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Random Facts about Chinese Writing
CHINESE WRITING
It is nearly certain that the art of writing was known among
the Chinese as early as 2000 B.C. The system employed is
curiously cumbrous. In the absence of an alphabet, each word
of the language is represented upon the written page by
means of a symbol, or combination of symbols; this, of
course, requires that there be as many symbols, or
characters, as there are words in the language. The number
sanctioned by good use is about 25,000; but counting
obsolete characters, the number amounts to over 50,000. A
knowledge of 5000 or 6000 characters, however, enables one
to read and write without difficulty. The task of learning
even this number might well be hopeless, were it not that
many of the characters bear a remote resemblance to the
objects for which they stand, and when once explained,
readily suggest the thing or idea represented. The nature of
the characters shows conclusively that the Chinese system of
writing, like that of all others with which we are
acquainted, was at first purely hieroglyphical, that is, the
characters were originally simply rude outline pictures of
material objects. Time and use have worn them to their
present form. This Chinese system of representing thought,
cumbrous and inconvenient as it is, is employed at the
present time by one third of the human race. Printing from
blocks was practised in China as early as the sixth century
of our era, and printing from movable types as early as the
tenth or eleventh century, that is to say, about four
hundred years before the same art was invented in Europe.
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