Script
Han Script
HAHN, as in the Han dynasty
Also Known As Hanzi
Logographic Scripts
Origin from 1250 BCE
Han script, Chinese characters, is a logographic writing system in which most characters represent a morpheme rather than a single sound, developed in China over more than three thousand years from the pictographic and divinatory oracle bone script of the late Shang dynasty. Because the characters encode meaning more directly than pronunciation, the same script historically served, and in the case of Japanese kanji and Korean hanja still partly serves, multiple mutually unintelligible languages, and unifies the many varieties of spoken Chinese in writing even where they cannot be understood between speakers. Modern usage divides between Traditional characters, still standard in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and Simplified characters, introduced in mainland China from the 1950s onward to increase literacy.
Facts
DirectionalityLeft to right in modern usage; historically top to bottom in vertical columns read right to left 1 In Use Since (Year)Approximate date of the earliest oracle bone inscriptions, the script's earliest confirmed ancestor; the exact point at which the system counts as a mature writing system rather than a proto-writing notation is itself debated among specialists. Han Script
Filter Results2 entries
Connections
Ancestor Of
Hiragana, Scripts Developed by cursive simplification of man'yogana, Chinese characters used purely for their sound values; katakana derives from the same man'yogana practice by a different process, taking a fragment of each source character rather than simplifying the whole shape.
Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
Katakana, Scripts Formed by taking abbreviated fragments of man'yogana kanji rather than simplifying the whole character in cursive, the method that produced hiragana instead.
Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
Associated With
This source names Korean directly: "and in the case of Japanese kanji and Korean hanja still partly serves, multiple mutually unintelligible languages, and unifies the many varieties of spoken Chinese in writing even where they cannot..."
Source The Cambridge Encyclopedia of LanguageDavid Crystal (editor)
Influenced
Hangul, Scripts Why this is disputed. Scholars debate how much other scripts influenced Hangul's original design; Chinese-character influence on the syllable block format is the least disputed of the hypotheses.
Source Wikipedia: Hangul
Influenced By
Source Wikipedia: Bopomofo
Script Of
Classical Chinese is written in Chinese characters (Han script).
Hakka Chinese, where written, uses Chinese characters (Han script).
Japanese, Languages Japanese is written with kanji (Han-derived characters) alongside two native syllabaries, hiragana and katakana, neither of which is yet modeled as its own script entity in this atlas.
Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
Southern Min, where written, uses Chinese characters (Han script), sometimes supplemented with Latin-based romanization systems such as Peh-oe-ji.
Wu Chinese is written with Chinese characters (Han script) when written at all, most often through Standard Written Chinese.
Yue Chinese (Cantonese) is written with Chinese characters, including characters coined for Cantonese-specific words.
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Arts and Music Atlas: Calligraphy, influenced this subject there.
Sources
1. Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
2. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
David Crystal (editor), Cambridge University Press, 2010
Wikipedia: Bopomofo
Wikipedia: Hangul
Influenced: Hangul, Hangul, article body (creation and design discussion)Quote, Influenced: Hangul, Hangul, article body (creation and design discussion)
Chinese characters almost certainly had some influence on Hangul's design, for example in the syllable block format.
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