中 国 汉 字

1. 中 国 汉 字 Chinese Characters

2. 贰 叁 肆 壹 one 汉字的简介 two 汉字的发明 three 汉字的发展 content four 汉字的结构

3. 汉字的简介 • 世界上最古老的，承传的手写文字 • 最早出现于5,000 多年前 • 中国的古老汉字构思来自形象和意象,简单的形象结合在一起可以构成复杂的意象 • 汉字是方块字

4. The Chinese Language • Is the oldest, continuous written language in the World • First written over 5,000 years ago • The inventors of the written language drew pictures to express words or ideas,Simple pictures were combined to make more complex thoughts • Is square-shaped.

5. Chinese characters were initially meant to be simple pictures use to help people remember things. After a long period of development, it finally became a unique character system that embodies phonetic sound, image, idea, and rhyme at the same time. 汉字是从原始人用以记事的简单图画，经过演变发展最终成为一种兼具音·形·意·韵的独特文字。

6. 形 image 意 音 idea sound 韵 rhyme

7. Chinese characters are usually round outside and square inside, which is rooted in ancient Chinese beliefs of an orbicular sky and a rectangular earth. 汉字结构“外圆内方”源于古人“天圆地方”的观念。

9. 汉字的发明The invention of the Chinese characters • Keep records by tying knots(结绳说） • The Eight Diagrams(八卦说） • Cangjie created the characters(仓颉造字说）

10. 传说上古时期有个名叫仓颉（jīé）的人，他是黄帝的史官。据说他长着4只眼睛，上面两只观日月星辰，下面两只观看山川鸟兽，据万物的形状创造了汉字。后人尊他为“造字圣人”。实际上，汉字这样的文字系统，不是一人一时所能创造的，而是在发明、积累及形成过程中，由许多人慢慢丰富起来的。传说上古时期有个名叫仓颉（jīé）的人，他是黄帝的史官。据说他长着4只眼睛，上面两只观日月星辰，下面两只观看山川鸟兽，据万物的形状创造了汉字。后人尊他为“造字圣人”。实际上，汉字这样的文字系统，不是一人一时所能创造的，而是在发明、积累及形成过程中，由许多人慢慢丰富起来的。

11. In legend, there was a figure in remote antiquity named CangJie who was an official historian of Huangdi(known as the Yellow Emperor). It was said that he had 4 eyes, and the upper 2 were for watching the sun, the moon and the stars while the lower 2 for watching mountains, rivers, beasts and birds. And it was he, as the legend goes, who had created the Chinese characters according to the shapes of all things.

12. So he has the title of “Sage of Character-creation”, as later generations addressed him. Nevertheless, it is improbable for any single person to create a complicated character system at one time. The characters is actually developed by many people gradually in the long process of invention, accumulation, and evolution.

13. 汉字的发展the development of Chinese characters • Oracle Bone Inscription 甲骨文 • Bronze Inscriptions 金文 • Seal Script 篆书 • Official Script 隶书 • Regular Script 楷书 • Cursive Script 草书 • Running script 行书

14. The oldest Chinese inscriptions are the Oracle bone script 甲骨文(BC.14-11). Most of Oracle Bone Inscription are divination records, engraved on the tortoise shells or animal bones. Now we have been found more than 4600 oracles, including about 1000 recognized. Oracle is carved with a knife, very little is written, because words have not unified, many words can write, write back, strokes simplified differ, Chinese character component is not fixed, and so many variant characters（异体字）. divination

15. Bronze Inscriptions（金文） refer to ancient inscription cast or carved on the bronze ware（青铜器）. They are used From Shang,Zhou to Qin,Han dynasties, but the main findings are the words on the bronze ware of western zhou dynasty.

16. Seal Script（篆书） can also be called as “Script of Qin”, including “Dazhuan（大篆）”and “Xiaozhuan（小篆）”. At the beginning of the Qin Dynasty, The First Emperor contended the idea that the written script should be standardized in form because the character forms were different from area to area in Zhou times. It was said that Li Si（李斯）compiled and The Script emerged finally.

17. In order to make writing more time-saving, he invented a new form which was appreciated by The First Emperor.It is Lishu(隶书） The formation of the Official script is an important turning-point in history because it lays a foundation for the squatter shape of Chinese characters.

18. Regular script（楷书） It’s said that the Regular script （楷书）emerged in the Later Han period. It is a kind of more beautiful and simpler form and could set an good example for writing. So it is called “Kaishu” in Chinese because “Kai” means good examples. In addition, famous calligraphers such as Yan Zhenqing（颜真卿） and Liu Gongquan（柳公权） left quantities of masterpieces for us. The development of Chinese characters grew into a higher level.

19. Regular script（楷书） It became popular in the Jin Dynasty （晋朝）as we know the famous calligraphers such as Wang Xizhi（王羲之）, Wang Xianzhi（王献之）and the like.

20. Cursive script 草书 Cursive Script（草书） include Zhangcao, Jincao and Kuangcao, all hard to recognize. Zhangcao emerged at Zhang emperor of eastern Han; Jincao emerged at the end of the Later Han period. Kuangcao was created in the tang dynasty, changing, and very difficult to identify, turned into a pure art, there are few practical value.

21. Running script（行书）emerged at the end of the Eastern Han period. it is a kind of form between regular script and cursive script. It has high artistry and practicality.

22. 汉字的结构 the structure of the Chinese character • The structure unite of the Chinese character 汉字的结构单位 • The order of strokes of character 汉字的笔顺 • The formation of character 汉字的造字法

23. 1、The structure unite of the Chinese character （汉字的结构单位） There are three aspects to the structure of a Chinese character: the strokes, the components and the whole character.For example, the character “木” consists of the strokes "—","丨","丿","乀 ". It is a basic character and is also used as a component for some other characters.For example,“林”consists of two "木" characters. The components are the core structure of a Chinese character. Chinese characters can be divided into character-parts and non-character-parts. For example, "院" can be divided into the following three parts:"阝","宀","元" of which "元" is a character-part, while "阝" and "宀" are the non-character-parts. The key to learning Chinese characters well is to master their components.

24. Chinese characters are written by combining various kinds of "strokes". These strokes can be divided into "basic" strokes and "combined" strokes.

27. Structurally speaking, Chinese characters fall into categories: the single-component characters and the multi-component characters. All of the basic Chinese characters are simple-component characters, such as"人","口","目","山","火","手","刀","马","牛", "日","月","羊" . The multi-component characters consist or more components, such as "爸","妈","你","们","朋". The order of writing components in a character is similar to the stroke order of writing a character. There are three basic types of configuration for multi-component characters.

29. 2、The order of strokes of character （汉字的笔顺） The basic rule of Chinese characters stroke order is:

30. 3、The formation of character （汉字的造字法） The formation of character refers to the method to create the Chinese characters. Generally speaking, Ancient Chinese method of creation there are four categories: pictographs(shape), self-explanatory(mean), semasiography(knowing), and Pictophonetic . The current compared with the ancient Chinese characters, and there are some special cases.

31. Rén people Kǒu mouth

32. mù eye shān mountain

33. rì sun huǒ fire

34. yáng goat dāo sword

35. Hieroglyphic Characters（象形），this creation method is closer to the picture, but complex things, abstract concept can't pictograph, so rely on pictograph can create very few characters, but it is the basis of the formation of Chinese characters.

37. The way to form a character using symbols to indicate the character's meaning is called " Self-explanatory Characters（指事） ". There are two types of indication: one is purely symbolic, e.g. shorter horizontal over a longer means "上（up）", and the opposite means "下（down）";the other type is to add a symbol to hieroglyphic character ,e.g. e.g. adding a "一"to"木",if up means the end of a tree(末)，if down means the root of a tree(本). Here, the "一" is not the numeric. For instance, a knife (刀) with an additional dot indicates where the blade is. The left and right in "人" indicates armpits. The dots here are all indication symbol.

41. Characters formed with two or more independent characters to indicate a new meaning are called Associative Characters（会意）. For instance, "人”（or”亻”）leaning against "木（tree）" means "休（to rest）"; two footprints by water”水” （or”氵”）means “涉（to wade）” ；the combination of "鸟（bird）" and "口(mouth, beak)" means "鸣（chirp）"；“宀”（house）with "火（fire）" inside means "灾（disaster）"; "人”（or”亻”）with a “戈” means “伐”—to chop; a man lying in bed in a house “宿” means "to live at".

44. Pictophmetic characters（形声） consist of meanings components and pronunciation components. Pictophmetic characters have lots of productive advantages, better than other formation method. among which is the unify of combination of form and meaning. such as "月+要=腰 ;月+干=肝 ;月+土=肚"Among the above characters,"要","干" and "土" indicates the pronunciation of the characters; "月" indicates human or animal body parts and organs, it is a picto-radical. According to statistics, Pictophonetic Characters account for about 90% of Chinese characters.