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Slide 2 Chinese Characters and Scripts Slide 3 Warming up ---What do you know about Chinese characters When did Chinese characters come into being? Are Chinese characters pictographs? How many types of structure of Chinese characters? Can you name some of them? Can you say something about the origin and development of Chinese characters? Slide 4 Content Introduction I Chinese Characters History of Chinese Characters ---A legend of Cang Jie --- History of Chinese Characters --- The General features of Chinese Character --- Structures of Chinese Characters Slide 5 Introduction With a view to examining the cultural traits belonging to a certain nation it is imperative to acquire a perspective through a window of the language and characters conceded. Language and script function as a threshold leading human beings from ignorance to civilization. Not molded at random, the specific language and script of each nation hinged on the features and patterns of thinking that had resulted in from its interior, bearing a rich stock of the national cultural heritage. Slide 6 I. Square Chinese Character The Chinese characters, neat and peculiar in appearance, occupy the same spacing in printed paper, whether drawn in (one), (two), (already) and (again) with one or two strokes, or copied in (assembly) and (jar) with over ten strokes. The characters diversify in posture. For example, (fields) (not) in upright and foursquare type, and (dagger-axe) (night) and (tile) in crooked and askew style, all are printed out in identical size. With respect to this trait, therefore, Chinese script is figuratively referred to as Square Characters. Slide 7 When did the written language come into being? Chinese is among the worlds oldest written languages. Chinese characters evolved from pictographs into characters formed of strokes, with their structures very much simpler. The written language came much later than the oral language, it came into being about 5 thousand years ago. Ideograph is the original form of Paleography . Chinese character originated from the logograph that was invented earlier than the Oracle bone Script. Slide 8 Cangjie Created Chinese Script There have been legends about the origin of the Chinese script, with nearly all ancient writers attributing it to a man named Cangjie. Cang Jie was allegedly believed to be a deity ([di:iti:] ) with four eyes on the face, intelligent and touched in divinities ; , and to be so profoundly enlightened by the beauty in nature as to have invented Chinese characters. Slide 9 Cangjie, according to one legend, saw a divine being whose face had unusual features which looked like a picture of writings. In imitation of his image, Cangjie created the earliest written characters Another story says that Cangjie saw the footprints of birds and beasts, which inspired him to create written language. Slide 10 History of Chinese Character Chinese is among the worlds oldest written languages. Compared with the other systems of scripts, Chinese characters emerged early with an over 4,000-year history. Ideograph is the original form of Paleography . Chinese character originated from the logograph that was invented earlier than the Oracle bone Script. Chinese characters evolved from pictographs into characters formed of strokes, with their structures very much simpler. Slide 11 History of Chinese Character As demonstrated by the archaeological findings, only at Banpo-Yangshao Cultural Ruins in Xian of Shaanxi Province were discriminated 113 samples in different simple signs that had been carved on the outer part of a vertical-cavity pot decorated with wide grains or big inverse-triangular veins . The strokes of the signs looked simple in regular shapes, covering more than thirty clans such as a horizontal stroke, a vertical stroke, a bevel stroke and a cross stroke. The archaeological experts released the textual research that these engraved symbols could have been the primitive relics of Chinese characters. Slide 12 At Dawenkou ( ) Cultural Ruins that traces from 5,000 years ago were found some pictographic marks that had been carved on the grey pottery vessels and that had virtually developed into the later- arriving pictograph. Slide 13 Major Characteristics Hanyu ( ), usually called Chinese language in Hong Kong, belongs to the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan Family . In comparison with other languages, the major characteristics of modern Chinese language are as follows - Slide 14 General features: Square Characters formed of strokes occupy the same spacing in printed paper Ideograph & Pictograph Rich in Senses Slide 15 Basically Using Monosyllabic Characters Chinese characters are the written symbol of the Chinese language. Generally, a Chinese character represents a syllable and carries a certain meaning. For example, " " (water), " " (human), " " (dog). However, not every character can be used independently. In modern Chinese, some of the characters must be used together with other characters and form compound words, such as " " (study) in " " (learn + study) and " " (strike) in " " (strike + attack). There are also some characters that only have their meanings when grouped in words of two or more characters, such as " " (grape), " " (dragonfly). Slide 16 Tonal Chinese language is tonal . Chinese character has four tones. The same syllable, pronounced with different tones, will become different words and have different meanings. For example, " " [gang1] is different from " " [gang3] while " " [wen2] is different from " " [wen4]. Slide 17