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( Chinese writing system)
Written Chinese (Chinese ??; pinyin zhongwén) comprises the written symbols used to represent spoken Chinese and the rules about how they are arranged and punctuated. These symbols are commonly known as Chinese characters (traditional/simplified Chinese ??/??; pinyin hànzì). Chinese characters do not constitute an alphabet or a compact syllabary. Rather, the writing system is roughly logosyllabic; that is, each character generally represents either a complete one-syllable word (see logogram) or a single-syllable part of a word. The characters themselves are often composed of parts that may represent physical objects, abstract notions,[1] or pronunciation.[2] Written Chinese is considered to be one of the world's oldest active, continuously used writing systems (cf."History of the Alphabet" citation below). Many current Chinese characters have been traced back to the ? Shang Dynasty about 1500 BCE, and the process of creating characters probably began some centuries earlier.[3] Chinese characters were standardized under the ? Qín dynasty (221–206 BCE).[4] Over the millennia, these characters have evolved into well-developed styles of Chinese calligraphy.[5] Despite historical changes in pronunciation, Chinese speakers in disparate dialect groups can communicate in writing.[6] Some of the characters have also been adopted as part of the writing systems in other East Asian languages, such as Japanese and Korean.[7][8] Literacy requires the memorization of a great many characters Educated Chinese know about 4,000,[9][10] while educated Japanese know about half that many.[8] The large number of Chinese characters has in part led to the adoption of Western alphabets as an auxiliary means of representing Chinese.[11] Written Chinese is not based predominantly on an alphabet or a compact syllabary.[1] Instead, Chinese characters are glyphs whose components may depict objects or represent abstract notions. Occasionally, a character consists of only one component; more commonly, two or more components are combined, using a variety of different principles, to form more complex characters. The best known exposition of Chinese character composition is the ????/???? Shuowén Jiezì, compiled by ??/?? Xu Shèn around 120 CE. Since Xu Shen did not have access to Chinese characters in their earliest forms, his analysis cannot always be taken as authoritative.[12] Nonetheless, no later work has supplanted the Shuowen Jiezi in terms of breadth, and it is still relevant to etymological research today.[13]
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