Does the Chinese Language Have an Alphabet?
If so, where is it? Why dont I see it? (Each month thousands of people search for the “Chinese alphabet” on the internet.) To answer the above questions, lets look at how the Chinese writing system evolved Societies create their own symbols. As societies change so do the meaning of their symbols. In most societies, as a culture took shape and a written language of letters was developed, symbols which were once the primary means of communication, were replaced by words or phrases. The evolution of the Chinese language took a rather unique turn. Instead of visual symbols being replaced by a written language of letters, the symbols themselves became the written language. One of the reasons for this is that the Chinese language is tonal the tone of voice used to speak a syllable alters its meaning. In Mandarin for instance, there are four tones. The same utterance in each tone gives four different meanings. In addition, words in the same tones often have different meanings and their meanin
Not really. Chinese uses a writing system called logographic that is very different from our writing system. Each symbol, or letter, in our writing stands for a sound; one or more symbols put together form a word, and we can form any word in our language using just our 26 letters. But in Chinese, each symbol stands for a word. A
If so, where is it? Why don’t I see it? Each month thousands of people search for the “Chinese alphabet” on the internet. To answer the above questions, let’s look at how the Chinese writing system evolved Societies create their own symbols. As societies change so do the meaning of their symbols. In most societies, as a culture took shape and a written language of letters was developed, symbols which were once the primary means of communication, were replaced by words or phrases. The evolution of the Chinese language took a rather unique turn. Instead of visual symbols being replaced by a written language of letters, the symbols themselves became the written language. One of the reasons for this is that the Chinese language is tonal the tone of voice used to speak a syllable alters its meaning. In Mandarin for instance, there are four tones. The same utterance in each tone gives four different meanings. In addition, words in the same tones often have different meanings and their meanin
If so, where is it? Why dont I see it? To answer the above questions, lets look at how Chinese writing evolved over the ages. At the beginning, societies created symbols to refer to simple things. Symbols are signs and pictures that refer to actual objects. The earliest symbols looked like the things they represented. For instance, the symbol for bird looked like a bird. Same for mountain, tree, rain, child, knife, boat. As time went by, societies grew bigger and became complex. Naturally, the meanings of visual symbols changed as well. Symbols not only stood for physical things, but for more abstract things as well. Like sunrise, friend, pray, play, safe, year etc. As a culture took shape, a written language made up of letters (i.e. the alphabet) was invented. A sound was attached to each letter so a string of letters could be pronounced. Symbols were thus replaced by words and phrases as the primary means of communication. Usually, thats what happened with written languages. But not
Not per se. It is normally written with Chinese symbols, which is a system of writing that uses “pictographs” instead of alphabetic letters. However, there is a system called “Pinyin” wherein you can represent the sounds of Chinese using the Roman (English) alphabet. It can be used, for example, to use Chinese with computers or printers that don’t have native Chinese language support. About Chinese written language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wri… About Pinyin: http://en.wikipedia.
