The Chinese script

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Hello everyone.

Since there is a fairly large amount of youtube channels, blogs or podcasts, where people can get very good information on language learning or anything related to this field, I thought that I might be talking about things that have been said many times before and decided to try to do this recording in a more academic way. I’d like to discuss a rather specific topic, but a one that still might be interesting to listeners not so familiar with the subject – the Chinese script.

I hope you’ll enjoy it and wish you a belated Happy New Year.

Chinese script

-         writing is a form in which you can express language units

Characteristics of the Chinese scritp:

1. morphemographic
2. syllabic

 Characters:

Han dynasty reform

8 strokes:

永

                                    Yong3

說文解字 (Dictionary by Xushen)

Shuo1wen2jie3zi4

The explanation of simple and analysis of compound characters

Simple

文  人

Wen2              ren2

Compound

字  解

Zi4                  jie3

Division of Chinese characters into 6 cathegories by Xushen:

1. 象形字 – pictograms

日

Ri4 – Sun (Classical Chinese)

月

Yue4 – moon (Classical Chinese)

人

Ren2 – man

木

Mu4 – tree (Classical Chinese)

2. 指事字 – simple indicatives

上

Shang4 – above

下

Xia4 - below

3. 會意字 – compound indicatives

好   女  + 子

Hao4 – affection towards sth.

林   木  + 木

Lin2 – forest         

森   木  + 木  + 木

Sen1 – deep forest

4. 形聲字 – phono semantic compound characters

青

Qing1 – green/blueish color

     

請   言  + 青

Qing3 – polite       

情   心  + 青

Qing2 – situation, matter

清   水  + 青

Qing1 – Clear, The Qing Dynasty

部首 – bu4shou3 - radical

5. 假借字 – phonetic loans

我   手  + 戈

Wo3 – I, me

6. 轉注字 – derived characters

耂

Lao3 – Old. This is the abbreviation of the character 老 Lao3 – old.

考

Kao3 – Old. The element 丂 is added to 耂, but the character has roughly the same meaning and rhymes with the original one.