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Matches in DBpedia 2014 for { ?s ?p Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and some other Asian languages. They are called hanzi (漢字/汉字) in Chinese, kanji in Japanese. They were adapted to write a number of other languages, most significantly Korean (hanja) and Vietnamese (chữ Nôm). Chinese characters constitute the oldest continuously used system of writing in the world. By dint of their widespread current use in China and Japan, and historic use throughout the Sinosphere, Chinese characters are among the most widely adopted writing systems in the world.Chinese characters number in the tens of thousands, though most of them are minor graphic variants encountered only in historical texts. Studies in China have shown that functional literacy in written Chinese requires a knowledge of between three and four thousand characters. In Japan, 2,136 are taught through secondary school (the Jōyō kanji); hundreds more are in everyday use. There are various national standard lists of characters, forms, and pronunciations. Simplified forms of certain characters are used in China and Singapore; the corresponding traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. In Japan, common characters are written in Japan-specific simplified forms (shinjitai), which are closer to traditional forms than Chinese simplifications, while uncommon characters are written in Japanese traditional forms (kyūjitai), which are virtually identical to Chinese traditional forms.In modern Chinese, characters do not necessarily correspond to words, but instead almost always correspond to a spoken syllable with a distinct meaning: they are generally morphosyllabic (since they represent syllables that are also morphemes). Indeed, the majority of Chinese words today consist of two or more characters. In Old Chinese, by contrast, most words were single-syllable and there was a close correspondence between characters and words.There are a number of exceptions to this general correspondence of one character with one syllable and one morpheme. Firstly, there are a significant number of bisyllabic morphemes – which are written with two characters – where the individual syllables and associated characters do not have independent meaning, only being used as poetic contractions of the bisyllabic word. In modern Chinese 10% of morphemes only occur as part of a given compound, while some of these date to Old Chinese; a common example is 蝴蝶 húdié 'butterfly'. Conversely, in some cases monosyllabic words may be written with two characters, as in 花儿 huār 'flower', which is due to the fusion of the diminutive -er suffix in Mandarin (formerly this was a bisyllabic word). Lastly, in very rare cases, a single character represents a polysyllabic word or phrase, though these are considered ligatures or abbreviations (similar to scribal abbreviations, such as & for "et"), and are non-standard. A commonly seen example is the double happiness design 囍 (双喜/雙喜 shuāngxǐ), formed as a ligature of 喜喜, while a more modern example is 圕 for 圖書館 túshūguǎn "library", formed as 囗+書. See polysyllabic words and polysyllabic characters below for further discussion.Modern Chinese has many homophones; thus the same spoken syllable may be represented by many different characters, depending on meaning. A single character may also have a range of meanings, or sometimes quite distinct meanings; occasionally these correspond to different pronunciations. Cognates in the several varieties of Chinese are generally written with the same character. They typically have similar meanings, but often quite different pronunciations. In other languages, most significantly today in Japanese, characters are used to represent Chinese loanwords, to represent native words independent of the Chinese pronunciation, and as purely phonetic elements based on their pronunciation in the historical variety of Chinese from which they were acquired. These foreign adaptations of Chinese pronunciation are known as Sinoxenic pronunciations, and have been useful in the reconstruction of Middle Chinese.. }

• Chinese_characters abstract "Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and some other Asian languages. They are called hanzi (漢字/汉字) in Chinese, kanji in Japanese. They were adapted to write a number of other languages, most significantly Korean (hanja) and Vietnamese (chữ Nôm). Chinese characters constitute the oldest continuously used system of writing in the world. By dint of their widespread current use in China and Japan, and historic use throughout the Sinosphere, Chinese characters are among the most widely adopted writing systems in the world.Chinese characters number in the tens of thousands, though most of them are minor graphic variants encountered only in historical texts. Studies in China have shown that functional literacy in written Chinese requires a knowledge of between three and four thousand characters. In Japan, 2,136 are taught through secondary school (the Jōyō kanji); hundreds more are in everyday use. There are various national standard lists of characters, forms, and pronunciations. Simplified forms of certain characters are used in China and Singapore; the corresponding traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. In Japan, common characters are written in Japan-specific simplified forms (shinjitai), which are closer to traditional forms than Chinese simplifications, while uncommon characters are written in Japanese traditional forms (kyūjitai), which are virtually identical to Chinese traditional forms.In modern Chinese, characters do not necessarily correspond to words, but instead almost always correspond to a spoken syllable with a distinct meaning: they are generally morphosyllabic (since they represent syllables that are also morphemes). Indeed, the majority of Chinese words today consist of two or more characters. In Old Chinese, by contrast, most words were single-syllable and there was a close correspondence between characters and words.There are a number of exceptions to this general correspondence of one character with one syllable and one morpheme. Firstly, there are a significant number of bisyllabic morphemes – which are written with two characters – where the individual syllables and associated characters do not have independent meaning, only being used as poetic contractions of the bisyllabic word. In modern Chinese 10% of morphemes only occur as part of a given compound, while some of these date to Old Chinese; a common example is 蝴蝶 húdié 'butterfly'. Conversely, in some cases monosyllabic words may be written with two characters, as in 花儿 huār 'flower', which is due to the fusion of the diminutive -er suffix in Mandarin (formerly this was a bisyllabic word). Lastly, in very rare cases, a single character represents a polysyllabic word or phrase, though these are considered ligatures or abbreviations (similar to scribal abbreviations, such as & for "et"), and are non-standard. A commonly seen example is the double happiness design 囍 (双喜/雙喜 shuāngxǐ), formed as a ligature of 喜喜, while a more modern example is 圕 for 圖書館 túshūguǎn "library", formed as 囗+書. See polysyllabic words and polysyllabic characters below for further discussion.Modern Chinese has many homophones; thus the same spoken syllable may be represented by many different characters, depending on meaning. A single character may also have a range of meanings, or sometimes quite distinct meanings; occasionally these correspond to different pronunciations. Cognates in the several varieties of Chinese are generally written with the same character. They typically have similar meanings, but often quite different pronunciations. In other languages, most significantly today in Japanese, characters are used to represent Chinese loanwords, to represent native words independent of the Chinese pronunciation, and as purely phonetic elements based on their pronunciation in the historical variety of Chinese from which they were acquired. These foreign adaptations of Chinese pronunciation are known as Sinoxenic pronunciations, and have been useful in the reconstruction of Middle Chinese.".