Chinese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family. This language family has a very obvious feature, that is, all characters are monosyllabic, especially in ancient Chinese, and Chinese characters and most other Sino-Tibetan languages ??also have One difference is that there is no change in word form. For example, the word "山" means a mountain, and it can also refer to mountains in general. The verb in Chinese characters is even more obvious, and there is no distinction between past tense and past tense. Past participles, etc., do not have third person singular changes, and one of the biggest characteristics of Chinese characters is that each character has a tone, and different tones lead to different words.
Sinology expert Fairbank has devoted himself to studying China for 50 years and is the number one "China expert" in the United States
We Chinese have always respected our own culture very much. If this culture has a long history, So it is everyone’s favorite object. The earliest Chinese characters are some special symbols found in the Banpo ruins in Anyang around 15,000 BC. And in our Shang Dynasty ruins, they are also More than 2,000 Chinese characters have been discovered. The breadth and depth of Chinese characters can be seen from the long history.
In the West, there are often two sounds for Chinese characters. These two sounds also represent the advantages and disadvantages of Chinese characters in the eyes of foreigners. Sinology expert Fairbank has also sorted out this.
First of all, in terms of disadvantages, compared with Western alphabetic characters, Chinese characters have many disadvantages in operation and learning. For example, there are a huge number of Chinese characters, which requires a long time to memorize and learn, and it requires exercise. To be able to read simply, you need to learn at least about 2-3,000 Chinese characters, and each Chinese character has an average of twelve or three strokes, and there are even Chinese characters with as many as twenty-five strokes. Some of the differences in appearance are not big, and the structure is quite different. Although Chinese characters have been simplified, the help was not great. Even if the Chinese invented movable type printing, plate making was still quite complicated.
With movable type printing, a large amount of text needs to be carved and there are many strokes, which brings challenges to the craftsmen.
But on the other hand, Chinese characters also have certain features that alphabetic characters cannot have. Because of the complexity and pictograms of Chinese characters, they have more aesthetic value than alphabetic characters. In East Asia, calligraphy is a very large category of art and the mother of all figurative arts. In our country, handwriting is Good calligraphy is often considered to be the standard of education. Even in ancient examinations, the beauty of fonts was a very important selection criterion. Therefore, the Chinese have always respected "the characters are like the people they are."
In China's long history, many excellent calligraphy works have also appeared. These works are truly the essence of Chinese characters in the figurative art, and are also an important branch of Chinese cultural inheritance.
The "Preface to the Lanting Collection" from ancient and modern famous towns
Dongpo's "Hanshitie"
And in the art of Chinese calligraphy, many masterpieces have also been formed School, there have been great calligraphers who are famous all over the world in all dynasties, and this essence of Chinese culture is also the object of worship by all Chinese people. This art form is difficult to match with alphabetic writing.
In addition to calligraphy, Chinese characters themselves have a vividness that alphabetic characters do not have. For example, if you master the words "安" and "好", they actually have their original meanings. Compared with the rigidly prescribed alphabetic characters, Chinese characters have richer connotations and more subtle charms, which makes Chinese Poetry, prose, idioms and other art forms have a conciseness and vividness that alphabetic characters rarely have. If you can master Chinese characters, its readability and ease of reading are much better than alphabetic characters.
The ancient Chinese gave Chinese characters a magical charm. Written words are always more extensive and profound than spoken language, and they pay more attention to the subtle distinctions of words. In the history of China, there are also many works such as "Chu Shi Biao" and "Chu Shi Biao". There are famous works such as "Luo Shen Fu" and "Li Sao", but most of them are memorials, strategies and poems. As long as the materials once written down, especially the words that have been handed down after the baptism of time, are regarded as sacred by Chinese culture, this can also explain that we Chinese are often better than others in reading and formal education.
In addition to the above, another characteristic of Chinese characters is that because China has a vast territory, diverse ethnic groups, and diverse dialects, it is difficult for northerners and southerners to communicate, but they can both write Chinese characters and use words to communicate. , and both the north and the south believe that Chinese characters are our own language. If everyone used alphabetic characters, I am afraid it would have been fragmented like Europe. The Chinese characters can be said to be one of the contributors to the long-term unification of our country.
Until a world ago, most written materials in Korea, Vietnam, and Japan still used our Chinese characters. Even today, educated people in China, Japan, and South Korea can still recognize each other’s written materials. There are thousands of characters, although the pronunciation of the characters is different, which shows the great influence of Chinese characters.