Character Origin

Author: Dou Wenzi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-12-28
Features: This book explains the origins of the forms and meanings of 3,500 commonly used Chinese characters, as confirmed by the National Language and Character Working Committee, according to their methods of creation in six chapters. We analyze pictographic characters, ideographic characters, representative characters, symbolic characters, and the compound characters formed from them together, which allows for mutual corroboration, facilitates understanding, and enhances persuasiveness. To thoroughly illustrate the points, we also analyze the origins of related uncommon characters. Among the commonly used characters, there are over 100 pictographic characters, over 60 ideographic characters, over 30 representative characters, over 100 symbolic characters, over 60 phonetic characters, and over 3,000 compound characters. We believe that Chinese characters are based on pictographic, ideographic, and representative graphical writing systems, forming a symbolic writing system primarily composed of compound characters.