Chinese doensn't have an alphabet
Posted: Sun May 12, 2002 8:42 am
The Chinese Language does not have an alphabet!
This language has a totally differrent concept for writing. Each chinese character (there are thousands of them) has it's own meaning. There is i.e. a single character that means 'women', another one for 'man', one for 'peace', one for 'love' and so on. Chinese characters are basically pictographs, abstract pictures that symbolize a special meaning. You also know pictographs from traffic signs or signs in an airport, telling you where the toilet is, or the telephone, the elevator ... even if you are in a foreign country and do not know the language. On the other hand, the characters of the differents alphabets (the latin alphabet that we use here, the greek alphabet, the cyryllic alphabet that is used in russia, and others) have no own meaning, they only transport a sound. A 'B' is just a 'B', no special meaning, you just know how to pronounce it, that's all.
In the spoken chinese language, each character is connected with a syllable of the language. In the different chinese dialects (at least 8 main dialects) the pronunciation of the characters is different but the meaning of the chartacters is the same and a north chinese (speaking mandarin dialect) can read a newspaper in guangzhou (cantonese dialect) without problems but will not be able to talk to another person who only speaks cantonese. But if you go i.e. from england to france, you'll also find the same characters but if you read the word 'encre' you'll maybe not know that it is the french word for 'ink', even if you know the characters.
Please read also the FAQ section of the http://zhongwen.com homepage and have a look on this :
http://zhongwen.com/x/faq14-1.gif
This language has a totally differrent concept for writing. Each chinese character (there are thousands of them) has it's own meaning. There is i.e. a single character that means 'women', another one for 'man', one for 'peace', one for 'love' and so on. Chinese characters are basically pictographs, abstract pictures that symbolize a special meaning. You also know pictographs from traffic signs or signs in an airport, telling you where the toilet is, or the telephone, the elevator ... even if you are in a foreign country and do not know the language. On the other hand, the characters of the differents alphabets (the latin alphabet that we use here, the greek alphabet, the cyryllic alphabet that is used in russia, and others) have no own meaning, they only transport a sound. A 'B' is just a 'B', no special meaning, you just know how to pronounce it, that's all.
In the spoken chinese language, each character is connected with a syllable of the language. In the different chinese dialects (at least 8 main dialects) the pronunciation of the characters is different but the meaning of the chartacters is the same and a north chinese (speaking mandarin dialect) can read a newspaper in guangzhou (cantonese dialect) without problems but will not be able to talk to another person who only speaks cantonese. But if you go i.e. from england to france, you'll also find the same characters but if you read the word 'encre' you'll maybe not know that it is the french word for 'ink', even if you know the characters.
Please read also the FAQ section of the http://zhongwen.com homepage and have a look on this :
http://zhongwen.com/x/faq14-1.gif
