Editing Chinese language (section)

== Writing system ==
{{Main|Written Chinese|Mainland Chinese Braille|Taiwanese Braille}}
[[File:XingshuLantingxv.jpg|thumb|right|"[[Lantingji Xu|Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion]]" by [[Wang Xizhi]], written in [[Semi-cursive script|semi-cursive style]]]]
<!--This is a SUMMARY.-->
The Chinese [[orthography]] centers on [[Chinese characters]], which are written within imaginary square blocks, traditionally arranged in vertical columns, read from top to bottom down a column, and right to left across columns, despite alternative arrangement with rows of characters from left to right within a row and from top to bottom across rows (like English and other Western writing systems) having become more popular since the 20th century.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.w3.org/TR/clreq/ |title=Requirements for Chinese Text Layout |script-title=zh:中文排版需求}}</ref> Chinese characters denote [[morpheme]]s independent of phonetic variation in different languages. Thus the character {{zhc|c=一|l=one}} is pronounced as {{tlit|cmn|yī}} in Standard Chinese, {{tlit|yue|yat1}} in Cantonese and {{tlit|nan|it}} in Hokkien, a form of Min.

Most modern written Chinese is in the form of [[written vernacular Chinese]], based on spoken Standard Chinese, regardless of dialectical background. Written vernacular Chinese largely replaced Literary Chinese in the early 20th century as the country's standard written language.{{sfnp|Huang|2014}} However, vocabularies from different Chinese-speaking areas have diverged, and the divergence can be observed in written Chinese.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://stedu.stheadline.com/sec/article/628/%E7%B2%B5%E6%99%AE%E4%B9%8B%E7%88%AD-%E7%82%BA%E4%BD%A0%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87%E8%A7%A3%E6%AF%92 |script-title=zh:粵普之爭 為你中文解毒 |lang=zh |access-date=15 February 2020 |archive-date=15 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200215095039/https://stedu.stheadline.com/sec/article/628/%25E7%25B2%25B5%25E6%2599%25AE%25E4%25B9%258B%25E7%2588%25AD-%25E7%2582%25BA%25E4%25BD%25A0%25E4%25B8%25AD%25E6%2596%2587%25E8%25A7%25A3%25E6%25AF%2592 |url-status=dead}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=April 2024}}

Due to the divergence of variants, some unique morphemes are not found in Standard Chinese. Characters rarely used in Standard Chinese have also been created or inherited from archaic literary standards to represent these unique morphemes. For example, characters like {{zhi|c=冇}} and {{zhi|c=係}} are actively used in Cantonese and Hakka, while being archaic or unused in standard written Chinese. The most prominent example of a non-Standard Chinese orthography is [[Written Cantonese]], which is used in tabloids and on the internet among Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong and elsewhere.<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://m.thepaper.cn/wifiKey_detail.jsp?contid=1298257 |script-title=zh:粤语：中国最强方言是如何炼成的_私家历史_澎湃新闻 |work=The Paper |script-work=zh:澎湃新闻}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=April 2024}}

Chinese had no uniform system of phonetic transcription until the mid-20th century, although enunciation patterns were recorded in early [[rhyme dictionaries]] and dictionaries. Early Indian translators, working in [[Sanskrit]] and [[Pali]], were the first to attempt to describe the sounds and enunciation patterns of Chinese in a foreign language. After the 15th century, the efforts of Jesuits and Western court missionaries resulted in some Latin character transcription/writing systems, based on various variants of Chinese languages. Some of these Latin character-based systems are still being used to write various Chinese variants in the modern era.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://newmsgr.pct.org.tw/Magazine.aspx?strTID=1&strISID=125&strMagID=M2011081602899 |script-title=zh:白話字滄桑 |author=陳宇碩 |script-work=zh:新使者雜誌 |work=The New Messenger |lang=zh}}</ref>

In [[Hunan]], women in certain areas write their local Chinese language variant in [[Nüshu]], a [[syllabary]] derived from Chinese characters. The [[Dungan language]], considered by many a dialect of Mandarin, is nowadays written in [[Cyrillic]] and was previously written in the [[Arabic script]]. The [[Dungan people]] are primarily Muslim and live mainly in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia; many [[Hui people]], living mainly in China, also speak the language.

=== Chinese characters ===
{{Main|Chinese characters}}
{{See also|Chinese character classification}}
[[File:8 strokes of 永-zh.svg|thumb|{{zhc|c=永}} is often used to illustrate the eight basic types of strokes of Chinese characters]]
<!--This is a SUMMARY. Please add new information to [[Chinese characters]].-->
Each Chinese character represents a monosyllabic Chinese word or morpheme. In 100 CE, the famed Han dynasty scholar [[Xu Shen]] classified characters into six categories: [[pictograph]]s, simple [[ideograph]]s, compound ideographs, phonetic loans, phonetic compounds, and derivative characters. Only 4% were categorized as pictographs, including many of the simplest characters, such as {{zhc|c=人|p=rén|l=human}}, {{zhc|c=日|p=rì|l=Sun}}, {{zhc|c=山|p=shān|l=mountain}}, and {{zhc|c=水|p=shuǐ|l=water}}. Between 80% and 90% were classified as phonetic compounds such as {{zhc|c=沖|p=chōng|l=pour}}, combining a phonetic component {{zhc|c=中|p=zhōng}} with a semantic component of the [[Radical (Chinese character)|radical]] {{zhi|c=氵}}, a reduced form of {{zhi|c=水|l=water}}. Almost all characters created since have been made using this format. The 18th-century ''[[Kangxi Dictionary]]'' classified characters under a now-common set of 214 radicals.

Modern characters are styled after the [[regular script]]. Various other written styles are also used in [[Chinese calligraphy]], including [[seal script]], [[cursive script (East Asia)|cursive script]] and [[clerical script]]. Calligraphy artists can write in Traditional and Simplified characters, but they tend to use Traditional characters for traditional art.

There are currently two systems for Chinese characters. [[Traditional characters]], used in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, and many overseas Chinese-speaking communities, largely take their form from received character forms dating back to the late Han dynasty and standardized during the Ming. [[Simplified characters]], introduced by the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1954 to promote mass literacy, simplifies most complex traditional [[glyph]]s to fewer strokes, especially by adopting common cursive [[shorthand]] variants and merging characters with similar pronunciations to the one with the least strokes, among other methods. Singapore, which has a large Chinese community, was the second nation to officially adopt simplified characters—first by [[Singapore Chinese characters|creating its own simplified characters]], then by adopting entirely the PRC simplified characters. It has also become the de facto standard for younger ethnic Chinese in Malaysia.

The Internet provides practice reading each of these systems, and most Chinese readers are capable of, if not necessarily comfortable with, reading the alternative system through experience and guesswork.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/compete/writing/big5event_winner2-2.htm |script-title=zh:全球華文網-華文世界，數位之最 |lang=zh |access-date=15 February 2020 |archive-date=6 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806192001/http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/compete/writing/big5event_winner2-2.htm |url-status=dead}}</ref>

A well-educated Chinese reader today recognizes approximately 4,000 to 6,000 characters; approximately 3,000 characters are required to read a [[Newspapers of the People's Republic of China|mainland newspaper]]. The PRC defines literacy amongst workers as a knowledge of 2,000 characters, though this would be only functional literacy. School children typically learn around 2,000 characters whereas scholars may memorize up to 10,000.{{sfnp|Zimmermann|2010|pages=27–43}} A large unabridged dictionary like the ''Kangxi'' dictionary, contains over 40,000 characters, including obscure, variant, rare, and archaic characters; fewer than a quarter of these characters are now commonly used.

=== Romanization ===
{{Main|Romanization of Chinese}}
[[File:Gwoyu.svg|thumb|right|upright=0.6|{{zhi|t=國語|s=国语|p=Guóyǔ|l=National language}} written in traditional and simplified forms, followed by various romanizations]]

[[Romanization]] is the process of transcribing a language into the [[Latin script]]. There are many systems of romanization for the Chinese varieties, due to the lack of a native phonetic transcription until modern times. Chinese is first known to have been written in Latin characters by Western [[Christianity in China|Christian missionaries]] in the 16th century.

Today the most common romanization for Standard Chinese is [[Hanyu Pinyin]], introduced in 1956 by the PRC, and later adopted by Singapore and Taiwan. Pinyin is almost universally employed now for teaching standard spoken Chinese in schools and universities across the Americas, Australia, and Europe. Chinese parents also use Pinyin to teach their children the sounds and tones of new words. In school books that teach Chinese, the pinyin romanization is often shown below a picture of the thing the word represents, with the Chinese character alongside.

The second-most common romanization system, the [[Wade–Giles]], was invented by Thomas Wade in 1859 and modified by Herbert Giles in 1892. As this system approximates the phonology of Mandarin Chinese into English consonants and vowels–it is largely an [[anglicization]], it may be particularly helpful for beginner Chinese speakers of an English-speaking background. Wade–Giles was found in academic use in the United States, particularly before the 1980s, and was widely used in Taiwan until 2009.

When used within European texts, the tone transcriptions in both pinyin and Wade–Giles are often left out for simplicity; Wade–Giles's extensive use of apostrophes is also usually omitted. Thus, most Western readers will be much more familiar with ''Beijing'' than they will be with {{tlit|zh|Běijīng}} (pinyin), and with {{tlit|zh|Taipei}} than {{tlit|zh|T'ai<sup>2</sup>-pei<sup>3</sup>}} (Wade–Giles). This simplification presents syllables as homophones which are not, and therefore exaggerates the number of homophones almost by a factor of four.

For comparison:<!-- Please feel free to add Yale, Postal, or whatever other examples you know, but I don't know those systems. [[User:Jiawen|Jiawen]] 07:27, 3 June 2005 (UTC) -->
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Comparison of Mandarin romanizations
|-
! Characters !! Wade–Giles !! Pinyin !! Meaning
|-
| {{zhi|s=中国|t=中國}}
| {{tlit|zh|Chung<sup>1</sup>-kuo<sup>2</sup>}} || {{tlit|zh|Zhōngguó}} || [[China]]
|-
| {{zhi|s=台湾|t=臺灣}}
| {{tlit|zh|T'ai<sup>2</sup>-wan<sup>1</sup>}} || {{tlit|zh|Táiwān}} || [[Taiwan]]
|-
| {{zhi|c=北京}}
| {{tlit|zh|Pei<sup>3</sup>-ching<sup>1</sup>}} || {{tlit|zh|Běijīng}} || [[Beijing]]
|-
| {{zhi|s=台北|t=臺北}}
| {{tlit|zh|T'ai<sup>2</sup>-pei<sup>3</sup>}} || {{tlit|zh|Táiběi}} || [[Taipei]]
|-
| {{zhi|c=孫文}}
| {{tlit|zh|Sun<sup>1</sup>-wên<sup>2</sup>}} || {{tlit|zh|Sūn Wén}} || [[Sun Yat-sen]]
|-
| {{zhi|s=毛泽东|t=毛澤東}}
| {{tlit|zh|Mao<sup>2</sup> Tse<sup>2</sup>-tung<sup>1</sup>}} || {{tlit|zh|Máo Zédōng}} || [[Mao Zedong]]
|-
| nowrap | {{zhi|s=蒋介石|t=蔣介石}}
| nowrap | {{tlit|zh|Chiang<sup>3</sup> Chieh<sup>4</sup>-shih<sup>2</sup>}} || {{tlit|zh|Jiǎng Jièshí}} || [[Chiang Kai-shek]]
|-
| {{zhi|c=孔子}}
| {{tlit|zh|K'ung<sup>3</sup> Tsu<sup>3</sup>}} || {{tlit|zh|Kǒngzǐ}} || [[Confucius]]
|}

Other systems include [[Gwoyeu Romatzyh]], the French [[EFEO Chinese transcription|EFEO]], the [[Yale romanization of Mandarin|Yale system]] (invented for use by US troops during World War II), as well as distinct systems for the phonetic requirements of Cantonese, Min Nan, Hakka, and other varieties.

=== Other phonetic transcriptions ===
Chinese varieties have been phonetically transcribed into many other writing systems over the centuries. The [['Phags-pa script]], for example, has been very helpful in reconstructing the pronunciations of premodern forms of Chinese. [[Bopomofo]] (or ''zhuyin'') is a [[semi-syllabary]] that is still widely used in Taiwan to aid standard pronunciation. There are also at least two systems of [[cyrillization]] for Chinese. The most widespread is the [[Palladius system]].