Chinese characters (traditional Chinese: 漢字; simplified Chinese: 汉字; pinyin: hànzì; Wade–Giles: han tzŭ ; Jyutping: hon3 zi6; lit. 'Han characters') are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have … See more

Legendary origins
According to legend, Chinese characters were invented by Cangjie, a bureaucrat under the legendary See more

The Chinese script spread to Korea together with Buddhism from the 2nd century BC to 5th century AD (hanja). This was adopted for recording the Japanese language from the 5th century AD.
Chinese characters were first used in Vietnam during the See more

When the script was first used in the late 2nd millennium BC, words of Old Chinese were generally monosyllabic, and each character denoted a … See more

Chinese characters represent words of the language using several strategies. A few characters, including some of the most commonly used, were originally pictograms, which depicted the … See more

Chinese character simplification is the overall reduction of the number of strokes in the regular script of a set of Chinese characters. See more

There are numerous styles, or scripts, in which Chinese characters can be written, deriving from various calligraphic and historical models. Most of these originated in China and are now common, with minor variations, in all countries where Chinese characters are used. See more