![]() is alphabetical and it is Chinese, I would actually still agree with the statement “there is no Chinese alphabet”. It spreads the idea that Chinese characters are letters that spell out words, and there are already enough misconceptions about the language without that one being spread around. I just think that the term ‘Chinese alphabet’ shouldn’t be used at all, even to describe romanisation systems like pinyin. It seems to me that the Web does a pretty poor job of making that clear (see below). That would be Chinese characters, and they’re nothing like an alphabet. I know that when most people say ‘Chinese alphabet’ or search for it, what they mean is the writing system for Chinese. There are romanisation systems for Chinese that are alphabetical, but actual Chinese is not written with an alphabet. There aren’t enough people explaining the facts of this situation. But seriously, just Google for it, and there are several million results for this, and most of it is inaccurate and misleading. Hopefully that won’t have been too much of a revelation for most readers, though. So, if by some chance you’ve ended up on this site and didn’t know already… There is no Chinese alphabet. So much, in fact, that I thought it was worth writing about, if only to try and do my bit to dispel this nonsense. In my various travels around the Web looking for East Asia-related content, I’ve noticed that this term comes up far more than it should. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.Chinese alphabet? Yes, you read that right. CHINESE LETTERS FREETranslated by the Magistri Classical Chinese Tutor TranslationĪll human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Tāmen fùyǒu lǐxìng hé liángxīn, bìng yīng yǐ xiōngdì guānxì de jīngshén hùxiāng duìdài. Rénrén shēng ér zìyóu, zài zūnyán hé quánlì shàng yīlù píngděng. Sample text (Mandarin - Simplified characters) Sample text (Mandarin - Traditional characters) This type of writing system is known as semanto-phonetic, logophonetic, morphophonemic, logographic or logosyllabic. As a result there are multiple characters for each syllable, each of which has a different meaning. There are relatively few different types of syllable in spoken Chinese - about 1,700 in Mandairn, compared to languages like English with over 8,000 - yet there are tens of thousands of characters. Words in Chinese can be made up of one of more syllables and each syllable is represented by a single character. The main written form of Chinese is based mainly on the MandarinĬhinese is written with characters (汉字 hànzì) which represent both sound and meaning. The word 汉 (hàn) is used to refer to the Chinese people andĬomes from the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD). elsewhere it is refered to as 国语 (guóyǔ) = "national language" or 华语 (huáyǔ) = "Chinese language". Mandarin Chinese is known as 汉语 (hànyǔ) = "Han language", or 普通话 (pǔtōnghuà) = "common language" in China. In China the written form of Chinese, which is perceived as being uniform throughout the country is referred to as 中文 (zhōngwén), while the terms 语 (yǔ) or 话 (huà) are used in the names of spoken varities of Chinese, e.g. However there is little mutual intelligiblity between the different varieties of Chinese and as a result some non-Chinese linguists refer to them as separate languages.Ī distinction is made in Chinese between spoken and written language. Chinese people generally refer to Chinese as a single language with a number of different dialects or varieties. The English term dialect normally refers to mutually intelligible varieties of a single language, though the distinction between dialects and languages is often for sociological and political reasons rather than linguistic ones. The different varieties of Chinese are known as 方言 (fāngyán), which is translated as 'regional languages', 'toplects', 'dialects' or 'varieties'. More information about spoken Chinese Written Chinese (中文)īraille for Chinese (盲文) Chinese languages or dialects? Varieties of spoken Chinese are traditional grouped into the following major groups: There are also communities of Chinese speakers in many other parts of the world. ![]() ![]() Taiwan), Singapore and other parts of Southeast Asia. 1600-256 BC).Ĭhinese is spoken by about 1.3 billion people mainly in the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China (a.k.a. ![]() 5th - 12th centuries AD), and which developed from Old Chinese (上古汉语 ), which was spoken during the Shang and Zhou Dynasties and the Warring States Period (c. The modern varieties of Chinese all descended from Middle Chinese (中古汉语 ), which was spoken in China during Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (c. Chinese belongs to the Sinitic or Chinese branch of Sino-Tibetan language family. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |