Gateway to Chinese

Előszó

PREFACE T1 HE most ancient known Chinese characters or ideographs are those on oracle bones which date back to the 14th century B.C. Originally the ideographs were pictures of the thing described. But in the subsequent development, especially in the first 1,800 years, they underwent many changes. Today there is a totál of about 50,000 characters, of which somé 5,000 are in generál use. The characters, as now written, have lost their pictorial quality. But their originál structure has remained. A large number of them have two pictorial symbols, one showing the pronunciation and the other the meaning. For example, the character meaning "ocean", is pronounced yang. This pronunciation comes from the right side, -f yang,which really means "sheep" or "goat" and was written originally as resembling a sheep's head. The left side, or radical > , means "water" and was written in early times as These two components combined give both the meaning and sound of the character . Other characters containing > are: (laké), Sí (river), & (to wash), & (to flow), (thirsty). Ali these have something to do with water. What is known in foreign countries as Chinese is actually the Han language, spoken by 94 per cent of the Chinese population. Although it has many dialects, there is a common speech which, based on the northern dialects spoken by 70 per cent of the Hans, takes the Peking pronunciation as its standard. The written form remains the same throughout the country and can be understood by everybody even though they speak different dialects. Today the common speech is taken as the standard pronunciation and is being steadily popularized throughout the country. Not only is it the common speech among all the Han people but it is alsó the princi- Vissza