An Introduction to Chinese Characters

The origins of Chinese characters (kanji), illustrated by reproductions of ancient pictographs.
Produced by kanjinetworks.com

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Chinese
• characters;
• kanji;
• Japanese;
• pictographs;
• Lawrence
• J.
• Howell

[wanghenz]

Hi Sojujinn and lordzilu, ‘Chinese might be the language of Adam.....Chinese was offered as a model for an international language....Chinese writing was considered perfect in so far as with ideograms every element on the expression-plane corresponded to a semantic unit on the content-plane.’ Umberto Eco, The Search For The Perfect Language, Fontana Press, 1995/1997, p.158-161

Hi Sojujinn,

If you want to know the real value of Huawen and English, please read FLOWERY CHARACTERS p.249 – p.300.

[LawrenceJHowell]

@wanghenz Your comments here and the video to which you refer contain a number of intriguing, thought-provoking ideas. Thank you very much for posting.

[originalarchanfel]

「我田引水」是日本成語，已經不合漢語習慣了。

[wanghenz]

The traditional literary of China is, as we have stated, an Esperanto, but be it observed, exclusively a written one, and in this respect it is surely unique....The Chinese script is so wonderfully well adapted to the linguistic conditions of China that it is indispensable.’ Bernhard Karlgen, Sound and Symbol in Chinese, London, Oxford University Press, Humphrey Milford, 1923, p.25-41 ...continue...

[wanghenz]

‘The old theory, which classified Chinese as a 'primitive' language, not yet raised to the inflectional status, is the opposite of the truth. Chinese, in fact, has followed exactly the same line of evolution as the Indo-European languages....English is perhaps in this respect the most highly developed Indo-European language, but Chinese has progressed much further....

[wanghenz]

Hi Sojujinn and lordzilu1584,

‘Although the -ough sound is spelled the same in each of these words, it is pronounced six different ways. These differences in pronunciation are one reason why English is considered a difficult language for non-native speakers to learn.’ Encarta 96 Encyclopedia, spelling.‘-ough’

‘…The inevitable result would be that well before I January 2100, every English book published before the year 2000 would be obsolete, readable only by specialists: ...continue...

[wanghenz]

Huawen (Hanzi, Hanwen, Chinese characters) belongs to whole world. They were the works of Zhongguoren (Chinese), of Korean, of Japanese, of Vietnamese…in other words, Zhongguoren have used the characters coined by Japanese as well.

If you know to teach and to learn Huawen with an easy way, please tell other people.

By the way, I would like to ask you and LawrenceJHowell to visit youtube. com/watch?v=3REGSS7HUnQ (Chinese characters a logical way). And then say something about this site.

[wanghenz]

Hi LawrenceJHowell,

Your presentation is very good. I like it with music.

You show the evolution of each character that is the right way to teach, to help the leaner to understand and to remember.

Hi bheadh, 

LawrenceJHowell’s work is better than some of Dazhongyu (Zhongguohua, Putonghua, Hanyu, Huayu, Chinese) language teachers who cannot explain the construction of each character which can help student to remember easily and understand properly.

...continue next...

[LawrenceJHowell]

@bheadh No sweat. And right you are about kana stemming from Chinese characters. If you're interested, the (English) Wikipedia pages for katakana and hiragana have charts correlating specific kana with the characters from which they were devised.

[bheadh]

@LawrenceJHowell I stand corrected. (sometimes I need to get off my "high horse" and back into my "high chair") I also apologize for my rudeness. Weren't katakana and hiragana also modified chinese characters even though they are syllabic?