History of Chinese Characters

汉字的历史

HistoryHSK 2+~12 min

Reading

有三千多年的历史。最早的叫，刻在龟壳和骨头上。是，很多字来自图画。比如，'日'代表太阳，'月'代表月亮，'山'代表山峰。现在全世界有超过十五亿人使用。

Tap underlined words for pinyin and meaning.

1
Oracle bone script (甲骨文) was discovered in Henan province in 1899. Over 150,000 fragments have been found, and about 4,500 distinct characters have been identified.
2
Chinese characters are not an alphabet — each character represents a morpheme (unit of meaning), not a sound. This is why speakers of mutually unintelligible dialects can still read the same written text.
3
The most complex Chinese character ever standardized is 'biáng' (used for a type of Shaanxi noodle), with 57 strokes. It doesn't even appear in most dictionaries.
4
Simplified characters (简体字) were introduced by the People's Republic of China in the 1950s to increase literacy. Traditional characters (繁體字) are still used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

1.What is the name of the earliest known form of Chinese writing?

2.What type of writing system are Chinese characters?

3.Which character represents the sun?

4.Approximately how many people use Chinese characters worldwide?

5.Why were Simplified Characters (简体字) introduced?

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