|
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] |
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] |
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] |
Shinjitai
are the simplified forms of kanji used in Japan since the promulgation of the Tōyō Kanji List in 1946. Some of the new forms found in ''shinjitai'' are also found in simplified Chinese characters, but ''shinjitai'' is generally not as extensive in the scope of its modification. ''Shinjitai'' were created by reducing the number of strokes in '' kyūjitai'' ("old character form") or , which is unsimplified kanji (usually similar to traditional Chinese characters). This simplification was achieved through a process (similar to that of simplified Chinese) of either replacing the ''onpu'' (, "sound mark") indicating the ''On'' reading with another ''onpu'' of the same ''On'' reading with fewer strokes, or replacing a complex component of a character with a simpler one. There have been a few stages of simplifications made since the 1950s, but the only changes that became official were the changes in the Jōyō Kanji List in 1981 and 2010. Background The following forms were es ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kanji
are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequently-derived Syllabary, syllabic scripts of and . The characters have Japanese pronunciations; most have two, with one based on the Chinese sound. A few characters were invented in Japan by constructing character components derived from other Chinese characters. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan made its own efforts to simplify the characters, now known as , by a process similar to China's simplified Chinese characters, simplification efforts, with the intention to increase literacy among the general public. Since the 1920s, the Japanese government has published character lists periodically to help direct the education of its citizenry through the myriad Chinese characters that exist. There are nearly 3 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese people are Chinese people, people of Chinese origin who reside outside Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan). As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. As of 2023, there were 10.5 million people living outside mainland China who were born in mainland China. Overall, China has a low percent of population List of sovereign states by immigrant and emigrant population, living overseas. Terminology () refers to people of Chinese citizenship residing outside of either the China, PRC or Republic of China, ROC (Taiwan). The government of China realized that the overseas Chinese could be an asset, a source of foreign investment and a bridge to overseas knowledge; thus, it began to recognize the use of the term Huaqiao. Ching-Sue Kuik renders in English as "the Chinese wikt:sojourner, sojourner" and writes that the term is "used to disseminate, reinforce, and perpetuate a monolithic and essentialist Chinese identity" by both t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Retronym
A retronym is a newer name for something that differentiates it from something else that is newer, similar, or seen in everyday life; thus, avoiding confusion between the two. Etymology The term ''retronym'', a neologism composed of the combining forms '' retro-'' (from Latin , "before") + '' -nym'' (from Greek , "name"), was coined by Frank Mankiewicz in 1980 and popularized by William Safire in '' The New York Times Magazine''. In 2000, '' The American Heritage Dictionary'' (4th edition) became the first major dictionary to include the word ''retronym''. Examples The global war from 1914 to 1918 was referred to at the time as the ''Great War''. However, after the subsequent global war erupted in 1939, the phrase ''Great War'' was gradually deprecated. The first came to be known as ''World War I'' and the second as ''World War II''. The first bicycles with two wheels of equal size were called " safety bicycles" because they were easier to handle than the then-dominant ... [...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] |
Variant Chinese Characters
Chinese characters may have several variant forms—visually distinct glyphs that represent the same underlying meaning and pronunciation. Variants of a given character are ''allographs'' of one another, and many are directly analogous to allographs present in the English alphabet, such as the double-storey and single-storey variants of the letter A, with the latter more commonly appearing in handwriting. Some contexts require usage of specific variants. Nature of variants Before the 20th century, variation in the shape of characters was ubiquitous, a dynamic which continued after the invention of woodblock printing. For example, prior to the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) the character meaning 'bright' was written as either or —with either or on the left, with the Chinese character components, component on the right. Li Si (), the Chancellor (China), Chancellor of Qin, attempted to universalize the Qin small seal script across China following Qin's wars of unific ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Family Of Scripts
The Chinese family of scripts includes writing systems used to write various East Asian languages, that ultimately descend from the oracle bone script invented in the Yellow River valley during the Shang dynasty. These include written Chinese itself, as well as adaptations of it for other languages, such as Japanese kanji, Korean hanja, Vietnamese chữ Hán and chữ Nôm, Zhuang sawndip, and Bai bowen. More divergent are the Tangut script, Khitan large script, Khitan small script and its offspring, the Jurchen script, as well as the Yi script, Sui script, and Geba syllabary, which were inspired by written Chinese but not descended directly from it. While written Chinese and many of its descendant scripts are ''logographic'', others are phonetic, including the kana, Nüshu, and Lisu syllabaries, as well as the bopomofo semi-syllabary. These scripts are written in various styles, principally seal script, clerical script, regular script, semi-cursive script, and cu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Standard Form Of National Characters
The ''Standard Form of National Characters'' or the ''Standard Typefaces for Chinese Characters'' () is the standardized form of Chinese characters set by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Lists There are three lists of the Standard Form of National Characters, promulgated by Taiwan's Ministry of Education: * Chart of Standard Forms of Common National Characters (), including 4,808 commonly used Chinese characters. * Chart of Standard Forms of Less-Than-Common National Characters (), including secondary commonly used 6,329 characters. * Chart of Rarely-Used National Characters (), including 18,319 rarely used characters. Characteristics ''Note: Viewing this section correctly requires certain standard typefaces to be installed and the browser to be configured to use them in appropriate contexts.'' The Standard Form of National Characters tends to adopt orthodox variants for most of its characters, but it still adopts many common vulgar variants. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ministry Of Education (Taiwan)
The Ministry of Education (MOE; ; Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: ''Kau-yuk Phu'') is the ministry of Taiwan responsible for incorporating educational policies and managing public schools and it oversees the educational administrative agencies of local governments. History The Taiwanese education ministry's origin goes back to the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture under the Empire of Japan, Imperial Japanese government, which took over Taiwan in 1895. During Taiwan under Japanese rule, Japanese colonial rule, school attendance for Taiwanese children increased from 3.8% in 1904 to 71.3% in 1943 and literacy in Taiwan became common. Modern schools were formed with widespread establishment of primary schools while higher schooling for Taiwanese people remained rare and secondary schools and colleges were mostly for Japanese nationals. In special cases many Taiwanese did receive higher schooling and many went to Japan for further studies. The current government of Taiwan, offici ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
