So where is
the Chinese alphabet and why is it so hard to find on the web? Well, the
main reason is that there is no such thing as an alphabet in China. The
English word "alphabet" comes from the first two letters of the Greek
alphabet (alpha and beta) because it was the Greeks who adopted this
writing system from the Middle East and transmitted it, along with their
culture, to the rest of Europe.
Alphabets are phonetic systems where the individual sounds of the
language are represented with letters. Letters are symbols which only
have phonetic values and do not mean anything by themselves. The letters
in a word have to be read together and vocalized, either aloud or
mentally, in order to be understood as a concept.
Chinese writing, on the other hand, developed as a system where the
symbols represent concepts. Although sound does play a role in the
construction of a character, it almost invariably stands for a semantic
value. The very first characters developed from the graphic
representation of certain objects (i.e. the picture of an elephant meant
an elephant) but early on the system got much more complex and the
majority of the symbols today do not have such a direct link between
shape and meaning. But what is common in all of them is that they all
represent a concept and not a sound. There are a few characters that
stand for a sound, but always to a very unique sound (i.e. the sound of
a horse running) and cannot be used for any other sound.
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One of the
main benefits of alphabetic systems is that there are few components to
memorize. The number of letters varies in different alphabets but it
usually does not go above 50. In case of the Chinese scripts, the number
of symbols is much larger. It is thought that a person should know at
least 3,000 characters to be able to understand newspapers. Even smaller
dictionaries contain at least 6,000 characters, whereas the largest ones
(Kangxi zidian, Morohashi Daikanwa jiten) can have as many as 40-50,000.
Of course, it is an impossible task to memorize so many characters even
for the most educated person. The fact is, however, that only about
6,000 characters are essential in everyday use and Chinese students
acquire these in the course of several years.
An argument has been made that, because of the large number of symbols,
Chinese writing is inefficient and takes too long to learn. Yet recent
studies have shown that Chinese children do not learn to read slower
than children who learn languages with alphabets. This is mainly due to
the reason that when children are not familiar with a concept they
simply do not use it and they learn the characters for them later, when
they learn about a concept. For example, if a second-grader does not
know how to write the word "telecommunication", it does not impede his
or her reading abilities in any way. Nor does it put him or her behind
the Western child who might be able to read the word but still would not
understand its meaning. So there is no reason to be pessimistic about
the efficiency of Chinese script, as the last 4,000 years have shown us,
it is a very efficient communication system.
Written by Imre Galambos
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