Function Edit

When the script was first used in the late 2nd millennium BC, words of Old Chinese were generally monosyllabic, and each character denoted a single word. Increasing numbers of polysyllabic words have entered the language from the Western Zhou period to the present day. It is estimated that about 25–30% of the vocabulary of classic texts from the Warring States period was polysyllabic, though these words were used far less commonly than monosyllables, which accounted for 80–90% of occurrences in these texts. The process has accelerated over the centuries as phonetic change has increased the number of homophones. It has been estimated that over two thirds of the 3,000 most common words in modern Standard Chinese are polysyllables, the vast majority of those being disyllables. The most common process has been to form compounds of existing words, written with the characters of the constituent words. Words have also been created by adding affixes, reduplication and borrowing from other languages. Polysyllabic words are generally written with one character per syllable.[a] In most cases the character denotes a morpheme descended from an Old Chinese word. Many characters have multiple readings, with instances denoting different morphemes, sometimes with different pronunciations. In modern Standard Chinese, one fifth of the 2,400 most common characters have multiple pronunciations. For the 500 most common characters, the proportion rises to 30%.[17] Often these readings are similar in sound and related in meaning. In the Old Chinese period, affixes could be added to a word to form a new word, which was often written with the same character. In many cases the pronunciations diverged due to subsequent sound change. For example, many additional readings have the Middle Chinese departing tone, the major source of the 4th tone in modern Standard Chinese. Scholars now believe that this tone is the reflex of an Old Chinese *-s suffix, with a range of semantic functions. For example, 传 / 傳 has readings OC *drjon > MC drjwen > Mod. chuán 'to transmit' and *drjons > drjwenH > zhuàn 'a record'. (Middle Chinese forms are given in Baxter's transcription, in which H denotes the departing tone.)

/ has readings OC *drjon > MC > Mod. 'to transmit' and *drjons > > 'a record'. (Middle Chinese forms are given in Baxter's transcription, in which denotes the departing tone.) 磨 has readings *maj > ma > mó 'to grind' and *majs > maH > mò 'grindstone'.

has readings *maj > > 'to grind' and *majs > > 'grindstone'. 宿 has readings *sjuk > sjuwk > sù 'to stay overnight' and *sjuks > sjuwH > xiù 'celestial "mansion"'.

has readings *sjuk > > 'to stay overnight' and *sjuks > > 'celestial "mansion"'. 说 / 説 has readings *hljot > sywet > shuō 'speak' and *hljots > sywejH > shuì 'exhort'. Another common alternation is between voiced and voiceless initials (though the voicing distinction has disappeared on most modern varieties). This is believed to reflect an ancient prefix, but scholars disagree on whether the voiced or voiceless form is the original root. For example, 见 / 見 has readings *kens > kenH > jiàn 'to see' and *gens > henH > xiàn 'to appear'.

/ has readings *kens > > 'to see' and *gens > > 'to appear'. 败 / 敗 has readings *prats > pæjH > bài 'to defeat' and *brats > bæjH > bài 'to be defeated'. (In this case the pronunciations have converged in Standard Chinese, but not in some other varieties.)

/ has readings *prats > > 'to defeat' and *brats > > 'to be defeated'. (In this case the pronunciations have converged in Standard Chinese, but not in some other varieties.) 折 has readings *tjat > tsyet > zhé 'to bend' and *djat > dzyet > shé 'to break by bending'.

Principles of formation Edit

History Edit

Adaptation to other languages Edit

Simplification Edit

Written styles Edit

Variants Edit

Number of characters Edit

Indexing Edit

Dozens of indexing schemes have been created for arranging Chinese characters in Chinese dictionaries. The great majority of these schemes have appeared in only a single dictionary; only one such system has achieved truly widespread use. This is the system of radicals (see for example, the 214 so-called Kangxi radicals). Chinese character dictionaries often allow users to locate entries in several ways. Many Chinese, Japanese, and Korean dictionaries of Chinese characters list characters in radical order: characters are grouped together by radical, and radicals containing fewer strokes come before radicals containing more strokes (radical-and-stroke sorting). Under each radical, characters are listed by their total number of strokes. It is often also possible to search for characters by sound, using pinyin (in Chinese dictionaries), zhuyin (in Taiwanese dictionaries), kana (in Japanese dictionaries) or hangul (in Korean dictionaries). Most dictionaries also allow searches by total number of strokes, and individual dictionaries often allow other search methods as well. For instance, to look up the character where the sound is not known, e.g., 松 (pine tree), the user first determines which part of the character is the radical (here 木), then counts the number of strokes in the radical (four), and turns to the radical index (usually located on the inside front or back cover of the dictionary). Under the number "4" for radical stroke count, the user locates 木, then turns to the page number listed, which is the start of the listing of all the characters containing this radical. This page will have a sub-index giving remainder stroke numbers (for the non-radical portions of characters) and page numbers. The right half of the character also contains four strokes, so the user locates the number 4, and turns to the page number given. From there, the user must scan the entries to locate the character he or she is seeking. Some dictionaries have a sub-index which lists every character containing each radical, and if the user knows the number of strokes in the non-radical portion of the character, he or she can locate the correct page directly. Another dictionary system is the four corner method, where characters are classified according to the shape of each of the four corners. Most modern Chinese dictionaries and Chinese dictionaries sold to English speakers use the traditional radical-based character index in a section at the front, while the main body of the dictionary arranges the main character entries alphabetically according to their pinyin spelling[citation needed]. To find a character with unknown sound using one of these dictionaries, the reader finds the radical and stroke number of the character, as before, and locates the character in the radical index. The character's entry will have the character's pronunciation in pinyin written down; the reader then turns to the main dictionary section and looks up the pinyin spelling alphabetically.

See also Edit

Notes Edit

References Edit