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The earliest historical linguistic evidence of the spoken Chinese language dates back approximately 4500 years, [1] while examples of the writing system that would become written Chinese are attested in a body of inscriptions made on bronze vessels and oracle bones during the Late Shang period (c. 1250 – 1050 BCE), [2] [3] with the very oldest dated to c. 1200 BCE.
Written Chinese is a writing system that uses Chinese characters and other symbols to represent the Chinese languages. Chinese characters do not directly represent pronunciation, unlike letters in an alphabet or syllabograms in a syllabary .
This article cites its sources but its page reference ranges are too broad or incorrect. Please help in adding a more precise page range. (July 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) Survey of eight prominent scripts (left to right, top to bottom): Sumerian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Chinese characters, Maya script, Devanagari, Latin alphabet, Arabic alphabet, Braille Part of ...
During the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BC), Old Chinese was the spoken form of the language, which was reflected in the Classical Chinese used to write the Chinese classics. Spoken Chinese began to evolve faster than the written form, which continued to emulate the language of the classics.
Chinese remained the medium of formal writing until it was displaced by vernacular writing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. [12] Though they did not use Chinese for spoken communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud, the so-called Sino-Xenic pronunciations , which provide clues to the pronunciation of ...
A fragment of a dharani print in Sanskrit and Chinese, c. 650–670, Tang dynasty The Great Dharani Sutra, one of the world's oldest surviving woodblock prints, c. 704-751 The intricate frontispiece of the Diamond Sutra from Tang-dynasty China, 868 AD (British Museum), the earliest extant printed text bearing a date of printing Colophon to the Diamond Sutra dating the year of printing to 868
During the Nara period (710–794), readers and writers of kanbun —the Japanese term for Literary Chinese writing—began utilizing a system of reading techniques and annotations called kundoku. When reading, Japanese speakers would adapt the syntax and vocabulary of Literary Chinese texts to reflect their Japanese-language equivalents.
Written Chinese makes use of Chinese characters, one of the four independent inventions of writing agreed by scholars, and the only one of these remaining in use. Speakers and readers exhibit a high degree of diglossia between both local varieties and Standard Chinese , and between written and spoken language.