Talk:Chinese characters
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Chinese characters has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. Review: May 24, 2024. (Reviewed version). |
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On 30 September 2021, it was proposed that this article be moved to Han characters. The result of the discussion was not moved. |
To-do list for Chinese characters:
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A fact from Chinese characters appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 15 June 2024 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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Did you know nomination
[edit]- The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 talk 20:27, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
- ... that according to legend, the invention of Chinese characters (oracle bone pictured) caused grain to rain from the sky and ghosts and demons to wail in frustration? Source: According to one tradition, Chinese characters were invented during the 3rd millennium BCE by Cangjie, a scribe of the legendary Yellow Emperor. Cangjie is said to have invented symbols called 字 (zì) due to his frustration with the limitations of knotting, taking inspiration from his study of the tracks of animals, landscapes, and the stars in the sky. On the day that these first characters were created, grain rained down from the sky; that night, the people heard the wailing of ghosts and demons, lamenting that humans could no longer be cheated.[1][2]
- ALT1: ... that the oldest known Chinese characters were recorded on oracle bones (example pictured)? Source: The oldest attested Chinese writing comprises a body of inscriptions produced during the Late Shang period (c. 1250 – 1050 BCE), with the very earliest examples from the reign of Wu Ding dated between 1250 and 1200 BCE.[3][4]
- Reviewed:
Remsense诉 04:25, 30 May 2024 (UTC).
- I really like that first hook. Article is in great shape and eligible (congrats on the GA, btw), and I was able to confirm the story through Google Books keyword searching. QPQ is not needed. Looks like we're good to go. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 03:05, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
- Oh no, I've just realized that I somehow forgot that images need to be used in the article. I chose this one as the oracle bone image used in the article itself actually already appeared on DYK and I didn't think it'd look that good, so I selected another one we've used from Commons. Is there anything elegant I can do here, do you think? Remsense诉 06:20, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
References
- ^ Yang, Lihui; An, Deming (2008). Handbook of Chinese Mythology. Oxford University Press. pp. 84–86. ISBN 978-0-195-33263-6.
- ^ Boltz 1994, pp. 130–138.
- ^ Boltz, William G. (1999). "Language and Writing". In Loewe, Michael; Shaughnessy, Edward L. (eds.). The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC. Cambridge University Press. pp. 74, 107–108. ISBN 978-0-521-47030-8. Retrieved 3 April 2019 – via Google Books.
- ^ Liu, Kexin; Wu, Xiaohong; Guo, Zhiyu; Yuan, Sixun; Ding, Xingfang; Fu, Dongpo; Pan, Yan (2021). "Radiocarbon Dating of Oracle Bones of the Late Shang Period in Ancient China". Radiocarbon. 63 (1): 155–175. Bibcode:2021Radcb..63..155L. doi:10.1017/RDC.2020.90.
- Amazing hook Remsense! ꧁Zanahary꧂ 20:22, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
- Be sure to thank TheLonelyPather for both the selection and the general wording! Remsense诉 03:22, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
- @TheLonelyPather You're a well-regarded king ꧁Zanahary꧂ 03:34, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks! 天雨粟 鬼夜哭 Cheers, --The Lonely Pather (talk) 08:48, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
- thank you both, it's definitely one of the best DYKs I saw recently! Artem.G (talk) 07:32, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks! 天雨粟 鬼夜哭 Cheers, --The Lonely Pather (talk) 08:48, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
- @TheLonelyPather You're a well-regarded king ꧁Zanahary꧂ 03:34, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
- Be sure to thank TheLonelyPather for both the selection and the general wording! Remsense诉 03:22, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
Potential source?
[edit]TWL's partnership with De Gruyter gives us access to O'Neill, Timothy Michael (2016). Ideography and Chinese Language Theory: A History. Worlds of East Asia, vol. 26. De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110459234. ISBN 9783110459234.
The second half of this source seems like it could be helpful for expanding the section on the traditional 說文解字 classification, and maybe some stuff about the 爾雅. It does talk more about language theory (as foretold by the title) than writing systems, and the book swings wildly into Derrida and Nietzsche at times, but there should be useful information in there, whether for this article or some other one.
Congratulations on the GA and DYK btws! Folly Mox (talk) 21:58, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you so much Folly, you were a huge help to me, especially in the very early going when I had much less clue what I was doing.
- Funny, this was actually one of the first books I read when researching sinograms, and I think that's why I haven't tried to cite it here for some reason. Obviously it's an RS and its claims are not particular to it, in addition to being a book I recommend quite often, so yeah good point! Remsense诉 04:09, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Folly Mox, what do you think needs to be added to this article re: 說文解字? My best attempts to be brief in my post-GA additions still have me butting up under 9600 words, and I wonder if I can keep under 10k in getting the article to FAC-ready state. Remsense诉 13:39, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- Remsense, I'm acknowledging having read your question here, and I'll do my best to think about it sometime this weekend when hopefully I will have the brainpower for a brief glimmer of intelligence. Folly Mox (talk) 11:56, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- Yesterday I told a friend that my memory was so wrecked and broken that if someone found it in a free pile they might very well take offence that it wasn't already in the garbage. Sighing, I'll try to have a look at this this weekend, rather than two weekends ago. Old and busted, Folly Mox (talk) 13:09, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
- Folly, please don't worry! It means a lot, and you're never anything but the reason I'm an editor here. Remsense诉 13:57, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
- Awww thank you 🥰 You've really done a lot of great work for the project, so I'm very honoured to have played a part in bringing you on board!As to the question here, I think the article does a good job of summarising the important bits about the 說文解字 without getting lost in the details that belong at the main article Shuowen Jiezi. I think the only thing I might add right now would be that the book was the genesis of the 部首 system, which is still how Chinese dictionaries are organised, and often how people disambiguate homonyms in speech. I know this is mentioned already in § Classification (unless this refers to the larger 六書 theory) (and probably also at the main article Chinese character classification, which I have not clicked through to because I have to take my roommate's dog for a walk). Folly Mox (talk) 17:00, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
- Folly, please don't worry! It means a lot, and you're never anything but the reason I'm an editor here. Remsense诉 13:57, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
- Yesterday I told a friend that my memory was so wrecked and broken that if someone found it in a free pile they might very well take offence that it wasn't already in the garbage. Sighing, I'll try to have a look at this this weekend, rather than two weekends ago. Old and busted, Folly Mox (talk) 13:09, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
- Remsense, I'm acknowledging having read your question here, and I'll do my best to think about it sometime this weekend when hopefully I will have the brainpower for a brief glimmer of intelligence. Folly Mox (talk) 11:56, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
- @Folly Mox, what do you think needs to be added to this article re: 說文解字? My best attempts to be brief in my post-GA additions still have me butting up under 9600 words, and I wonder if I can keep under 10k in getting the article to FAC-ready state. Remsense诉 13:39, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Number of characters
[edit]Should the number of Chinese characters be in this article? — VORTEX3427 (Talk!) 13:07, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
- There is not and cannot be a well-defined number as such. Moreover, there are already several points where numbers that answer similar, better-defined questions are given in the article, surely? Remsense诉 14:15, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
Diction
[edit]@Imaginatorium I'll reraise here:
− | In addition, each invented characters for local use. These languages | + | In addition, each invented characters for local use. These languages have structures and characteristics that differ from Chinese, which has contributed to the replacement of characters with alphabets designed to write Korean and Vietnamese, leaving Japanese as the only major non-Chinese language still written (in significant part) with characters. |
- structures and characteristics is weirdly muddy and imprecise: what exactly is a "structure" versus a "characteristic" here? There's also a somewhat unpleasant implied-but-absent chunk here: I know it means These languages have structures and characteristics that differ from [those in] Chinese, but some may have to pause and fill in the gap.
- (in significant part) is a parenthetical in parentheses, which occurs nowhere else in the entire article.
- More importantly, the above is an unnecessary qualifier: characters are obligatory in written Japanese, while they are essentially optional or absent in written Korean, say. Just saying "in significant part" without further elucidation is just confuses the plain fact for the reader that Japanese is written using Chinese characters, especially as characters being removed entirely from other written languages was just mentioned.
Remsense诉 04:00, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
- I would dispute the content rather than the expression. Korean and Japanese are typologically similar. So are Chinese and Vietnamese, but very different from K&J. The reasons each of these languages (including Chinese) kept or abandoned characters are mostly extra-linguistic. Kanguole 21:17, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
- Aye—I realized over the course of writing and rewriting the lead that I can't adequately communicate a four-way relationship, so I went for the most general possible statement that was still held water. It's certainly crossed my mind repeatedly that the causes were extralinguistic in no small part or even mostly—I simply did not know how to adequately describe that in the context of the lead. Remsense诉 21:22, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
- Oh! And while I've dragged your attention back toward this millstone of mine: does anything strike you as concerns a FAC? I think I've bridged all lot of the gap between broad and comprehensive coverage, but i'd appreciate your insight greatly Remsense诉 21:33, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
- If the view underlying the current text is that historical and/or social reasons were the major or primary factors leading Korean and Vietnamese to no longer use characters, perhaps something like the following would reflect this underlying view more accurately: "Historical and/or social factors have contributed to the replacement of characters in Korean and Vietnamese with alphabets designed to write those languages, leaving Japanese as the only major non-Chinese language still written with characters (which are used in Japanese alongside hiragana and katakana)." 216.15.56.15 (talk) 02:30, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
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