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Simplified Chinese Characters
Simplified Chinese characters are one of two standardized Chinese characters, character sets widely used to write the Chinese language, with the other being traditional characters. Their mass standardization during the 20th century was part of an initiative by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to promote literacy, and their use in ordinary circumstances on the mainland has been encouraged by the Chinese government since the 1950s. They are the official forms used in mainland China, Malaysia, and Singapore, while traditional characters are officially used in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Simplification of a component—either a character or a sub-component called a Radical (Chinese characters), radical—usually involves either a reduction in its total number of Chinese character strokes, strokes, or an apparent streamlining of which strokes are chosen in what places—for example, the radical used in the traditional character is simplified to to form the simplified charac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Logographic
In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek 'word', and 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chinese characters as used in Written Chinese, Chinese as well as other languages are logograms, as are Egyptian hieroglyphs and characters in cuneiform script. A writing system that primarily uses logograms is called a ''logography''. Non-logographic writing systems, such as alphabets and syllabaries, are ''phonemic'': their individual symbols represent sounds directly and lack any inherent meaning. However, all known logographies have some phonetic component, generally based on the rebus principle, and the addition of a phonetic component to pure ideographs is considered to be a key innovation in enabling the writing system to adequately encode human language. Types of logographic systems Some of the earliest recorded writing systems are logograp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bopomofo
Bopomofo, also called Zhuyin Fuhao ( ; ), or simply Zhuyin, is a Chinese transliteration, transliteration system for Standard Chinese and other Sinitic languages. It is the principal method of teaching Chinese Mandarin pronunciation in Taiwan. It consists of 37 characters and five tone (linguistics), tone marks, which together can transcribe all possible sounds in Mandarin Chinese. Bopomofo was first introduced in China during the 1910s by the Beiyang government, where it was used alongside Wade–Giles, a romanization system which used a modified Latin alphabet. Today, Bopomofo is more common in Taiwan than on the mainland, and is used as the primary Chinese input method, electronic input method for Taiwanese Mandarin, as well as in dictionaries and other non-official documents. Terminology ''Bopomofo'' is the name used for the system by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and Unicode. Analogous to how the word ''alphabet'' is derived from the names of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cursive Script (East Asia)
Cursive script (; , ''sōshotai''; , ''choseo''; ), often referred to as ''grass script'', is a script style used in Chinese and East Asian calligraphy. It is an umbrella term for the cursive variants of the clerical script and the regular script. The cursive script functions primarily as a kind of shorthand script or calligraphic style and is faster to write than other styles, but it can be difficult to read for those unfamiliar with it because of its abstraction and alteration of character structures. People who can read only standard or printed forms of Chinese or related scripts may have difficulty reading the cursive script. Names The character primarily means "grass", and the character means script in this context, which has led to the literal calque for as "grass script". However, can be extended to mean "hurried" or "rough", from which the name came. Thus, the name of this script is literally "draft script", "quick script" or "rough script". The character ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Character Strokes
Strokes ( zh, t=筆畫, s=笔画, p=bǐhuà) are the smallest structural units making up written Chinese characters. In the act of writing, a stroke is defined as a movement of a writing instrument on a writing material surface, or the trace left on the surface from a discrete application of the writing implement. The modern sense of discretized strokes first came into being with the clerical script during the Han dynasty. In the regular script that emerged during the Tang dynasty—the most recent major style, highly studied for its aesthetics in East Asian calligraphy—individual strokes are discrete and highly regularized. By contrast, the ancient seal script has line terminals within characters that are often unclear, making them non-trivial to count. Study and classification of strokes is useful for understanding Chinese calligraphy, Chinese character calligraphy, ensuring character legibility, identifying fundamental components of Radical (Chinese characters), radicals, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radical (Chinese Characters)
A radical (), or indexing component, is a visually prominent Chinese character components, component of a Chinese character under which the character is traditionally listed in a Chinese dictionary. The radical for a character is typically a semantic component, but it can also be another structural component or an artificially extracted portion of the character. In some cases, the original semantic or phonological connection has become obscure, owing to changes in the meaning or pronunciation of the character over time. The use of the English term ''radical'' is based on an analogy between the structure of Chinese characters and the inflection of words in European languages. Radicals are also sometimes called ''classifiers'', but this name is more commonly applied to the grammatical Chinese classifier, measure words in Chinese. History In the earliest Chinese dictionaries, such as the ''Erya'' (3rd centuryBC), characters were grouped together in broad semantic categories. Be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the China, People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south. It has an area of , with mountain ranges dominating the eastern two-thirds and plains in the western third, where its Urbanization by country, highly urbanized population is concentrated. The combined Free area of the Republic of China, territories under ROC control consist of list of islands of Taiwan, 168 islands in total covering . The Taipei–Keelung metropolitan area, largest metropolitan area is formed by Taipei (the capital), New Taipei City, and Keelung. With around 23.9 million inhabitants, Taiwan is among the List of countries and dependencies by population density, most densely populated countries. Tai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macau
Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by population density, densely populated region in the world. Formerly a Portuguese Empire, Portuguese colony, the territory of Portuguese Macau was first leased to Portugal by the Ming dynasty as a trading post in 1557. Portugal paid an annual rent and administered the territory under Chinese sovereignty until 1887, when Portugal gained perpetual colonial rights with the signing of the Sino-Portuguese Treaty of Peking. The colony remained under Portuguese rule until the 1999 handover to China. Macau is a Special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of China, which maintains separate governing and economic systems from those of mainland China under the principle of "one country, two systems".. The unique blend of Port ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hong Kong
Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the world. Hong Kong was established as a colony of the British Empire after the Qing dynasty ceded Hong Kong Island in 1841–1842 as a consequence of losing the First Opium War. The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 and was further extended when the United Kingdom obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898. Hong Kong was occupied by Japan from 1941 to 1945 during World War II. The territory was handed over from the United Kingdom to China in 1997. Hong Kong maintains separate governing and economic systems from that of mainland China under the principle of one country, two systems. Originally a sparsely populated area of farming and fishing villages,. the territory is now one of the world's most signific ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malaysia
Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula and East Malaysia on the island of Borneo. Peninsular Malaysia shares land and maritime Malaysia–Thailand border, borders with Thailand, as well as maritime borders with Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia; East Malaysia shares land borders with Brunei and Indonesia, and a maritime border with the Philippines and Vietnam. Kuala Lumpur is the country's national capital, List of cities and towns in Malaysia by population, largest city, and the seat of the Parliament of Malaysia, legislative branch of the Government of Malaysia, federal government, while Putrajaya is the federal administrative capi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mainland China
"Mainland China", also referred to as "the Chinese mainland", is a Geopolitics, geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. In addition to the geographical mainland, the geopolitical sense of the term includes islands such as Hainan, Chongming Island, Chongming, and Zhoushan. By convention, territories outside of mainland China include: * Special administrative regions of China, which are regarded as subdivisions of the country, but retain distinct administrative, judicial and economic systems from those on the mainland: ** Hong Kong, formerly a British Hong Kong, British colony ** Macau, formerly a Portuguese Macau, Portuguese colony * Taiwan, along with Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu Islands, Matsu and other minor islands, are collectively known as the Taiwan Area, where has been the major territorial base of the government of the Republic of China (ROC) since 1950. Though the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
People's Republic Of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after India, representing 17.4% of the world population. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and Borders of China, borders fourteen countries by land across an area of nearly , making it the list of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest country by land area. The country is divided into 33 Province-level divisions of China, province-level divisions: 22 provinces of China, provinces, 5 autonomous regions of China, autonomous regions, 4 direct-administered municipalities of China, municipalities, and 2 semi-autonomous special administrative regions. Beijing is the country's capital, while Shanghai is List of cities in China by population, its most populous city by urban area and largest financial center. Considered one of six ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Traditional Characters
Traditional Chinese characters are a standard set of Chinese character forms used to write Chinese languages. In Taiwan, the set of traditional characters is regulated by the Ministry of Education and standardized in the ''Standard Form of National Characters''. These forms were predominant in written Chinese until the middle of the 20th century, when various countries that use Chinese characters began standardizing simplified sets of characters, often with characters that existed before as well-known variants of the predominant forms. Simplified characters as codified by the People's Republic of China are predominantly used in mainland China, Malaysia, and Singapore. "Traditional" as such is a retronym applied to non-simplified character sets in the wake of widespread use of simplified characters. Traditional characters are commonly used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, as well as in most overseas Chinese communities outside of Southeast Asia. As for non-Chinese languages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
