Traditional Classification of Chinese Character

Chinese 201Nai-Fen Su03/22/2011

Outline

• History of Chinese Character• Traditional classification • Pictograms• Q &A

History of Chinese Character

• Oracle bone script• Chinese bronze inscriptions• Greater Seal Script• Lesser Seal Script• Clerical Script • Regular Script- traditional and simple

Oracle bone script

• 1500 to 1000 B.C.

Chinese bronze inscriptions

• 1150-771 B.C.

Greater Seal Script

• 1100 to 700 B.C.

Lesser Seal Script

• 700 to

220 B.C.

Clerical Script

• 221 to 207 B.C. & 206 B.C. to 220 A.D.

Regular Script

• 220 A.D to Present (Traditional Chinese )

Regular Script

• 1964- Simple Chinese

Stages of Chinese Character

Oracle bone script

Chinese bronze inscriptions

Greater Seal

Lesser Seal Script

Clerical Script

Regular Script(Traditional Chinese)

Regular Script (Simple Chinese)

Traditional classification

There are six traditional types of Han Character• Pictograms• Simple ideograms• Ideogrammatic compounds• Rebus characters• Phono-semantic compound characters• Derivative cognates

Pictograms

• Roughly 600 Chinese characters are pictograms—stylized drawings of the objects they represent.

• These are generally among the oldest characters

Simple ideograms

• Ideograms express an abstract idea through an iconic form, including iconic modification of pictographic characters.

本

Ideogrammatic compounds

• In ideogrammic compounds, also called associative compounds or logical aggregates.

• Two or more pictographic or ideographic characters are combined to suggest a third meaning

木 ×2 = 林 木 ×3 = 森 人 +木  = 休two trees→ grove

three trees→ forest

a man leaning against a tree

→ rest

Rebus characters

• These are characters that are "borrowed" to write another homophonous or near-homophonous morpheme, comparable with using "4" as a rebus for English "for"

自 Self

Phono-semantic compound characters

• They form the majority of Chinese characters —over 90%

• Characters were created by combining a rebus with a determinative

Determinative Rebus Compound

氵water

木mù

沐mù "to wash oneself

艹plant

采cǎi

"harvest, vegetable"菜

cài "vegetable

Derivative cognates

• It may refer to characters which have similar meanings and often the same etymological root, but which have diverged in pronunciation and meaning

父 爸 Dad

Pictograms Practice

Thank You

Q & A