{"id":25,"date":"2022-07-20T11:26:40","date_gmt":"2022-07-20T15:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/platform-for-chinese\/?page_id=25"},"modified":"2023-05-29T19:57:31","modified_gmt":"2023-05-29T23:57:31","slug":"the-6-formation-of-characters","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/the-6-formation-of-characters\/","title":{"rendered":"The Six Formations of Characters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chinese writing is represented by \u201ccharacters\uff08\u6c49\u5b57, h\u00e0nz\u00ec\uff09,\u201d and characters\uff08\u6c49\u5b57, h\u00e0nz\u00ec\uff09are shared by people who speak different dialects in China. Each character represents a syllable. In Han dynasty(202BC-9AD, 25-220AD), the structure of the characters were analyzed and classified systematically into six types, pictographs(\u8c61\u5f62, <em>xi\u00e0ngx\u00edng<\/em>), \u00a0indicative or self-explanatory(\u6307\u4e8b;\u00a0<em>zh\u01d0sh\u00ec<\/em>) , compound ideographs or associative compounds (\u4f1a\u610f;\u00a0<em>hu\u00ecy\u00ec<\/em>), \u00a0phono-semantic\u00a0or picto-phonetic compounds (\u5f62\u58f0;\u00a0<em>x\u00edngsh\u0113ng<\/em>), rebus or phonetic loan characters (\u5047\u501f;\u00a0<em>ji\u01ceji\u00e8<\/em>) , and mutually explanatory characters (\u8f6c\u6ce8;\u00a0<em>zhu\u01cen zh\u00f9<\/em>) \uff08the latter two are considered as ways of using characters not ways to create characters\uff09.<\/p>\n<p>A popular myth is that Chinese characters are pictographic and that each character refers to a picture. Actually, there are only a handful pictographic characters and a number of ideographic or self-explanatory characters and associative characters, but the vast majority, about 80% of all characters, are phono-semantic or picto-phonetic characters.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>\u8c61\u5f62\u5b57<\/strong><strong>, <\/strong><strong><em>xi\u00e0ngx\u00edng<\/em><\/strong><strong> z\u00ec: pictographs, pictographic characters<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Examples,<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-95 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/platform-for-chinese\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/326\/2022\/10\/Slide1-300x169.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"619\" height=\"349\" srcset=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/326\/2022\/10\/Slide1-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/326\/2022\/10\/Slide1-700x394.png 700w, https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/326\/2022\/10\/Slide1.png 720w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 619px) 100vw, 619px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>2. \u6307\u4e8b\u5b57<\/strong><strong>,\u00a0zh\u01d0sh\u00ec z\u00ec: ideographic\u00a0or self-explanatory characters<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Examples,<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-102 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/platform-for-chinese\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/326\/2022\/10\/Slide2-300x86.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"551\" height=\"158\" srcset=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/326\/2022\/10\/Slide2-300x86.jpg 300w, https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/326\/2022\/10\/Slide2-700x200.jpg 700w, https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/326\/2022\/10\/Slide2.jpg 719w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 551px) 100vw, 551px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. \u4f1a\u610f\u5b57<\/strong><strong>, hu\u00ecy\u00ec z\u00ec: associative characters\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Examples,<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-103 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/platform-for-chinese\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/326\/2022\/10\/Slide3-300x85.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"593\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/326\/2022\/10\/Slide3-300x85.jpg 300w, https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/326\/2022\/10\/Slide3-700x199.jpg 700w, https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/326\/2022\/10\/Slide3.jpg 717w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 593px) 100vw, 593px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>4. <\/strong><strong>\u5f62\u58f0\u5b57<\/strong><strong>,\u00a0x\u00edngsh\u0113ng z\u00ec: phono-semantic\u00a0or picto-phonetic characters <\/strong><strong>\uff08<\/strong><strong>with one component indicating meaning and the other referring to the sound<\/strong><strong>\uff09<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Examples,<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-98 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/platform-for-chinese\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/326\/2022\/10\/Slide4-300x169.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"577\" height=\"325\" srcset=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/326\/2022\/10\/Slide4-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/326\/2022\/10\/Slide4-700x394.png 700w, https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/326\/2022\/10\/Slide4.png 720w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 577px) 100vw, 577px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-summary\">\nChinese writing is represented by \u201ccharacters\uff08\u6c49\u5b57, h\u00e0nz\u00ec\uff09,\u201d and characters\uff08\u6c49\u5b57, h\u00e0nz\u00ec\uff09are shared by&hellip;\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/the-6-formation-of-characters\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;The Six Formations of Characters&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4506,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-25","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4506"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3628,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25\/revisions\/3628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/chinesecharacters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}