Chinese Character Classification
All Chinese characters are logograms, but there are several derivative types. These include a handful which derive from pictograms (象形 pinyin: xiàngxíng) and a number which are ideographic (指事 zhǐshì) in origin, but the vast majority originated as phono-semantic compounds (形聲 xíngshēng). In older literature, Chinese characters in general may be referred to as ideograms, due to the misconception that characters represented ideas directly, whereas in fact they do so only through association with the spoken word. This article therefore covers the origin of these logographic characters, not their current function in the Chinese writing system.
Read more about Chinese Character Classification: Traditional Classification, Modern Classifications
Famous quotes containing the word character:
“We have good reason to believe that memories of early childhood do not persist in consciousness because of the absence or fragmentary character of language covering this period. Words serve as fixatives for mental images. . . . Even at the end of the second year of life when word tags exist for a number of objects in the child’s life, these words are discrete and do not yet bind together the parts of an experience or organize them in a way that can produce a coherent memory.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)