Chinese alphabet

Letters of the Chinese Alphabet: Most scripts are a string of symbols representing sound. Alphabets are part of a phonetic system in which the individual sounds are represented with the designed letters. Letters are symbols that denote sound and have no meaning by themselves. Chinese writing, unlike this, is a system where all the symbols represent certain concepts. The writing system comprises of a number of symbols used to directly represent words, although there is a relationship between the structure of each symbol and the pronunciation. However, the symbols cannot be broken down into smaller components, to construct a new word. Even though sound plays a prominent role in the construction of a character, it is secondary to the meaning. Sometimes the characters do represent sound, but those are particular sounds, such as a running stream. They cannot be used in general, for any other sound. In Chinese writing, there are no letters of the Chinese alphabet, as we understand the words. Many online sources offer free samples of these symbols and characters, as well as a translation.

Characters of the Chinese System: The very first characters or symbols were developed from graphical representations of objects. For example, the picture of a tiger meant the animal ‘tiger’. Every alphabet comprises of 20 to 50 letters that represent sound, in the spoken language. The Chinese language contains a number of characters. The forms, or morphology, of these characters, vary greatly. They are governed by rules, just like notes in music. The total number of the characters of the Chinese system of writing is large. It is believed that a person needs to know at least 3,000 characters to be able to read the newspaper. People with college degrees are judged to have mastered about six or seven thousand of them. The large dictionaries contain as many as 60,000 characters. Even the most educated would find it a Herculean task to memorize so many characters. However, approximately 6,000 characters are considered essential for everyday use.

Writing Chinese Characters: Legend has it that during the reign of the Yellow Emperor, 4,600 years ago, Cang Jie invented the Chinese language. Archaeological discoveries have authenticated the birth of the language to 4,500 years ago. The Chinese Calligraphy, the ancient system of writing Chinese characters as works of art, has a history of at least two thousand years. It is widely practiced and revered. The birth and development of Calligraphy has followed the changes in the characters of the Chinese system of writing.

Learning Chinese Characters: A system known as pinyin is used in teaching the Chinese characters. Pinyin simply means ‘spelling out the sounds’ in Chinese. It is a system of transliteration and not the ‘Chinese alphabet’. It is secondary to the Chinese characters and has only limited use. Any Chinese character can be written down with pinyin. When children begin to learn the characters, it is sometimes easier to teach them the small number of letters in the Latin or English alphabet and then proceed with the Chinese characters. The same is true for foreigners who learn to write Chinese better and quicker this way.