Chinese Characters - Other Languages

Other Languages

See also: Chinese family of scripts

Besides Chinese/Sinitic languages, Japanese/Japonic languages, Korean, and Vietnamese language (chữ Nôm), a number of smaller Asian languages have been written or continue to be written using Hanzi, characters modified from Hanzi, or Hanzi in combination with native characters. They include:

  • Bai language
  • Dong language
  • Iu Mien language
  • Jurchen language, Jurchen script
  • Khitan language, Khitan script
  • Miao languages
  • Nakhi (Naxi) language (Geba script)
  • Tangut language, Tangut script
  • Zhuang language (using Zhuang logograms, or "sawndip")
  • Sui script

In addition, the Yi script is similar to Hanzi, but is not known to be directly related to it.

Along with Persian and Arabic, Chinese characters were also used as a foreign script to write the Mongolian language, where characters were used to phonetically transcribe Mongolian sounds. Before the 13th century and the establishment of the Mongolian script, foreign scripts such as Chinese had to be used to write the Mongolian language. Most notably, the only surviving copies of The Secret History of the Mongols were written in such a manner; the Chinese characters 忙豁侖紐察 脫察安 (pinyin: mánghuōlúnniǔchá tuōchá'ān) is the rendering of Mongγol-un niγuca tobčiyan, the title in Mongolian.

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