Why Chinese Makes More Sense Than You Think It Does
So many times when I see Chinese written somewhere I geek out. (I say 'many times' but it's literally any time. Instructions, restaurants, food labels, &c.) This is because I've always been profoundly intrigued by the Chinese writing system. Never once did I question it, or criticize it, simply because I think it's artistic and, in many ways, very practical.
So when I was with a friend shopping and my 'oh cool, this label is also printed in Chinese' was met with a chuckle and 'Korean, Japanese, Chinese... all those squares and dashes are just 'ching chongs' to me', I was a bit taken aback. I followed up by asking him what he meant. He was quick to clarify himself, saying that he meant that a language where each word is a different symbol seemed impossible to learn.
All insensitivity aside, I can see where he's coming from. At first glance, Chinese seems to be a code of sorts that can only be deciphered by those that have always been around it. However, it may not be as sporadic and random as one may think!
Today I hope to dispel a lot of the stigma surrounding Chinese and the writing system it uses. Maybe I can shed a little light on this seemingly impossible language.
Overview:
Contrary to popular belief, Chinese is not one cohesive language that all Chinese people understand. 'Chinese' is a broad term that encompasses a wide scope of languages spoken throughout China. These include Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu Chinese, Min Chinese, Shanghainese. When people say they're learning Chinese, they're most likely speaking Mandarin. The closest comparison I can offer is how while English is a language, dialects like General American English, African American Vernacular English, British English and Australian English contain various slang, pronunciation and grammatical differences. These dialects, however, are all similar enough to where an Australian can understand a Brit, or an American. A Cantonese speaker may not understand a Shanghainese speaker, due to the wide scope of differences.
A.) Chinese must be so hard to learn, having a different symbol for every word!
Yes, dear reader, a language where every word is represented by a different symbol would be nearly impossible for non-native speakers to learn! Thankfully, this isn't the case for Chinese.
The first well documented form of the Chinese writing system is called the Oracle Bone Script. The Oracle Bone Script was scratches into animal bones and and shells primarily between the 14th and 11th centuries BCE. The Oracle Bone Script went through many stages before reaching what we know today as Standard Script.
I can already hear your response....
'In the graphic to the left, it shows each word being represented by a different symbol!'
Well I'm glad you mentioned it.
As a matter of fact, each of the things to the left are common, tangible things. Fairly basic. Things you can see or touch, correct?
Uh-huh.
Let me introduce you to the Chinese word for 'tree', 木.
There it is! Now, what do you think 林 means?
No idea?
It means 'forest' or 'jungle'.
This actually makes a whole lot of sense!
Two trees together is a logical way to express a forest or a jungle!
Chinese has a lot of instances where this is the case such as:
Fire 火 + Mountain 山 = volcano 火山
Person 人 + Person 人 = follow 从
What is interesting is that some of these symbols tell stories of how the ancestors of the modern day Chinese nation lived. Take this example:
Person 人 + Tree 木 = rest 休
This tells us that a person leaning against a tree was how they rested.
Forest 林 + Fire 火 = burning 焚
This tells us that once, there was a large forest fire, that was documented on a bone or shell.
This is part of the reason I find the Chinese writing system so fascinating. The characters aren't random, they combine basic elements to tell stories that have been preserved for thousands of years.
And I know what you're thinking,
This IS super interesting, but there's no way to see what it means or how to pronounce it! I don't even know what it is! I just can't get mind mind to think that way!
And you may THINK that your mind can't think this way... but what if I told you that it already does?
B.) Logograms
May I ask you something?
What does this mean:
Right, it means print.
How did you know that?
What on this icon told you how to pronounce it, or what it even meant?
Nothing. Nothing, except that you looked at it, and could tell it represented a printer.
This is called a logogram, and they're used so often in our daily lives we don't even recognise it.
More examples?
Dictate.
Folder.
Link.
All things you knew because you saw the image and what it meant.
These symbols can be combined, much like Chinese characters can be.
An arrow pointed down into an envelope indicates an inbox.
A hard drive over a piece of paper indicates 'save'.
Power icons, undo arrows, even as simple as a red 'x' for exiting pages.
Logograms are hidden (in plain sight) in almost every piece of technology we use!
The most common form? Emojis.
My point is that Chinese isn't as hard to comprehend as many think that it is. While "Chinese" has over 50,000 characters, the average Chinese speaker knows about 8,000 characters, and only 2-3,000 are necessary to read a paper. Also, a new study has shown that due to the pinyin method (a romanization of the phonology of Chinese) being used to type mandarin many native Chinese speakers don't have a majority of Chinese characters memorized to the point that they could write them out.
Anyways, I hope this helped clear some of the mysterious fog surrounding the Chinese language. If you're interested in more easy ways to learn Chinese characters, logogram logic and pronunciation, I suggest checking out Chineasy (click here) they have good explanations of how symbols are put together (here), classes (here), and many more resources!
