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Chinese characters is currently a Language and literature good article nominee. Nominated by Remsense诉 at 18:14, 28 March 2024 (UTC) Anyone who has not contributed significantly to (or nominated) this article may review it according to the good article criteria to decide whether or not to list it as a good article. To start the review process, click start review and save the page. (See here for the good article instructions.) Short description: Logographic writing system

On 30 September 2021, it was proposed that this article be moved to Han characters. The result of the discussion was not moved.

Section sizes Section size for Chinese characters (69 sections) Section name Byte count Section total (Top) 5,985 5,985 Development 2,592 2,592 Classification 1,827 23,137 Structural analysis 1,815 1,815 Semantographs 22 6,571 Pictographs 2,955 2,955 Indicatives 749 749 Compound ideographs 2,845 2,845 Phonographs 20 8,776 Phono-semantic compounds 8,756 8,756 Loangraphs 1,591 1,591 Signs 409 409 Traditional Shuowen Jiezi classification 2,148 2,148 History 755 16,242 Traditional invention narrative 2,608 2,608 Neolithic 969 969 Oracle bone script 4,200 4,200 Zhou scripts 2,096 2,096 Qin unification and small seal script 997 997 Han clerical script 1,594 2,955 Neo-clerical 590 590 Semi-cursive 771 771 Regular script 1,662 1,662 Structure 3,296 4,779 Variants and allographs 1,483 1,483 Methods and styles 911 8,455 Calligraphy 749 749 Printing and typefaces 1,223 1,223 Use with computers 1,091 5,572 Input methods 1,682 1,682 Encoding and interchange 2,799 2,799 Vocabulary and adaptation 7,647 37,055 Old Chinese 6,825 6,825 Vernacular Chinese varieties 2,968 2,968 Japanese 3,630 3,630 Korean 2,572 7,195 South Korea 2,782 2,782 North Korea 1,841 1,841 Vietnamese 4,273 4,273 Other languages 2,596 4,517 Transcription 1,921 1,921 Special cases 20 8,033 Contractions and abbreviations 3,914 3,914 Multi-syllable morphemes 2,275 2,275 Rare and complex characters 1,824 1,824 Standardisation 3,640 22,142 Received forms 705 705 Simplified characters 2,996 11,581 People's Republic of China 5,192 5,192 Singapore 1,467 1,467 Malaysia 1,097 1,097 Philippines 829 829 Traditional characters 229 3,446 Taiwan 1,853 1,853 Hong Kong 264 264 North America 1,100 1,100 Kanji 1,561 1,561 Hanja 1,209 1,209 Lexicography 3,324 3,324 See also 639 639 Notes 538 538 References 17 11,958 Citations 45 1,445 Example lexemes 1,400 1,400 Works cited 10,496 10,496 Further reading 1,671 3,783 Works of historical interest 2,112 2,112 External links 179 1,323 Online references and databases 1,144 1,144 Total 149,985 149,985

To-do list for Chinese characters: edit · history · watch · refresh · Updated 2024-03-26 Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Citing sources : Variant characters Expand : Blurb about history of literacy education? Photo : The Tale of Kieu image should probably use additional means rather than color

@Ctxz2323, hey, thank you for writing in this area! one of the last things i was planning on doing for this article was properly writing a section about characters in computing, input methods etc. and putting it into the "methods and styles" section, alongside discussions of calligraphy, ordinary handwriting etc. if you don't mind, i'm probably going to reintegrate your passage as such?
One thing to keep in mind is the article is already very long, so it will likely have to be a bit shorter, but it is a subtopic that deserves a treatment in this article. If you're fine with that, lmk so I don't get in your way while you're editing! cheers Remsense留 05:21, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the article is already very long. But Chinese character IT is an important subtopic and will help people see that we are closely following the latest development of language computing at a glance of the table of contents.

So, if you don't mind, I prefer it to remain a first-level section while trying to cut it shorter, much shorter? Ctxz2323 (talk) 09:36, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How do you feel about its present placement? The higher level is meant to be about the various methods of writing and transmitting text written in Chinese characters, so I feel it fits. Remsense留 09:40, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well done!

and thanks. Ctxz2323 (talk) 12:32, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't "Computer encoding and interchange" belong in "Use with computers" rather than "Lexicography"? Kanguole 08:58, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, "Use with computers" is a more appropriate location. Ctxz2323 (talk) 13:50, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Kanguole @Ctxz2323 I see it presently like this, please tell me if I'm missing something:

• Methods and styles covers the ways people directly create characters (i.e. printing, handwriting, typing), not necessary which characters they may use or the underlying inventory. Thus, the relevant material covers how people input characters on computers.
• Lexicography covers the ways characters are collated, organized, sorted, etc. An encoding seems more akin to a dictionary or other large character set, to me. I've also put this section next to the related section Standardization, which has additional overlap with history.

All of these categories and themes overlap with each other, and I'm open as always if people think I'm wrong here. Remsense诉 22:28, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Then perhaps "Use with computers" belongs outside "Methods and styles", which could then just be "Styles". Kanguole 22:40, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But then I worry about the over-conflation with the overlapping notion of "scripts", which is the anchor of the History section. This is difficult. Remsense诉 22:46, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK, next suggestion is to put "Printing" and "Use with computers" in the "History" section and "Calligraphy" in the "Structure" section, and drop "Methods and styles". Kanguole 22:53, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think that may be a good idea. I'll see what I can do. Remsense诉 00:16, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I still prefer Kanguole's original idea: just simply move "Computer encoding and interchange" into "Use with computers". It is more of computer encoding than of Lexicography, just like we may more like to put an article on Unicode in the domain of IT or computers rather than in Dictionaries. Ctxz2323 (talk) 03:44, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll do this for now, then. Remsense诉 06:17, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose the question isn't just for this article, and I know single papers that say all sorts of things come out, but this paper^[1] made me a bit self-conscious about how I've currently written the relevant part of this article and others. Any more wizened analysis from others about its conclusions?

Basically, it rejects the notion that the writing system has more or less steadily simplified visually since the oracle bone form, and instead views seal script as the historical peak of visual complexity. A weak incentive trade-off between visual complexity and distinctiveness is postulated, but traditional regular script is overall both more visually complex and more distinctive according to their model. Of course, when Qiu et al say "simple" they don't just mean the pure graphical sense.

Remsense诉 09:22, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Remsense, I think we can change the date for the oldest oracle bone. The 2021 radiocarbon dating of 26 Wu Ding bone samples gives the age of the oldest measured bone to c. 1254-1221 BCE. That's quite a distance from the 1200 BCE given by David Keightley. So I'm asking your opinion on this. Strongman13072007 (talk) 13:43, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I did see that, and I put it on my mental checklist for this article, I just didn't want it to forget about it technically being unsourced in the article while I was working on other stuff—I agree, I think the radiocarbon cite can be attached to a 1250 BCE start date. Remsense诉 13:46, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We should not rely on a single research paper (WP:PRIMARY). Note also that date range is stated to be a 68% range for that bone, and they have an even earlier one in Table 4: 1307–1228 for Heji 34240 from the Li type-1 diviner group (usually assigned to the later part of Wu Ding's reign).

Ken-ichi Takashima gives a date of 1230. The Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project dated Wu Ding's reign at 1250–1192, though the first oracle bones may have been produced some time after the start of his reign. Kanguole 14:34, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed—also I do not think the citation should've been swapped out, but appended to Keightly, perhaps with an explanation in the footnote. Remsense诉 14:36, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The final unsourced statements—and the final major point contravening the GA criteria, I think—regard dialectal characters, and I've really been at a loss tracking down adequate sources for what's there, or to rewrite the section adequately from. I would very much appreciate peoples' help if they happen to know anything about how characters are used and created in the particular context of representing fangyan—obviously it's variations on a theme, but I want it to be well-attested. I think I'm otherwise just about ready to submit for peer review or GAN—for real, this time! Remsense诉 17:24, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Alsosaid1987 this may be a bit of a stretch given you added many of these statements back in 2019, but do by any chance have any leads as to how I could source them? Remsense诉 14:15, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are you referring to the examples of dialectal characters? For most of them, Wiktionary gives the definitions and gives the dialectal usages. For the Shanghainese phrase whose etymological form is 触祭, the online authoritative Wu dictionary published by the Wu Language Association https://wu-chinese.com/minidict cites the Suzhou pingtan script 白蛇传, while the "billboard" form 戳鸡, I was able to find at http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/ShanghaiMP3/SVocab.html. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find print sources for these examples.Alsosaid1987 (talk) 00:27, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically, I really would like sources for the characters being used in legal proceedings, etc. I've taken those out of the article for now, but I would like to put them back in if I can source them. Remsense诉 00:30, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]