonbones 14:40, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Next, in "The earliest Chinese characters are the Oracle Bone Script of the late Shang Dynasty and the Bronze Script (金文 jīnwén) of the Shang and Western Zhou Dynasties. These scripts are no longer in use, and are of purely academic interest.", note that the bronze "script" (keeping in mind the above caveat) does not somehow end at the end of the Western Zhou. The evolution of the script and the use of the bronze medium continued uninterrupted into the Eastern Zhou. I've dropped the "Western" to reflect this.Dragonbones 14:40, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Dragonbones, the section "Some editing" was added by a person at IP address 131.111.8.98 on 17 March 2006. You can see other contributions from this IP address here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=131.111.8.98

Unfortunately, this contributor does not appear to be familiar with the rule that new additions to the talk page should be placed at the bottom, not at the top.

Bathrobe 01:42, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Bathrobe; I've added "Posted by unknown user at 131.111.8.98." after his/her post, added colons to format your comment and cut the whole section and moved it to the bottom of the talk page. However, I don't know whether this is appropriate on my part -- pls feel free to revert if not; thanks! Dragonbones 02:28, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Standardizing the style names

The main English names of the Chinese script styles, e.g. regular, clerical, seal, semi-cursive and cursive, need to be standardized across relevant Wiki pages. They should be followed by the Chinese and pinyin in parens because the names are not fully standardized in colloquial usage. Finally, the alternate English names, of which there are various, should be added but only on their main pages so as not to clutter too much. As for which English names to choose as the dominant forms on Wiki pages, I strongly suggest regular, clerical, seal, semi-cursive and cursive, as well as oracle bone script (not shell and bone, which is out of date). For clerical, we can then add 'official' in parens on its page, and so on. The reason for these choices, and not 'official', 'grass' and so on is that a preference has developed in the modern scholarly community for the terms I suggest, while the alternate names 'grass', 'draft' and so on tend to linger in coffee-table books written by non-specialists, and are not widely accepted. To see the modern scholarly consensus please refer to authoritative works such as 裘錫圭 Qiú Xīguī (2000). Chinese Writing. Translation of 文字學概論 by the late Gilbert L. Mattos (Chairman, Dept. of Asian Studies, Seton Hall University) and Jerry Norman (Professor Emeritus, Asian Languages & Literature Dept., Univ. of Washington). Early China Special Monograph Series No. 4. Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. ISBN 1-55729-071-7. Note that the translators are also authoritative sources, so their choice of English terms serves as an ideal standard. Dragonbones 03:56, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

The number of logographs required for basic literacy

"It is usually said that about 3,000 characters are needed for basic literacy in Chinese (for example, to read a Chinese newspaper)"

I am not so sure about this statement. It seems that this estimate is somewhat high. According to modern statistics, if one has learned just the 100 most commonly used Chinese logographs, one can read as much as 40% of all modern texts on average. If one has learned the 200 most commonly used Chinese logographs, then one can understand on average 54% of all modern texts. If one learned the 1000 most commonly used Chinese logographs, then one can on average read 89% of all modern texts. With 2000 logographs one can read 97% of all modern texts on average. It seems to me 97% is more than enough for basic literacy. One does not really need to know 3000 logographs to read general newspapers. - cyl

Please cite your source. John DeFrancis claims that figure is low. DHN 00:38, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

It is a Chinese source:

http://www.conncoll.edu/academics/departments/chinese/mhu/archives/15zhongwenjiaoxue.html

北京航空学院计算机系从一亿三千万字的社会科学和自然科

学文字材料中，抽出一千一百多万字的材料，对汉字的出现频率

进行了统计。统计结果列入一九八五年发表的《三千高频度汉字

字表》。这个字表对中文教学有很大的参考价值。

汉字的总数虽然多达五六万，可是常用的只有一两千字。根

据汉字频率表，最常用的十个字，共占频率为12%以上；最常用

的一百个字，占40%；最常用的二百个字，超过一半，达54%; 最

常用的一千字，占89%；最常用的两千字，占97%。如果把这些

告诉学生，就会增加他们学习汉字的信心。

I've been taught (in Chinese elementary school) that 3000 is the literacy requirement. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 03:23, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

the definition of literacy varies in countries. In China, it's officially defined as knowledge of 1500 characters (for peasants) and 2000 characters). I've added the reference on the wiki's page now. In Taiwan and Hong Kong where Traditional Chinese characters are used, people may need to know more characters to achieve literacy, although there's no widely accepted definition, possibly 3000 is for traditional chinese. --Yau 21:44, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Here is a list of "complex" logographs in which most "literate" Chinese people would probably read and understand with some difficulty.

麤 龘 齾 灩 鬮 麣 虋 灪 籲

麢 龗 鬤 齉 爨 靌 鬤 鑿 顰

蟹 鼟 蠿 欚 龞 鸝 黴 鱲 麔

襳 靊 鼉 麢 鬣 驨 齱 瓛 鑻

灥 躥 虆 邎 欚 癵 櫜 鼝 鸗

圞 蠶 虁 瀏 貜 孋 纝 囖 鱻

-- Jason 09:34, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

At the moment there is inconsistency on the page:

Under the caption 'Chinese': "It is usually said that about 2,000 characters are needed for basic literacy in Chinese "

Under the caption 'Literacy': "It is usually said that about 3,000 characters are needed for basic literacy in Chinese"

online resources

Is there any particular reason why there is no linkt to online resources that allow character search by radical and stroke count? I consider such links would be an improvement to this article, and I'd like to add a special links section with links to MDBG Chinese-English dictionary, On-line Chinese Tools and Zhongwen.com. All three sites allow character search by radical and/or stroke count, but they work in different manners, so I think it's benefital to link all of them in case someone's browser won't allow some of them to work. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 11:03, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Inconsistency

According to this article, it requires the knowledge of 3000 and/or 2000 characters to be literate in Chinese. This can confuse some people, could someone please fix this inconsistency to ensure there is no confusion nor conflict within this statement.

"It is usually said that about 2,000 characters are needed for basic literacy in Chinese (for example, to read a Chinese newspaper), and a well-educated person will know well in excess of 4,000 to 5,000 characters. Note that it is not necessary to know a character for every known word of Chinese, as the majority of modern Chinese words, unlike their Ancient Chinese and Middle Chinese counterparts, are bimorphemic compounds, i.e. they are made up of two, usually common, characters."

From the "Number of Chinese characters" section

AND

"It is usually said that about 3,000 characters are needed for basic literacy in Chinese (for example, to read a Chinese newspaper), and a well-educated person will know well in excess of 4,000 to 5,000 characters." From the Literacy section

--Sh4d0wth13f 06:23, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

biang biang noodles

I just would like to say this "character", "biang" is pronounced the third tone, not the second. the phonetic is wrong under the picture of the character. the reason it sounds like "biang(2) biang(3) mian(4)" is because when two third tone characters are put together, the first character is pronounced the second tone. So "biang" is actually a third toned character. did i make myself clear?

Are you sure? The Chinese Wikipedia says it's pronounced with the second tone -- see zh:棒棒麵, which gives the pronunciation as "biáng biáng miàn", not "biáng biǎng miàn".

If you're certain you're right, you can edit the article yourself to change it. But perhaps you should just double-check first! — Haeleth Talk 22:36, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

"500 most frequent" characters

I removed the section containing what were alleged to be the 500 most frequent Simplified Chinese characters, firstly because it was uncited (and hence difficult to verify), and secondly because it seemed to be of very restricted interest; this article is already far too long, and not, in my opinion, improved by having a long, dense list of characters halfway through it -- a list which, even if verified, would only be relevant to one of the several countries that use Chinese characters and their derivatives.

It was restored by an anonymous editor, who commented that it was "useful for studying", and who provided a citation, namely this website, which contains a number of frequency lists.

To the first point, I would note that there are many things that are useful for studying that do not belong in this article. This is an overview of the Chinese writing system and the other scripts it has inspired, not a textbook for students of Simplified Chinese. Furthermore, it is biased to include a list of the most common Simplified Chinese characters, but not of the most common Traditional Chinese characters, the most common Japanese kanji, etc. It is possible that a list of this nature has a place in Wikipedia. I dispute that this article is that place.

Also problematic is the fact that the citation is not only not the source for this list, but actually provides a different list of characters. Which is only to be expected, since the "500 most common" will naturally depend on the exact corpus studied. So we still have no citation for our list. (Note, incidentally, that we cannot solve this by copying Jun Da's list instead, since lists of this sort are covered by copyright, and since Jun Da's list cannot be used for commercial purposes, it cannot be distributed under the GFDL.)

I have therefore removed the list again. I do not think it should be part of this article, and as it stands I do not see that it can be included in any article. — Haeleth Talk 23:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

To the author of the Semi-cursive (行書) examples

Your calligraphy is not great. Sun, moon, mountain and horse are particularly problematic. But thanks for your contribution, anyway.--Hillgentleman 11:51, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

If you could spare your own example, that will be greatly appreciated. -- G.S.K.Lee 08:52, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Common typefaces

The recently-added section on common typefaces is partly redundant with two existing articles, Minchō and Japanese gothic typeface, which despite their Japan-centric names do discuss the Chinese and Korean uses of these styles as well. Rather than duplicate information, it would probably be worth improving and renaming those two articles to make them more relevant to all the languages that use this script, and linking to them from a summary section here. — Haeleth Talk 13:35, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Both Minchō and Japanese gothic typeface are problematic. If there is one article covering the Song/Ming/Mincho typefaces, what would be a neutral title? I think it would better to create 3 separate articles for all the typefaces used in Chinese, in Japanese and in Korean, with additional info on how each typeface is similar to a typeface in the other languages. LDHan 16:13, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Good point -- there isn't really a neutral title, and the typefaces used in each country aren't going to be exactly the same anyway (if nothing else, there'll be all the usual little language-specific differences in the shapes of things like the grass radical). You're right, and your suggestion does sound more practical.  :) — Haeleth Talk 21:00, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Early origins needs to be more conservative

The mentions of mythical inventors of language and Neolithic precursors to Chinese were too generous, based on my reading of scholars like 裘錫圭 Qiu Xigui, Woon Wee lee, etc. I have changed the wording to be a bit more tentative to reflect what I understand to be the current lack of consensus among major scholars. There is emphatically not agreement between scholars on whether any of the particular sets of Neolithic glyphs are indeed writing. They generally occur in small numbers, isolated, and without any context which would show that they are writing, as opposed to, say, ownership marks, random scratching, or very basic numerals akin to tally marks. Nor is there any agreement that they correspond to the Shang writing system. The most detailed examination in English I've found on this question is by Woon, Wee Lee (1987). Chinese Writing: Its Origin and Evolution. 雲惟利， 書名: 漢字的原始和演變; Joint Publishing. Or see 裘錫圭 Qiú Xīguī (2000). Chinese Writing. Early China Special Monograph Series No. 4. Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. ISBN 1-55729-071-7.Dragonbones 15:43, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

• A "complete writing system" of Chinese characters 3200 years ago would make the origin of Chinese writing about 2,000 years after its accepted discovery in the Near East... I am surmising that you were 01:44, 7 January 2007 (UTC)Gun Powder Mareferring to a 2003 discovery that only found individuals symbols on tortoise shells that could possibly be construed as words. However, even the Chinese government press and other Chinese scientists still claim that the earliest verifiable evidence of a Chinese writing system was found at the Yin Ruins in Henan province of the date that you refer to (http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200603/05/eng20060305_247951.html). The only citation in this article (3) that can be verified online cites the date of 1200 B.C. David N. Keightley which you use as a citation for this suggested date actually argues against the probability of this earlier discovery being true (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2956925.stm). At this point in time, it is still highly debated as to when written Chinese language characters emerged and the evidence for a "complete writing system" emerges much, much later then evidence from the Near East... This needs to be revised to reflect the reality of archeological evidence. It is currently very misleading and erroneous to suggest that it is the earliest writing system of humankind... Stevenmitchell 22:32, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Dear Steven. I think you very much misunderstood the relevant passages. I read all the quoted articles (including the one of 2003) and I agree with you, but the WP article just does not say that what you think it says. It actually goes your way. Please read again. Gun Powder Ma 01:44, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Articles for each character

Doesn´t Wikipedia have an article for each character? I was looking for those articles, but they don´t seem to exist. All Latin and Greek letters already have their articles. I would have imagined that, after six years of existence, Wikipedia would already have a comprehensive list of the characters and an article for each of them... A.Z. 10:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Go to the English wiktionary. --Jose77 08:21, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

＝＝Typing the rare or complex characterｓ==

While using the language toolbar, I can't type most of the characters listed in this page. Not even the Japanese character, "dragon has appeared in the sky." Am I missing a vital tool? --Charizardpal 23:49, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

"unofficially in Taiwan etc"

Says in the box at the right that Shinjitai is used "unofficially in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau". Is that true? Any reference? --PalaceGuard008 12:40, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Readings in chart of character script development

On the chart of character development from the oracle bone to modern scripts, someone's just added readings in Sino-Vietnamese. I feel this is unnecessary, there are so many different readings that have existed in different periods of history and in different regions that there is little point in giving readings other than pinyin as it seems to me the main purpose of the chart is to illustrate characters changes. Chinese characters are not even used in modern Vietnamese, the appropriate articles for Sino-Vietnamese readings of Chinese characters is of course Sino-Vietnamese and Hán Tự. LDHan 18:03, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. If you add Sino-Vietnamese, you also have to add Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean, four or five different Chinese dialects, Middle Chinese, Old Chinese, ad nauseum. There is no point in giving the Sino-Vietnamese as the point is to show the changes in the form of characters, not their pronunciations. (Similar additions hav been made at Chinese compound surname.)

Bathrobe 01:08, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The trimming of the introduction

I've trimmed the introduction by redistributing some of its paragraphs into other sections. I've done this on a rather block-by-block basis, so it would be good if someone else reviewed the entire article and corrected flow problems I may have unintentionally created. And maybe the introduction could be trimmed even further still. Michiganotaku 21:30, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Trimming the Introduction has made the inadequacies of the following paragraph even more glaring. It should be rewritten so that the general reader can make sense of it:

In Chinese tradition, each character corresponds to a single syllable. A majority of words in all modern varieties of Chinese are polysyllabic and thus require two or more characters to write. Cognates in the various Chinese languages/dialects which have the same or similar meaning but different pronunciations can be written with the same character. In addition, many characters were adopted according to their meaning by the Japanese and Korean languages to represent native words, disregarding pronunciation altogether. The loose relationship between phonetics and characters has thus made it possible for them to be used to write very different and probably unrelated languages.

Bathrobe 00:46, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

About Research of Chinese Characters

I still think Chinese characters are difficult for English speakers to remember. Maybe because we use spelling language, it is difficult to 'draw' a word. But i found out some research about Chinese characters, such as radicals. They are similar to English letters. And to understand characters from picture is maybe easier for English speakers. Please refer to (spamlink removed) It is very complete research about Chinese characters. I cannot find such detailed research on site. I will add the resource on this page. If you have any questions, please discuss in advance. Thanks. Jasonmile 00:46, 03 Sep 2007 (UTC)

"I still think Chinese characters are difficult for English speakers to remember. Maybe because we use spelling language, it is difficult to 'draw' a word." Your use of 'we' tries to imply that you are a native English speaker, which you patently are not. How sure are you that the link you suggest will be useful for English speakers when you yourself are not a native speaker? Or is it something that you, as a Chinese speaker (?), think that English speakers should know?

Bathrobe 03:56, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

From what Jasonmile has written, he does not appear to be a native English speaker, his message is probably added here purely for the purpose of inserting a spam link (check his other edits and user talk page). Please do not add commercial links to wikipedia articles or to their talk pages, they will be removed. LDHan 15:19, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion to the Comparison Table

I found the character used in comparison table for older/elder sister 姐(Japanese:姉) isn't a proper usage. In dictionary 姐 is commonly confused with and can be used instead of 姊 nowadays. 姐 means Miss/Ma'dam/Elder sister(because misuse of 姊), and 姊 means elder sister only. By the shape and originally meaning of characters, the japanese 姉 should be simplified from 姊. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.62.224.234 (talk) 08:10, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

opening paragraph

"The loose relationship between phonetics and characters has thus made it possible for them to be used to write very different and probably unrelated languages."

This makes it seem like there is a special property of characters that allowed this -- but in fact other writing systems (i.e. roman letters) can also be used to write very different and probably unrelated languages. I'm not even sure I understand what "the loose relationship between phonetics and characters" means -- if I understand it correctly it's rather circular, because it's only since the characters have been used by other countries that you can claim the loose relationship. I'm going to attempt to change this sentence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.254.69.123 (talk) 17:39, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Legend

I've tried to find out the original text describing the legendary chinese emperor "Fu Hsi (伏羲)" who was said, in wiki, to invent chinese characters, but the legend seems not to be documented in books of 史記, 呂氏春秋, 諸子百家. People may incorrectly took 八卦 as a kind of chinese characters, and made this legend of the legend. I've now removed the line about "Fu Hsi". --- --Yau 18:50, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I did have a source for this, but if I find it again I will let you know. I only understand the English part of what you said above, could you explain what 八卦 is? Thanks... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 19:03, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

八卦 (8 trigrams) [1] is an anicent philosophical and mythological invention in China. Fu Hsi is often said to invent it in the legend, but so far i still can't find any "reliable" ancient books, original sources of all legends in China before Shang Dynasty, to relate Fu Hsi with Chinese characters. However, there's some modern text to suggest that if 8 trigrams were a character, then Fu Hsi could be named as an inventor of Chinese characters. This is to re-invent the legend and we better not to include in history section. --Yau 19:19, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Why is this a different story than the one on the Cangjie page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.173.56.145 (talk) 00:27, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Mention of Simplified characters

There is no mention of simplified characters (either the slightly simplified kind used in Japan, or the extremely simplified kind now used in the PRC)...or categories such as 本字, 俗字, 同字, or 古字... (At least these are the terms used in Korean)...This is a little beyond my scope; can Menchi or someone else contribute something along these lines? --Sewing 22:27, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Well, the article (in my opinion) is not really well written. Aboout the four categories, they are simply official form, unofficial form, sysnonyms and ancient form. Do we really need to mention them? --wshun 22:36, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I actually haven't read this article. But Simplified Chinese is mentioned on Chinese written language (it's linked as Hanzi in this article's intro. I haven't read that either).

I think it's worthy to note and give some examples (maybe a table) of the official and verncacular forms. And another comparison of some obsolete forms with the modern forms to show the evolution is informative too. --Menchi 22:41, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Thanks...in response to wshun, it might be useful just to mention the terms and give a quick definition and example; sometimes it's hard to find a good definition of the Hanja "metalanguage," even in my (otherwise very useful) 實用國語辭典. --Sewing 22:48, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Correction: at home I looked up 본자 (本字) in my dictionary, and it was there. That dictionary is truly useful (確實히 實用하다)! (Get it?) --Sewing 18:23, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)

There should be a distinction made between simplification and the adoption of different variant characters in different regions. For example, the characters 黒, 氷, and 兎 mentioned in 'Comparisons of Traditional, Simplified and Kanji' are variant forms that shouldn't be regarded as simplifications per se. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ymwang42 (talk • contribs) 05:07, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

---

Something is wrong here

The more I read this entry the more annoying it becomes.

1. For example, after noting that characters are used in different forms in (for instance) China and Japan, and then noting that Chinese itself has both traditional and simplified characters, the article goes on to say that it may be necessary to talk of 'Chinese Chinese characters' (hanzi) and 'Japanese Chinese characters' (kanji). This doesn't make sense! Surely it would be better to make reference to different 'character sets' (Traditional, Simplified, and Japanese Joyo Kanji). The only person to whom a distinction like 'Chinese Chinese characters' and 'Japanese Chinese characters' might make sense is a 'gaijin' learning Japanese who suddenly makes the discovery that 'these here kanjis I've learnt for Japanese are sorta different from them kanjis they use in China'. In fact, all these character sets go back to one tradition, which is the only clean reference point that can be used.

Playing devil's advocate for a moment (although I generally agree with the sentiments you expressed above), I could understand someone taking the position that despite their common origin and shared linguistic/cultural context during the past millenium, divergence is nonetheless occuring between certain "descendant" character sets. For example, a person who reads the subset of Chinese characters used in Japanese publications (the Jouyou kanji) would often be at a loss to recognize many counterpart characters in the simplified Chinese character set used in the People's Republic of China (at least without further education).

That said, the common cultural and linguistic bonds between even Japanese on the one hand and the various Chinese character sets (traditional, simplified, etc.) on the other are still stronger than the pressures toward divergence. Furthermore, within the Chinese-speaking world there is a continuum between people who understand either traditional and simplified characters, with a great many Chinese-speakers who read and write in both on a daily basis. This continuum strengthens the unity of the character system where it might otherwise grow rapidly apart, and the further continuum between Chinese and Japanese (and to a lesser extent Korean) reinforces that unity across even those quite different languages.

--Ryanaxp 17:13, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Why not just make it clear that there are traditional characters (not sure how to define this -- Kangxi plus new characters since then?). In everyday life some simplifications, etc. are known in all character-using areas. In recent times the Mainland has come up with simplified characters, used also in Singapore. The Koreans have borrowed Chinese characters and use xxxx number of characters, not simplified. The Japanese have borrowed characters and use xxxxx number of characters (joyo kanji), somewhat simplified from the traditional characters, but not radically so.

This is somewhat simplified, but captures the essence without talking of 'Japanese Chinese Characters' or 'Chinese Chinese characters' (whatever that means!)

Bathrobe 22 April 2005

2. The assertion that characters are used for different words or ideas in different languages is also a very messy notion. This notion seems to encompass several different cases: (1) Where characters were taken over to write morphemes that had different meanings from the original Chinese (not sure if there are many of these); (2) characters used to write morphemes that over time came to have different meanings from the original Chinese (e.g. 走); (3) characters used to write words that over time came to have different meanings from the original Chinese (e.g. 勉強, which means 'to be forced' in Chinese and 'study' in Japanese);(4) characters used to write native words that, when read, have a different meaning for Chinese speakers (e.g. 手纸/手紙, where 'shouzhi' means 'toilet paper' in Chinese and 'tegami' is a Japanese word meaning 'letter'); and (5) words that were simply coined differently in China, Japan, and other places (e.g., highway toll booth is 收费站 in Chinese and 料金所 in Japanese. That is not to mention identical characters that were (possibly) made up independently by the Chinese and the Japanese (not sure if there are Korean examples). The whole relationship between characters in different languages seems much more complex than the superficial and misleading treatment offered here.

Indeed, the writer of the article seems to have a very superficial concept of characters, including a sad lack of awareness of the fact that characters are used to write language and not the other way round. Keeping this concept firmly in mind is the only way that all these distinctions can be kept clear. If you take characters as primary, you get yourself tied up in knots about what characters 'mean' in different languages. For instance, the individual characters in 勉強 (an example referred to further down this discussion page) don't appear to me to have different meanings in Chinese and Japanese, nor do the characters in 愛人. But the words 勉強 and 愛人 do have different meanings. A different case is 手紙, which, when perceived as a single unit, has two different meanings in Chinese and Japanese. These should, in fact, be seen as two completely different words (shouzhi and tegami) that happen to be written with the same characters.

Bathrobe 20 April 2005

I've been bothered by some of these things too, and I've been trying to think of a way to address some of the underlying issues. For example, it's not really accurate to think of a hanzi as having a meaning per se. 啤 is a hanzi, and it doesn't really have a meaning and it isn't a morpheme. It is used exclusively for its phonetic value. 啤酒 has a meaning. Now, consider 学: it's clearly not used for its phonetic value, but it basically never appears independently, outside of a larger word. It's a morpheme, not a word, but it clearly does have a meaning. 酒, on the other hand, is both a morpheme and a word that can stand alone, and most definitely has a specific meaning.

I've been considering trying to rewrite the article by using analogies with English to get the point across. The trouble is that while I know modern Chinese okay, I know very little about how Japanese and Korean use and used hanzi. The article is called Chinese characters. Should it be primarily about modern standard Mandarin usage, or should it cover Japanese, Korean, 文言, 古文, 方言, and maybe even Vietnamese and Zhuang? --Diderot 08:01, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A further point: I've seen the word sinogram in print as a literal calque of hanzi/kanji/hanja. It's also the word used in the French Wikipedia. Retitling the article to "Sinogram" so that the word "Chinese" no longer appears in the title might make it easier to actually make this more about cross-language usage. I think it might be objectionable to say that Japanese and Korean use Chinese characters in their writing. I've met plenty of Japanese people who prefer to call them kanji in English to avoid that notion. The downside is that sinogram is a relatively unknown word. --Diderot 08:16, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Frankly, I think renaming the article is a bad idea (although I recognize the concerns you voiced) for numerous reasons, the most immediate reason being that the word "sinogram" is simply almost never used in English. The Wikipedia article naming guidelines call for using the name most frequently used and/or most widely recognized, and for this topic, "Chinese character" is the term almost always used. On the other hand, a subsection in the article discussing the naming problems seems appropriate.

As for the word "Chinese" providing offense, that seems to be inventing a problem that doesn't exist among actual speakers of Japanese or Korean. While I've no idea who you've met among Korean or Japanese who object to the term "Chinese character," my experience has been the opposite: rather than take asinine offense at historical reality, the speakers of modern languages using Chinese characters I've met are usually quite aware of the origin and history of the writing system (indeed, the very characters used to describe the writing system refer to the Han dynasty of China), and would probably be amused at the suggestion of renaming them to avoid some imaginary violation of political correctness fussed over by English speakers.

I could add a trite analogy about the need to rename the language we're conversing in "North Americanese" to avoid offending Anglophobes, but that would be pretty cheeky even for me :).

--Ryanaxp 17:00, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not fighting to rename the article - it was just a proposal. But, if this article is called Chinese character but is equally about usage in different languages, we should try to keep consistent about how characters are used in language X at time A, language Y at time B, and language Z at time C. --Diderot 11:24, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't want to rewrite this article myself as I have a website that does the same thing and I would probably just follow my own website!

That said, I suggest that this article should mainly discuss Chinese characters as used in Chinese, which is a complex enough issue. Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese should be covered in their own sections (kanji, etc.). You will probably want to cover all the aspects you've mentioned (文言文 etc) because the article is about Chinese characters, not the modern Chinese writing system. I personally think a historical approach is best because that makes it much easier to understand and explain. Even if you look at Traditional, Simplified, and 'Japanese' Chinese characters, a historical approach (how it got that way) is much clearer than saying, 'oh, and they use kind of different kanji in Japan and they use simplified characters in China and they use more traditional characters on Taiwan.' A historical approach is very clean; a synchronic approach only confuses outsiders who are not already familiar with Chinese characters. That is my suggestion, anyway.

Bathrobe 22 April 2005

Looking at my comment above, I realise that this article must include Chinese characters as used in Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese because the subject of the article is 'Chinese characters'.

In fact, defining the scope of the article is fairly important when considering how to organise the content.

Bathrobe 30 April 2005

Hrm, there is a point to be had here, though, and that is that "kanji" "hanja" and "han4zi4" all have the same meaning as Chinese character. Changing the name as a method of organizing it is only a matter of abstraction to those who can't understand the language. Even if it does cease to include 1-2% of the Chinese population, it is still just as appropriate as "Chinese character," regarding application to other languages. For all intents and purposes (thanks to massive genocides and historical racial discrimination) the Han ARE the Chinese. --CYap 8:14 21 November 2005

--- Earlier discussion related to this point

愛人 isn't a good example. This is actually a case where a Chinese word has undergone a change in meaning on the Mainland. 愛人 is still used in Taiwan etc. in the meaning 'lover'. Also, does 情人 mean spouse in Japan? Never heard it myself.

A better example might be 湯, which means 'soup' in Chinese and 'hot water' in Japan.

In Korean, 湯 means 'soup' too, while it can be also used to call 'bath.' 溫水 is generally used to refer 'hot water' in Korea. And, if what I know is correct, 開水 means 'hot water' in Chinese. --PuzzletChung 17:40, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

In Mandarin, 开水 refers to boiling water while 热水 refers to hot water. 温水 is also used; however, its meaning is more or less lukewarm water. --Taoster 12:54, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Not quite correct: water is said to be 開 (open or opened) when it has been boiled. True, this may refer to boiling water (water that is in the process of boiling), but even then it is, for what i know, more correct to call it 沸水. 開水, by contrast to 沸水, can denote water made potable by heat; therefore, it is common to ask for & offer 冷開水 cold & 熱開水 hot drinking water. Obviously, if 開 in these contexts were understood as boiling per se, then 冷開水 would be physically impossible except in a rarified atmosphere, and 熱開水 would be tautological, but this is not they way these words are meant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LoveEncounterFlow (talk • contribs) 14:19, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, more classical Chinese includes usage of 湯 to mark off "baths." It's difficult to mark the distinction between where Chinese has changed, and where the other languages have changed. --CYap 8:14 21 November 2005

For a better example of Chinese-Japanese meaning disparity, I suggest the (Japanese) word "study" (sorry, can't type characters at the moment). The same characters means "to compel" in Chinese. ^_^ madoka 09:35, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

勉強 Exploding Boy 15:30, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

勉強 is not a good example because while the meaning of the word is different, the meaning of the two characters per se is not different. That is, 勉 and 強 both have the same meaning (in general); it's the word 勉強 that has a different meaning. There are plenty of words like that, e.g., 汽車, but I believe that we are talking about characters that have been given different meanings, not words that have different meanings.

---

I made these comments back in April and nothing has happened so I've gone in and changed the offending parts in line with what I mentioned above. The new version is very rough but there is at least room for expansion by adding specific examples, without being hampered by the original confused approach. Bathrobe 02:33, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Oracle bone characters

There have been suggestions that this was not designed for the Chinese language, or even for a Sino-Tibetan language, because it does not seem to reflect Chinese morphology accurately

Does anyone have a source for this (intriguing) proposition? --Dpr 06:37, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

I've read this in more than one place, but unfortunately don't have a reference. The topic of the texts I read it in was the ethnic makeup of China before the expansion of the Han. The lower Yellow River Valley, for example, seems to have been Austronesian. The upper Yellow River Valley seems to have been recent Han immigrants in the valleys and the original inhabitants in the hills; these may have been Miao, or possibly Austro-Asiatic. The question then is who developed the Oracle Bone script, which occured at somewhere around the same time.

Chinese legend has it that the Han ethnicity in China originated in the defeat of another people, but that of course doesn't mean that the other people didn't speak Chinese. See the Chi You and Hmong people#History. kwami 08:17, 2005 September 12 (UTC)

The proposition that it was not designed for the Chinese language is so bizarre that I think it should be struck from the article unless someone can provide not only a reference for the suggestion, but good evidence supporting it. Given that the call for a source went out half a year ago and none has surfaced, I plan to delete this within a week or two...Dragonbones 15:29, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

This is bull. Chinese characters fit the ancient Chinese monosyllabic tonal language perfectly! Chinese language only became polysyllabic toward the second millennium. --Naus 18:55, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK it is far from certain that ancient Chinese was either monosyllabic or tonal. Certainly our article on Old Chinese claims that both questions are still debated, and quite recently went so far as to claim that the academic consensus was that it was not tonal and did have polysyllabic words! — Haeleth Talk 21:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The oracle bones weren't the earliest undisputed writing; contemporary with them and even slightly earlier were Shang pottery shards and bronzes with inscriptions. I've added this, and changed the word 'clearly' to 'indisputably', since there are a number of scholars who feel that the even earlier pottery graphs from Dawenkou onward are not only writing but also connected to the Shang system. Will provide references on request. Dragonbones 15:42, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I’ve just changed the following: “However, as the symbols used were predominantly pictographs, linkages to the modern Chinese writing system are decipherable only to linguistic archaeologists.” to “However, due to three millennia of evolution, linkages to the modern Chinese writing system are decipherable only to linguistic archaeologists.” and saved this with the edit summary: “OB predominantly pictographs --> due to 3000 yrs evolution (see talk page)”. The reasons for this are as follows: 1) Although many of the OB graphs appear to have a pictographic flavor, it is only a minority of them which were still being used in what some call a pictographic function -- too many had already been used for other meanings based on phonetic loan, semantic extension, or in compounds, so it isn't accurate to call them all pictographs. 2) The pictographic flavor of some of the graphs, e.g., of shan1 'mountain', is not the reason for the illegibility of the Shang graphs. In fact, the more pictographic the graphs are, the easier it is to understand many of them, like mountain, water, etc. Rather, the barrier to legibility is the degree of difference in 1) graphic form and 2) usage between the script in that period and now. The wording I've replaced it with here is more careful and conservative, I believe. Dragonbones 09:59, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[There have been suggestions that this was not designed for the Chinese language, or even for a Sino-Tibetan language, because it does not seem to reflect Chinese morphology accurately}

2 reasons why that statement is WRONG.

1. the oracle bone script was PICTOGRAPHIC

1. old chinese has evolved into a much DIFFERENT language than mandarin, thats the reason why cantonese and other southern dialect are more related to ancient chinese than mandarin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.83.161.190 (talk) 21:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Um, OB was logographic, not pictographic. The argument is that OB was not a good match to Old Chinese, not to Modern Chinese. kwami (talk) 22:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Why is Mongolia on the map?

Mongolia is shown on the map in light green, indicating that it formerly used Chinese characters.

It is true that Mongolia was formerly Chinese territory but -- correct me if I'm wrong -- Chinese characters were not used to write Mongolian. So colouring Mongolia light green seems rather strange. If the claim is that Mongolia is light green because it used to be part of Chinese territory, then big parts of Siberia, which also used to be Chinese territory in the past, should surely be added.

In fact, identifying areas as having used Chinese characters on the basis of 'Chinese national sovereignty' seems to me profoundly misguided. It would seem more intelligent to identify the use of Chinese characters with languages, not with sovereign governments and their territories.

Bathrobe 28 Dec 2005

That's a very good point. There's a much more accurate map at Writing system that could be used as a basis for a better map IMO. As for Mongolian, it was written in several scripts, some are from the "Proto-Sinaitic" family of alphabets, but two Mongolian dialects, Jurchen and Khitan, did use forms of Chinese characters at one time. See Mongolian alphabet. I don't know if these tribes corresponded with the modern boundaries of the nation of Mongolia though. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 04:02, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

They do not. Former Khitan and Jurchen territory lie almost exclusively within modern-day PRC. Using a political map to illustrate language relations is a big, big mistake. If Mongolia, as the current nation, ever used Chinese characters (as a state/national language), then yes, they should be included. But I don't think they did. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 04:20, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Hello, I made the map, and I was meaning the fact that mongolian old territories, when under the Qing rules, had used a bit chinese characters. Mostly by chinese officials and mongolian leaders. This map show the maximum of the chinese character spread. PS : I'm french, if you can make a clear list of request that can be better for me to improve this map. Yug

If you want to cover territories under Qing rule, you should use the boundaries of the old Qing Empire, not the PRC! However, I think the suggestion by Codex Sinaiticus is more realistic: use the map at Writing Systems to make a linguistically plausible map. I'm not sure what others think.

Bathrobe 15:51, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

WRONG- khitan tarritory was in mongolia, and jurchn in outer manchuria —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.160.247.52 (talk) 20:23, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the logograph 〇

"In addition, in modern times, a new character has been created to represent zero (〇， líng), derived from the numeral zero, unique for its circular form. It is mainly used to indicate a zero in a year in the Common Era. For instance, the year 2000 would be 二〇〇〇年. This symbol is used as all other characters for numbers are simple to write, while the actual character for zero (零) is quite complex."

This isn't true. The logograph 〇 is a native Chinese character, and it is not just used in modern times. Its earliest documented use is in 1247 AD during the Southern Song dynasty period, found in a mathematical text called 数术九章 (Shu Shu Jiu Zhang - or "Mathematical Treatise in Nine Sections"). It is not directly derived from the Hindu-Arabic numeral "0". I have edited the relevant section. - cyl

How can we know it is not derived from it? Wikipeditor 23:03, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

how can we if it IS derived from it? if theres no proof its derived on it, leave it out... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.83.161.190 (talk) 02:56, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I would object to skip the question of the origin of the character 〇 just because nothing definite can be said—after all, nothing is ever definite in science, but only, at most, widely and temporarily accepted for lack of a better solution. The subject is too important and too interesting to be silently skipped.—At least one authority on numbers, Georges Ifrah, assumes that the exceptional Chinese character in question does indeed come from India, and links it to the spread of Buddhism. The Chinese may have had ways to designate a missing digit in their various ways to notate numbers (and maybe the use of 零 to denote the *concept* predates the use of 〇 as a *symbol*), but it seems to take a strange leap of faith to believe that, given the proven cultural exchange between China and India, and the central character of ‘emptiness’ to Buddhist teaching, this very symbol, simple as it appearance is, should have sprung up both in China and India without any cultural influence. A proof this is not, but one should not discard the consideration that 〇 is, according to Chinese calligraphic rules, not even a possible character! —Preceding unsigned comment added by LoveEncounterFlow (talk • contribs) 22:52, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

The table is incredible

The table listing oracle bone script, seal script, traditional, simplified, etc. is amazing. I wish it were longer.

If there is any specific character you wish to see it covered, leave it here and I'll see if it could be done. -- G.S.K.Lee 11:27, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

The table should be ordered differently. Semi-cursive should come after cursive. Ordering the table so would reflect chronological development of Chinese scripts. Asoer (talk) 10:23, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Oldest characters and recent finds

According to Chinese character#Neolithic signs, recently discovered rock carvings indicate "that Chinese script may date back as far as 8,000 years." 8,000 years ago would be around 6,000 BC. But according to the very first sentence of the section, which refers a find in 2003, "The earliest Neolithic signs come from Jiahu, a Neolithic site in the basin of the Yellow River in Henan province, dated to c. 6500 BC, known as the Jiahu Script." So 500 years older than the current "breakthrough", as several media have called it. So is the latest find really all that exceptional? And how should it be mentioned in this article? Aecis^Brievenbus 21:41, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

• The 500-year discrepancy is, I think, just sloppy reporting somewhere along the way; I believe the references are to the same Jiahu finds. It's very hard to get up-to-date info on such finds in a reliable manner; aside from a few sloppily reported news releases, we often have to wait many years to get actual archaeological reports out of China. In the meantime, skepticism and patience are the suggested attitudes. I'll be redoing the Neolithic signs page soon, and will be providing much greater detail and good references for the earlier finds, but the recent finds (for which proper archaeological reports have not yet been released, and for which there has not yet been time for published studies by other scholars independently reviewing them) will be treated in a very cursory fashion by necessity. BTW, there is most definitely NOT a scholarly consensus that ANY of the pre-Shang symbols are writing. The topic is quite controversial at present. Dragonbones (talk) 11:36, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Grass Script a purely artistic calligraphic style?

I'm wondering if this is totally correct: "The Cursive Script (Simplified Chinese: 草书; Traditional Chinese: 草書; Pinyin: cǎoshū; literally "grass script") is not in general use, and is a purely artistic calligraphic style."

In current times this may be true, but I was under the impression that the grass script was in practical use before modern times. People familiar with it (generally highly literate or cultured people) are perfectly capable of reading it and writing it as a functional script. So it seems unfair to dismiss it as a 'purely artistic calligraphic style'.

Can anyone comment on this?

Bathrobe 02:08, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

You are correct. I received a letter in (Japanese) grass script. It's difficult for even well educated Japanese to read, unless they're schooled in calligraphy, so it's not in general use, but it is in use. (On the other hand, the letter was rolled up as a scroll!) kwami (talk) 22:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Cursive Script are still commonly used,especially in case that speed is a priority.It is also common in record intended for oneself or in messages between persons who are close. Btw most doctors use it in prescriptions. Lucidus 22:40,29 May 2008 (UTC)

Always square?

Why are Chinese characters always written in equal-sized squares? --88.76.247.195 16:37, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

It is only due to the computer display style (sans serif, and related writing styles). When we're writing shopping lists, we don't have the time to perfectly write our characters. It just looks pretty when you type it. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 23:58, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Name...

I think the name of this article should be changed to "Chinese characters", for the following reasons:

1. Wikipedia policy states that the singular should be used except when it is universally referred to in the plural (like trousers). While the term "Chinese character" does exist, it is generally used in the plural form in contexts such as this, and when one would say "Chinese character" it is generally when the topic of discussion is already Chinese characters, and the "Chinese" qualifier is dropped ("The character used to write this word is..."). So, in practice, the appropriate singular form of "Chinese characters" is almost universally just "character".

2. The term "Chinese character", since, as stated above, it is almost never used in practice to carry this meaning, makes one (or me, at least) think of "the cultural character of the Chinese people", or something else that is completely unrelated to Chinese characters.

3. This article's opening sentence, at present, seems very contrived, and feels like it was specifically created by apologists to justify the current title. It should be "Chinese characters or Han characters (simplified Chinese: 汉字; traditional Chinese: 漢字; pinyin: Hànzì) are logograms used in writing Chinese, Japanese, sometimes Korean, and formerly Vietnamese."

elvenscout742 (talk) 15:52, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Are there's any reason for the name "Kanji" instead of "Japanese character"? 130.126.75.181 (talk) 00:50, 13 March 2008 (UTC)cecikierk

That's very much beside the point, but they're not Japanese in origin, seems to be a good enough reason. "Kanji" means, effectively, "Chinese character"... elvenscout742 (talk) 18:12, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Kanji are not Japanese characters. That's why. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 04:16, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Why are they called "characters"?

This question came up on a message board. I vaguely recall them being referred to as "heiroglyphics" a few centuries ago. How was the English term for them chosen? Thanks, Dawud

It's from Greek χαρακτήρ 'stamp, brand' (as in the thing you use to fix your sign in a wax seal, or brand cattle with). First meaning in English was a distinctive impressed or engraved mark, or the stamp. By 1605 you get,

Amongst the Ancients, there was a custom to make a character of a horse in the forehead of a bondslave.

(That use was already 300 years old.) 1642:

What Characters are in your seale, will soon be seen by your wax.

Then a distinctive mark of any kind. From 1597,

A [Clef] is a character set on a rule at the beginning of a verse.

and so on for rests in music and arithmetical symbols. In other words, the European equivalents of logograms. But then letters also. 1596:

The Saxons Character is the same with the Irish.

1882:

Bismarck says it takes him eighty minutes to read in Roman type what he can read in an hour in German character.

Then it came to mean individual style of handwriting ("written in a rough unsteady character"), and later by metaphor to mean a person's qualities.

"Hieroglyph" is a "sacred engraved" letter, and so not appropriate to Chinese, which is neither sacred nor engraved. kwami (talk) 01:02, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

The word hieroglyph might sound not appropriate but it is in the sense of ideographic writing system, which the ancient Egyptian was and the Chinese characters (Hanzi) are now. The term hieroglyph is still the only used in Russia and in many other countries. The Chinese writing system is called hieroglyphic or ideographic (synonyms), even taking into account that there are many types of modern Chinese characters, not only pictograms. --Atitarev (talk) 04:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all. I have alerted the message board in question, with a link to this page. --Dawud

Hanzi, Kanji, Hanja - all valid except for Hanzi?

• Hanzi (汉子/漢子) is now a popular spoken word for Chinese characters, it's shorter and matches the other words - Kanji and Hanja with the same meaning used when referring to the same in Japanese or Korean. In fact, Kanji is used more often than any other word by Japanese learners, teachers, etc. Hanzi has, admittedly become popular only recently with the standardisation of Hanyu Pinyin and the spread of standard Mandarin.
• It's only used as a redirection but not mentioned in the article as another term.
• I suggest to change the first phrase from" A Chinese character or Han character... to A Chinese character, Han character or Hanzi...

--Atitarev (talk) 04:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

They are not synonymous. Hanzi are Chinese characters as used in China. Kanji are not hanzi, at least not in English usage, so your change would be inaccurate.

I had created an article stub for hanzi yesterday, but Mendaliv deleted it. kwami (talk) 09:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I am aware of the difference, thank you. The term Kanji is used in reference to Chinese characters in Japanese. In English, the word Kanji is used more often than any other term for that (Chinese characters in Japanese). I am talking about the Chinese language. The term Hanzi is often used to refer to the Chinese characters, why not include it in the article, instead of making just a redirection page? --Atitarev (talk) 22:39, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

If it's included in the article, then it needs to be a redirect page, so I don't understand your point. Also, it already is in the article. Unless you want a section on specifically how Chinese characters are used in Chinese, in addition to the articles on traditional & simplified characters? kwami (talk) 01:43, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

new article for Chinese Alphabet

Chinese Alphabet should NOT redirect here. this is NOT an alphabet, and there is another writing script used to help AID the learning of chinese characters and it is an alphabet. it is used in ROC to learn chinese characters and is an alphabet, having a seperate symbol for vowels and consonants and uses accent marks for the different tones but it is NOT commonly used as a replacement for chinese characters so its used as a learning aid. 162.83.161.190 (talk) 21:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

its a totally different script —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.83.161.190 (talk) 21:57, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I have fixed this; see new disambiguation page (instead of redirect) at Chinese alphabet; see talk page there for why.Dragonbones (talk) 06:11, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

i found the alphabet i was looking for, zhuyin. since it is phonetic, "chinese alphabet" should redirect there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.84.131.194 (talk) 22:12, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Not all Chinese use zhuyin; I don't think zhuyin should be used in general for all Chinese. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 23:53, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Zhuyin is not an alphabet. It's a semi-syllabary. There is no defined "Chinese alphabet", so I think the best link is Romanization of Chinese. kwami (talk) 00:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

more examples

Shouldn't we add more examples of complex characters? 4 doesn't seem that eye catching...

Something like 龘龗龖龕龔龓龑龞龝龜齾齹齉鼉鼈麎麤鹩鸎鱻鱺鱳鬤鬮驫驪飍飝飈靂靀闧钄鑴鐢釅釁邐轥趲豔讟讞蠒蟹蘯藄礸擴 perhaps? Benlisquare (talk) 03:11, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

LOL, well, too many will be distracting, too. One's eye can only take in so many squiggles. But one more sentence with a few examples of some of the most complex characters in frequent use wouldn't be a bad addition. I'll do that shortly.Dragonbones (talk) 14:05, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking perhaps to give a few examples of VERY complex characters, not necessarily commonly used, to show a glimpse of what they appear as. I find that all common characters are rather simple. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 00:00, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

There is supposedly a character with 4x hing (興) stacked just like the 4x dragon (龍) 64-stroke character. Someone said such a word is pronounced "Jing" or "Zing" in cantonese. But I cannot find it anywhere? Benjwong (talk) 00:21, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposal for new Chinese character based Hokkien/Taiwanese Wikipedia

Please leave comments at [2] 122.109.171.138 (talk) 04:38, 11 August 2008 (UTC) kkljhmkhbmhjk,j —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.71.39.185 (talk) 21:39, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Oldest?

Removed text:

Chinese characters are also considered to be the world's longest continuously used writing system.

This unsourced claim contradicts Writing system#History of writing systems and is arguably unencyclopedic anyway. Andrewa (talk) 05:05, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Contradicts it how? It may be wrong, but it's a common claim. Can you think of a script that's older? kwami (talk) 05:43, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

It's unsourced weaselwords. If it's such a common claim, why can't you source it? Maybe the claimants aren't citeable sources? If it may be wrong, is it really what you want in the article? But since you've restored this substandard text, and suggested in the edit summary that a fact tag would be a better option, I've added one for you. Andrewa (talk) 11:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Temper temper. And it's not weasely: it means exactly what it says. kwami (talk) 11:56, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Disagree. Please read the guideline.

Agree I could and should have put it less aggressively. But as for the temper temper taunt, whether or not it's true it's not likely to help us to improve the encyclopedia, is it? A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent - William Blake.

Touché. kwami (talk) 12:57, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Not in Daniels & Bright that I can see, and I'm not going to bother looking further. You could argue about how legible early Chinese writing is, I suppose, but Greek is half a millennium younger, so that's not a very close contest. (I thought maybe Samaritan might be older than Greek, but per our article it's quite a bit younger. Every other script I can think of is a good millennium younger than Chinese.) kwami (talk) 12:08, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

If it's true and verifiable, then it should be there of course, suitably rephrased. It's an interesting point. But if you're not going to bother sourcing it, then it should be removed. Andrewa (talk) 12:25, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

If that's our standard, then we should delete the vast majority of Wikipedia, because I doubt you're going to bother to source two million articles. I don't quite follow that logic. Fact tags are what are normally used for reasonable claims that require sourcing, like this one. I've certainly read it somewhere, more than once, just don't know offhand where. Since I suspect it's more or less true (depending on the exact definition used for the phrase "writing system"—"the alphabet" is older than Chinese characters; perhaps we should say "oldest script"), I'm not worried about misleading our readers. kwami (talk) 12:56, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, it is our standard. But I don't agree with your conclusion or the reasoning that leads to it.

The fact tag was your suggestion. So I'll leave it there a week or so, and if no source is found in that time, then I'll remove the offending text again. Your protestations that you don't have time to find a source, and that you're certain that you've read it somewhere, are a waste of everyone's time... If that were our standard, then we might as well delete most of our content policy, as nothing would ever be successfully challenged and removed.

On the other hand, I really do wish you good luck finding a source, if you so choose. The point would be a valuable one if substantiated and suitably rephrased to eliminate the Weasel. But if it's not important, then let it go. Or if you can't source it despite trying, then perhaps you should own up to that fact and seek some explanation as to why. As Robert Heinlein observed in Time Enough for Love, even a million men aren't always right.

Agree you're not worried about misleading our readers. (;-> Far better in my opinion to replace the text only if and when a source is in hand. But you have every right to demand the fact tag. Andrewa (talk) 06:21, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Since when does the appropriateness of a statement on wikipedia depend on my personal library? And why me? Just because I'm the one who objected to the deletion of an uncontroversial statement?

Exactly. You're the one who reinserted this unsourced statement, apparently on no better grounds than that you think you've read it somewhere but can't remember where, and that it agrees with your strong personal opinion.

No, the statement is a reasonable one, so I'll keep restoring it. Talk about a waste of time. Eventually s.o. will come up with a source. Don't you have anything better to do? kwami (talk) 09:48, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Please don't, unless you have better grounds than that. Come up with those better grounds, and there's no problem. Andrewa (talk) 09:10, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Would it be unreasonable for me to delete half the article just because it's unreferenced? It's not like this is up to FA standards. It would be different if you had reason to think it's false, but you don't. You just picked one unsourced statement out of many. kwami (talk) 11:24, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

<- resetting indent

Deleting half the article on those grounds would be a near-perfect example of WP:POINT; Are you really suggesting it would be reasonable? Agree that lots more in the article is unsourced, and lots more elsewhere in Wikipedia. And we'll try to get to it all in time. That's the idea of a wiki.

Which brings us back to whether I have anything better to do (see above). Yes, it's very disappointing to need to spend so much time on what is really a very small change.

Whether or not I have reason to think it's false is irrelevant, the onus of proof is on those who think it's true, and I hope I've never even claimed it's false. The problem is more that stated as it is, it's subtly unfalsifiable, and that's good material for a political speech or even the introduction to the spoken (but not the written) version of a paper presented at a linguistics conference (and I've heard some really good ones, while others that kept safely to the written text were a waste of time and I went to sleep). But it's not what we want in an encyclopedia.

And there's lots and lots of similar stuff in the Chinese language articles, isn't there? Perhaps this wasn't the best place to start, but now it's happening I can't see any good reason not to resolve it. Andrewa (talk) 18:31, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Chinese characters/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Lots of good stuff here. Just some more references, and maybe format the tables a bit, and this could easily be A class. --Danaman5 07:39, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 12:15, 7 August 2011 (UTC). Substituted at 20:18, 2 May 2016 (UTC)