Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Chinese characters have a documented history spanning over three millennia, … See more

The broadest trend in the evolution of Chinese characters over their history has been simplification, both in graphical shape (字形; zìxíng), the "external appearances of … See more

Writing first emerged during the historical stage of the Chinese language known as Old Chinese. Most characters correspond to morphemes that originally functioned as stand-alone Old … See more

Chinese characters are accepted as representing one of four independent inventions of writing in human history. In each instance, writing evolved from a system using two distinct types of ideographs. Ideographs could either be pictographs visually … See more

Chinese characters have been used in several different writing systems throughout history. The concept of a writing system includes both the written symbols themselves, called graphemes—which may include characters, numerals, or … See more

Each character of a text is written within a uniform square allotted for it. As part of the evolution from seal script into clerical script, character … See more

The earliest attested Chinese characters were carved into bone, or marked using a stylus in clay moulds used to cast ritual bronzes. … See more