Hieroglyphs – Mysticism or Logic?

I continue to talk about one of the most ancient languages – my favourite, Chinese. In the previous article, we dealt with the dialects of Chinese, and today it’s time for hieroglyphs!

Very meticulous orientalists believe that there are approximately 100,000 hieroglyphs. Of course, no one knows such a number, nor is it necessary – because most of them were only used in ancient manuscripts. The most educated people in China know about 10,000 hieroglyphs and are able to read almost everything – including specialized scientific literature. A literate person needs to know about 5,000 hieroglyphs – then you can read books and newspapers. Well, in everyday life, you can get by with 1000-1500 hieroglyphs – you’ll understand signs, labels, headlines, and names.

Do you know what a hieroglyph is? First of all, let’s get it straight – hieroglyphs are not drawn, they are written! And secondly – there are certain rules for writing, as in all of Chinese, which is a highly structured language.

One hieroglyph is one meaningful syllable (that is, a syllable has its own meaning and can be a word or, in combination with other hieroglyphs, form new words). A Chinese word can consist of one hieroglyph or two, rarely three. More than three hieroglyphs in one word are usually found in modern vocabulary and are loanwords from other languages.

All hieroglyphs consist of strokes and radicals. Different sources indicate slightly different numbers of strokes, but most often use a table that consists of 24 strokes. There is also a radical table, which has 214 elements. “Radical” – you can define it as a component of a hieroglyph with its own meaning and name. Many radicals are used both as independent hieroglyphs and as a component of others, for example – 人Rén – person (an independent radical and hieroglyph), and, it is seen in – 肉 ròu – meat (do you see two hanging people?)

Looking at an unfamiliar hieroglyph, you can almost never guess its meaning 100%. You can only sometimes roughly understand what it’s about. For example, if a hieroglyph has the radical “mouth” – 口Kǒu, then often the meaning of the hieroglyph is related to the mouth, for example, 喝Hē (to drink), 吃 chī (to eat), 说 shuō (to speak).

The simplest Chinese character is “one” 一 (Yī), consisting of just one stroke.

China and Hong Kong not only use different dialects of the Chinese language but also have differing views on the script. China (PRC) in the 1960s adopted a simplified system of characters – Simplified Characters – where some strokes were removed from characters and radicals. However, Hong Kong refused to follow Communist China. As a result, literacy improved in China, and it became easier for children and foreigners to learn writing. Hong Kong, however, still writes Traditional Characters to this day, sometimes with characters having as many as 40-50 strokes .