Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Traditional customs - What are the characteristics of Chinese characters?

What are the characteristics of Chinese characters?

Chinese characters are one of the oldest scripts in the world and have had a huge impact on the neighborhood, serving as the mother character for other scripts. It is a written symbol for recording events. In form, it gradually changed from a graphic to a square-shaped symbol made up of strokes, which is why Chinese characters are generally called "square characters".

It has evolved from a pictogram (ideogram) to a phonetic script that also expresses sound and meaning, but the overall system is still ideographic. Therefore, Chinese characters are characterized by the integration of image, sound and meaning. This characteristic is unique among the world's scripts, and therefore it has a unique charm.

Expanded Information

Chinese characters are one of the oldest scripts in the world. The fact that Chinese characters have lasted for so long shows that they have advantages that are compatible with the characteristics of the Chinese language. The advantages of Chinese characters are seen in its characteristics.

The main characteristics of Chinese characters include:

1. Chinese characters are flat, square characters.

2. Chinese characters are ideographic in nature. There originally existed a certain rationale between the form, sound and meaning of Chinese characters.

3. The linguistic unit recorded in Chinese characters is the syllable of the Chinese language. The Chinese character records the Chinese language by using the entire character form to relate to the speech, and one character represents one syllable.

4. The Chinese character record of the Chinese language is not hyphenated.

5. The number of Chinese characters is very large, and the structure of characters is complicated.

6. Chinese characters have a certain superspace and time.