Hanzi are ideographs and pictographs used to write Chinese.

History of Hanzi

Hanzi were originally pictures used to show an idea (such as "日" (sun) or "月" (moon)), but this didn't give enough characters to show every meaning. So ideographs were invented; these are when you put two or more characters together to form another meaning (日 + 月 = 明 (bright)). But this still didn't give enough characters; so something called a "radical" was invented. There are about 220-odd radicals. These may use the same pronunciation part of the character, but a different radical. This can cause confusion sometimes. Sometimes they may be used on their own.

言 + 舌 = 话* (Yan2 + She2 = Hua4)

*Note: In simplified characters, the radicals may be simplified.

In 2000BC, Qin Shi Huang; or Huangdi (Yellow Emperor), unified all the writing systems of China. So even today, they still use all use the same writing systems.

Use in Modern Cantonese and Mandarin

Hanzi are still used in these modern languages, but the main differences are that:

• Traditional Characters are still used mainly in Cantonese.
• They may carry different or new meanings.
• They have different pronunciations.

Related Pages

• Cantonese
• Chinese
• Ideograph
• Mandarin Chinese
• Pingyam
• Pinyin
• Radical
• Simplified Characters
• Traditional Characters
• Writing System

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