Contrary to a somewhat popular belief, Kanji is not just a small photo. In fact, most of them are not photographs. The very oldest can be traced back to the “Oracleborn” script from the 13th century BC. However, most kanji, or Hanjilogo graphic. In other words, each represents a different morphemes or a different unit of language. It is a single part of a word, or an independent, meaningless word. No one knows for sure how many people Hanji Although it exists, nearly 100,000 have been documented so far.
It’s not that you need to learn all of them to achieve literacy. That’s why only 3,000-5,000 people do that. It is technically possible to memorize many characters, but you’d better start by becoming familiar with their basic nature and structure. By doing so, you will naturally learn more than a little about their long history.
TED-Ed lessons at the top of the post Using animation, we provide a simple but illuminated overview of “how kanji works” to demonstrate how ancient symbols of concrete things like people, trees, sun, and water have become so versatile that they are combined with all other representations, including abstract concepts.
in Mandarin Blueprint video right aboveHost Luke Neil Hanji It is used today. Whether it is a simplified version of mainland China or a traditional version of Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc., they emphasize that they are constructed rather than entire fabric. It may feel slightly daunting for future learners, as about 80% of kanji can be “meaning optical compounds.” One component of a letter provides a clue to its meaning, while another provides a clue to its pronunciation. (It’s not necessarily a simple way to decipher them.)
In the distant past, Hanji It was also the only way to record other Asian languages, such as Vietnamese and Korean. Yet today they remain central to the Japanese writing system, but like other cultural forms ported to Japan, they have little changed there. Nativlang video right above It describes the transformations they have experienced over thousands of years of interaction with Japanese. It wasn’t that long ago, so even in their hometown, Hanji The prospect of being discarded in questionable names of modern efficiency was threatened. Currently, almost 100,000 characters mentioned above are built into Unicode, making them available throughout the 21st century digital universe, making them longer than the Latin alphabet you are reading now.
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Based in Seoul Colin marshall Write and broadcasting stationTS about cities, languages, and culture. His projects include the Substack Newsletter Books about cities And the book The Stateless City: Walking through 21st century Los Angeles. Follow him on social networks previously known as Twitter @colinmarshall.
