Chinese Writing System

Come to terms with the chinese writing system

Chinese calligraphy possesses a mystifying power that intrigues those that are Chinese and those that are not! When looking deeply into the chinese writing system your eyes will be opened to the beauty of these characters and their meanings to what they represent as you begin to slowly widen your knowledge of the chinese writing system.

The chinese writing system originates many years back, up to 3,000 years actually at the time of the Han dynasty. This long history takes the Chinese characters back to 202 BC making them extremely antique and ancient. At this time there were 9,000 characters within the chinese writing system whereas in our time period there is now 7,000 in use even though the large amount of 50,000 have been recorded over time. This again narrows down to only the 3,000 that are incorporated into reading materials such as magazines and newspapers.


From this point on in time it is very unlikely that any new characters will come into existence and enter into the chinese writing system.
The characters have already been simplified in modern times which are prevalent through the mainland parts of China however the traditional chinese writing system is still in use in other Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The modern chinese writing system has also continued to evolve with added elements borrowed from the west, for example Roman letters and westernized punctuation. Within the chinese writing system, there is also phonetic symbols which came about in the 20th century however has been mainly discarded in mainland China.

If you look deeper into the writing of the characters, you will be able to see that each character is in a distinct, separate unit which is self-contained within an invisible box. The brush strokes are curvaceous and flow together smoothly as the size of them vary.

This perfectly constructed chinese writing system is only interrupted by punctuation marks so enjoy looking into it more further as you begin to pick up the beauty and intricacy of this art form.