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:
“I prize the purity of his character as highly as I do that of hers. As a moral being, whatever it is morally wrong for her to do, it is morally wrong for him to do. The fallacious doctrine of male and female virtues has well nigh ruined all that is morally great and lovely in his character: he has been quite as deep a sufferer by it as woman, though mostly in different respects and by other processes.”
—Angelina Grimké (1805–1879)