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  • Formation of Chinese Characters - Mandarin Chinese I

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    Estela Duarte
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    Chinese characters originated from records tied with knots in ropes. The inventor of Chinese writing was Ts'ang Chieh under Emperor Huang Ti. While dialects differ in pronunciation, written Chinese has the same meaning. There are three elements to characters: image, sound, meaning. Characters are formed through six principles: pictograms depicting things, simple indicatives for directions/numbers, compound indicatives combining meanings, phono-semantic compounds combining a word and added sign, borrowed characters originally from homophones, and derived characters from a shared root with altered meaning.

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    Formacion de caracteres chinos

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    Chinese characters originated from records tied with knots in ropes. The inventor of Chinese writing was Ts'ang Chieh under Emperor Huang Ti. While dialects differ in pronunciation, written Chinese has the same meaning. There are three elements to characters: image, sound, meaning. Characters are formed through six principles: pictograms depicting things, simple indicatives for directions/numbers, compound indicatives combining meanings, phono-semantic compounds combining a word and added sign, borrowed characters originally from homophones, and derived characters from a shared root with altered meaning.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    28 views2 pages

    Formation of Chinese Characters - Mandarin Chinese I

    Uploaded by

    Estela Duarte
    Chinese characters originated from records tied with knots in ropes. The inventor of Chinese writing was Ts'ang Chieh under Emperor Huang Ti. While dialects differ in pronunciation, written Chinese has the same meaning. There are three elements to characters: image, sound, meaning. Characters are formed through six principles: pictograms depicting things, simple indicatives for directions/numbers, compound indicatives combining meanings, phono-semantic compounds combining a word and added sign, borrowed characters originally from homophones, and derived characters from a shared root with altered meaning.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 2

    2.

    1FormationofChinesecharacters
    Inthislesson,youwilllearnsomehistoryofChinesecharacters.YouwillalsolearnhowChinesecharactersareformed.
    TheoriginoftheChineseantiquescriptisverylongandtherearenotenoughdocumentaryresourcesaboutitshistory.Chinese
    characterscanbetracedtoatimewhenpeoplemaderecordsintheirdailylifebytyingknotsinropesorstrings.Themostaccepted
    legendisthattheinventorofChinesewritingwasaministernamedTsangChieh,whorecordedthehistoryinthecourtofEmperor
    HuangTi,thefirstkingofChina.
    PeopleindifferentregionsofChinaspeakdifferently,includingsuchdialectsasMandarin,MinNan,Hakka,Cantonese,etc.
    Butwhilecertaincharactersmaybepronounceddifferentlydependingonthedialect,themeaningandthewrittenChinese
    languageisthesameforeveryone.MandarinistheofficialspokenlanguageofthePeoplesRepublicofChina.
    TherearethreeelementsinaChinesecharacter:image(form),sound,andmeaning.Therearealsosixprinciplesthatusedto
    defineandexplicatethecharacters:

    1.Pictograms()
    Pictogramsarewordsformedfromthingswhichcanbedrawn(suchasanimals,aperson,orobjects.)

    2.Simpleindicatives()
    Simpleindicativesarewordsformedfromthingsthatcannotbedrawn(suchasdirectionsornumbers.)
    Character

    Pinyin

    Meaning

    one

    two

    sn

    three

    shng

    up

    xi

    below

    bn

    root

    apex

    3.Compoundindicatives()

    Compoundindicativesarewordsformedtobeunderstoodeasilyafterthepictographandindicativesareformed.
    Character

    Pinyin

    Meaning

    2=

    ln

    twotreesgrove

    3=

    sn

    threetreesforest

    +=

    xi

    amanleaningagainstatreerest

    4.Phonosemanticcompoundcharacters()
    Aphonosemanticcompoundcharacterrepresentsawordthatisformedfromanotherwordtowhichitissimilar,withadditional
    signsorcharactersaddedtomakethenewcharacter.Thewordispronouncedlikeoneoftheoriginalwords.
    Originalword

    Addedcharacter
    +

    Char.

    Meaning

    water

    Newword
    =

    Char.

    Pron.

    Char.

    Pron.

    Meaning

    towashoneshair

    water

    ln

    ln

    topour

    grass

    ci

    ci

    vegetable

    5.Borrowedcharacters()
    Aborrowedcharacterwasoriginallyborrowedfromanotherwordthatwaspronouncedthesame(ahomophone).
    Forexample,thecharacterlidepictsthewheatplantandmeantwheatinancienttimesitwasapictogram.Becausethe
    wordsforwheatandtocomewerepronouncedthesame,thecharacterwasthenborrowedtowritetheverbtocome.The
    pronunciationoftheoriginalwordmeaningwheathaschangedinmoderntimestomi(nowwritten),andtheoriginal
    homophonybetweenthetwowordshasdisappeared.

    6.Derivedcharacters()
    Derivedcharactersrepresentwordsthatsharethesamerootwordormeaning.
    Forexample,thecharacterslo(old)andko(atest)arethemostcommonlycitedexamplesofderivedcharacters,which
    comefromacommonetymologicalrootbutdifferinthatonepartischangedtoindicateadifferentpronunciationandmeaning.

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