Chinese Characters (Hanzi)

Logographic script in continuous use since the Shang dynasty, written today across Chinese languages and in Japanese.

Core Principles & Analysis

• Earliest attested as oracle bone inscriptions from around 1200 BCE.
• The 1716 Kangxi Dictionary catalogued about 47,000 characters.
• Reading a newspaper requires knowledge of roughly 3,000 characters.

Specifications & Metrics

• TYPE: Logographic