How many Chinese characters are there in Chinese? The figure varies depending on the situation

Chinese is one of the oldest written languages in the world. Its history totals at least 3 thousand years. The inscriptions on it were found on tortoise shells of the Shang Dynasty (1766-1123 BC).

History of Chinese script

The Chinese charter is younger than the Sumerian or Egyptian, but there is no evidence that the invention of the letter in the Middle Kingdom was in any way stimulated by the writing of the Middle East. The earliest examples of Chinese characters are fortunetelling texts on bones and carapaces. They consist of a question to the soothsayer and the answer to it. This early writing shows that at the dawn of its development it was based on pictograms. For example, the word "cow" was represented by the animal's head, and "go" - the figure of the foot.

Over time, however, the Chinese letter has undergone many changes, and already by the time of the Han dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD) it lost much of its representativeness. Modern hieroglyphs were formed during the III and IV centuries AD. E. Surprisingly, after that they almost did not change. In addition to the standard forms, there are also several handwritten ones. The most common are Tsaoshu and Sinshu. The first kind is very difficult to read to people who do not have special training. Sinshu is a kind of compromise between the high speed tsaoshu and standard writing. This form is widely used in modern China.

How many Chinese characters are there in Chinese?

To represent each morpheme of the dictionary, the Chinese use single distinctive symbols. The vast majority of signs are written versions of spoken sounds, which have semantic meaning. Although the system of writing changed over time due to revolutions and political cataclysms, its principles, along with the symbols, remained largely the same.

So how many Chinese characters are there in Chinese? Although their number is estimated at tens of thousands (for example, the dictionary "Zhonghua Jihai" contains more than 85 thousand logograms), most of them are found only in historical texts, incomprehensible or are variants of writing the same word. A large dictionary usually contains 40 thousand characters, and for reading newspapers it is enough to know 2-3 thousand characters.

Thus, the answer to the question of how many Chinese characters are in Chinese depends on what they consider. If you use the method used in China, then their number is potentially infinite, as well as the limitless number of possible spellings, alternatives and typographical errors.

Despite the fact that there are many Chinese dialects, written language is a common form of communication. Even if people do not understand the speech of a resident of another province, they are able to "talk" with pencil and paper. Chinese writing can be divided into three types: simplified, traditional and phonetic. In addition, there is also a form called "pinin," which is a transcription of Chinese in Latin letters.

Chinese Alphabet

The Chinese writing system does not have an alphabet consisting of symbols for the transmission of sound units or phonemes. Instead, it consists of a set of signs or logograms, which are units of meaning or morphemes (ie words). As in any other language, there are thousands of words in Chinese. Therefore, this writing system requires thousands of characters to represent each of its unique morphemes.

When writing different hieroglyphs use the "alphabet" of Chinese language, consisting of 12 basic graphic elements. Some characters contain only one or two features, while others can contain up to 84. Although there are no spaces between Chinese characters, from the end of the 19th century the writing system was supplemented with some basic punctuation marks. For example, hollow circles mark the end of sentences, also comma, exclamation and question marks are used.

Chinese word-hieroglyphics originally depicted people, animals or objects, but over the centuries they became more and more stylized and ceased to resemble what they represented. Although there are about 56 thousand of them, the overwhelming majority of them are not known to a typical reader - he needs to know only 3000 of them for literacy. Perhaps, this figure most reliably answers the question of how many Chinese characters are in Chinese.

Simplified logograms

The problem of teaching thousands of characters in 1956 led to the fact that the writing of Chinese characters was simplified. As a result, about 2000 logograms made it easier to read and write. They are also taught in the classes of the North Chinese language abroad. These symbols are simpler, that is, they have fewer graphic elements than traditional ones.

Simplified hieroglyphs existed for hundreds of years, but were officially included in the writing only after the founding of the PRC in the 1950s in order to increase the literacy of the population. Simplified logograms are used by the people's daily newspaper "People's Daily", they are used in the subtitles of news and video. However, people who competently write, may not know the traditional option.

This system is standard in China (with the exception of Hong Kong) and Singapore, and traditional Chinese continues to be the standard for Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao, Malaysia, Korea, Japan and other countries.

Phonetic writing

Speakers in Cantonese created their own system of phonetic signs. These symbols are used in addition to traditional Chinese characters, for example, in comic strips or entertaining sections of newspapers and magazines. Often these hieroglyphs can not be found in the dictionary. Informal logograms are used to convey the Cantonese dialect.

Pinyin

In an attempt to make Chinese more understandable for the West, China has developed a "Pinyin" system. To translate words in it, the Latin alphabet is used. In 1977, the Chinese authorities made an official request to the United Nations to name the geographical places of China using the pinyin system. Pinyin applies those who are more familiar with the Latin alphabet and learns to speak Chinese.