HOME





Debate On Traditional And Simplified Chinese Characters
The debate on traditional Chinese characters and simplified Chinese characters is an ongoing dispute concerning Chinese orthography among users of Chinese characters. It has stirred up heated responses from supporters of both sides in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and among overseas Chinese communities with its implications of political ideology and cultural identity.Keller, Andrée Tabouret. (1997). Vernacular Literacy: A Re-Evaluation. Oxford University Press. Simplified characters here exclusively refer to those characters simplified by the People's Republic of China (PRC), instead of the concept of character simplification as a whole. The effect of simplified characters on the language remains controversial, decades after their introduction. Problems The sheer difficulties posed by having two concurrent writing systems hinders communications between mainland China and other regions, although with exposure and experience a person educated in one system can qu ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Traditional Chinese Characters
Traditional Chinese characters are a standard set of Chinese character forms used to written Chinese, write Chinese languages. In Taiwan, the set of traditional characters is regulated by the Ministry of Education (Taiwan), 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 Chinese family of scripts, countries that use Chinese characters began standardizing simplified sets of characters, often with characters that existed before as well-known variant Chinese characters, 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 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Homophone
A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning or in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, as in ''rain'', ''reign'', and ''rein''. The term ''homophone'' sometimes applies to units longer or shorter than words, for example a phrase, letter, or groups of letters which are pronounced the same as a counterpart. Any unit with this property is said to be ''homophonous'' (). Homophones that are spelled the same are both homographs and homonyms. For example, the word ''read'', in "He is well ''read''" and in "Yesterday, I ''read'' that book". Homophones that are spelled differently are also called heterographs, e.g. ''to'', ''too'', and ''two''. Wordplay and games Homophones are often used to create puns and to deceive the reader (as in crossword puzzles) or to suggest multiple meanings. The last usage is common in poetry and creat ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Han Dynasty
The Han dynasty was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) and a warring interregnum known as the Chu–Han Contention (206–202 BC), and it was succeeded by the Three Kingdoms period (220–280 AD). The dynasty was briefly interrupted by the Xin dynasty (9–23 AD) established by the usurping regent Wang Mang, and is thus separated into two periods—the #Western Han (202 BC – 9 AD), Western Han (202 BC9 AD) and the #Eastern Han (25–220 AD), Eastern Han (25–220 AD). Spanning over four centuries, the Han dynasty is considered a Golden ages of China, golden age in Chinese history, and had a permanent impact on Chinese identity in later periods. The majority ethnic group of modern China refer to themselves as the "Han people" or "Han Chinese". The spoken Chinese ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Analects
The ''Analects'', also known as the ''Sayings of Confucius'', is an ancient Chinese philosophical text composed of sayings and ideas attributed to Confucius and his contemporaries, traditionally believed to have been compiled by his followers. The consensus among scholars is that large portions of the text were composed during the Warring States period (475–221 BC), and that the work achieved its final form during the mid-Han dynasty (206 BC220 AD). During the early Han, the ''Analects'' was merely considered to be a commentary on the Five Classics. However, by the dynasty's end the status of the ''Analects'' had grown to being among the central texts of Confucianism. During the late Song dynasty (960–1279 AD) the importance of the ''Analects'' as a Chinese philosophy work was raised above that of the older Five Classics, and it was recognized as one of the "Four Books". The ''Analects'' has been one of the most widely read and studied books in China ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Classic Of Poetry
The ''Classic of Poetry'', also ''Shijing'' or ''Shih-ching'', translated variously as the ''Book of Songs'', ''Book of Odes'', or simply known as the ''Odes'' or ''Poetry'' (; ''Shī''), is the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry, comprising 305 works dating from the 11th to 7th centuries BC. It is one of the " Five Classics" traditionally said to have been compiled by Confucius, and has been studied and memorized by scholars in China and neighboring countries over two millennia. It is also a rich source of '' chengyu'' (four-character classical idioms) that are still a part of learned discourse and even everyday language in modern Chinese. Since the Qing dynasty, its rhyme patterns have also been analysed in the study of Old Chinese phonology. Name Early references refer to the anthology as the ''300 Poems'' ('' shi''). ''The Odes'' first became known as a ''jīng'', or a "classic book", in the canonical sense, as part of the Han dynasty's official adoption of Con ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Old Chinese
Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese language, Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BC, in the Late Shang period. Chinese bronze inscriptions, Bronze inscriptions became plentiful during the following Zhou dynasty. The latter part of the Zhou period saw a flowering of literature, including Four Books and Five Classics, classical works such as the ''Analects'', the ''Mencius (book), Mencius'', and the ''Zuo Zhuan''. These works served as models for Literary Chinese (or Classical Chinese), which remained the written standard until the early twentieth century, thus preserving the vocabulary and grammar of late Old Chinese. Old Chinese was written with several early forms of Chinese characters, including Oracle bone script, oracle bone, Chinese bronze inscriptions, bronze, and seal scripts. Throughout t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Shuowen Jiezi
The ''Shuowen Jiezi'' is a Chinese dictionary compiled by Xu Shen , during the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE). While prefigured by earlier reference works for Chinese characters like the ''Erya'' (), the ''Shuowen Jiezi'' contains the first comprehensive analysis of characters in terms of their structure, where Xu attempted to provide rationales for their construction. It was also the first to organize its entries into sections according to shared components called Chinese character radicals, radicals. Background Xu Shen was a scholar of the Five Classics during the Han dynasty. He finished compiling the ''Shuowen Jiezi'' in 100 CE. However, due to an unfavorable imperial attitude towards scholarship, he waited until 121 before his son Xu Chong presented it to Emperor An of Han, along with a memorial. In analyzing the structure of characters and defining the words represented by them, Xu strove to clarify the meaning of the pre-Han classics, so as to ensure order and ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Radical 32
Radical 32 or radical earth () meaning "earth" is one of the 31 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals total) composed of three strokes. In the ''Kangxi Dictionary'', there are 580 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical. is also the 29th indexing component in the ''Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components'' predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China. Kangxi radical 33 ( "scholar") is merged to this radical as an associated indexing component of the principal indexing component in mainland China. In the Chinese wuxing ("Five Phases"), 土 represents the element earth. Evolution File:土-oracle.svg, Oracle bone script character File:土-bronze.svg, Bronze script character File:土-bigseal.svg, Large seal script character File:土-seal.svg, Small seal script character Derived characters Sinogram As an independent character it is one of the Kyōiku kanji or Kanji taught in elementary school in Japan Japa ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Radical 96
Radical 96 or radical jade () meaning " jade" is one of the 23 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals in total) composed of 5 strokes. When appearing at the left side of a Chinese character, the radical transforms into consisting of four strokes. In the '' Kangxi Dictionary'', there are 473 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical. The variant form of this radical, , is used as the 61st indexing component in the '' Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components'' predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China, while its original form , along with the left component variant , are listed as its associated indexing components. Evolution 玉 (jade) File:玉-oracle.svg, Oracle bone script character File:玉-bronze.svg, Bronze script character File:玉-bigseal.svg, Large seal script character File:玉-seal.svg, Small seal script character 王 (king) File:王-oracle.svg, Oracle bone script character File:王-bronze.svg, Bron ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Radical (Chinese Character)
A radical (), or indexing component, is a visually prominent 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 measure words in Chinese. History In the earliest Chinese dictionaries, such as the '' Erya'' (3rd centuryBC), characters were grouped together in broad semantic categories. Because the vast majority of characters are pho ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Qin Shi Huang
Qin Shi Huang (, ; February 25912 July 210 BC), born Ying Zheng () or Zhao Zheng (), was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of China. He is widely regarded as the first ever supreme leader of a unitary state, unitary dynasties of China, dynasty in Chinese history. Rather than maintain the title of "Chinese king, king" ( ) or "suzerain#China, overlord" () borne by the previous rulers of Xia dynasty, Xia, Shang dynasty, Shang and Zhou dynasty, Zhou dynasties, he invented the title of "emperor" ( ), which would see continuous use by Chinese sovereigns and monarchy in China, monarchs for the next two millennia. Ying Zheng was born during the late Warring States period in Handan, the capital of Zhao (state), Zhao, to King Zhuangxiang of Qin, Prince Yiren and Queen Dowager Zhao, Lady Zhao. Prince Yiren was serving as an expendable hostage diplomacy, diplomatic hostage in Zhao at the time, but the wealthy merchant Lü Buwei saw potential in him and lobbied fo ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Filial Piety
Filial piety is the virtue of exhibiting love and respect for one's parents, elders, and ancestors, particularly within the context of Confucian ethics, Confucian, Chinese Buddhism, Chinese Buddhist ethics, Buddhist, and Daoism, Daoist ethics. The Confucian ''Classic of Filial Piety'', thought to be written around the late Warring States-Qin dynasty, Qin-Han dynasty, Han period, has historically been the authoritative source on the Confucian tenet of filial piety. The book—a purported dialogue between Confucius and his student Zengzi—is about how to set up a good society using the principle of filial piety. Filial piety is central to Confucian role ethics. In more general terms, filial piety means to be good to one's parents; to take care of one's parents; to engage in good conduct, not just towards parents but also outside the home so as to bring a good name to one's parents and ancestors; to show love, respect, and support; to display courtesy; to ensure male heirs; to uph ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]