Chinese Characters Across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese
Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2025
While other ancient nonalphabetic scripts—Sumerian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Mayan hie... more While other ancient nonalphabetic scripts—Sumerian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Mayan hieroglyphs—are long extinct, Chinese characters, invented over three thousand years ago, are today used by well over a billion people to write Chinese and Japanese. In medieval East Asia, the written Classical Chinese language knit the region together in a common intellectual enterprise that encompassed religion, philosophy, historiography, political theory, art, and literature. Literacy in Classical Chinese set the stage for the adaptation of Chinese characters into ways of writing non-Chinese languages like Vietnamese and Korean, which differ dramatically from Chinese in vocabularies and grammatical structures.
Because of its unique status in the modern world, myths and misunderstandings about Chinese characters abound. Where does this writing system, so different in form and function from alphabetic writing, come from? How does it really work? How did it come to be used to write non-Chinese languages? And why has it proven so resilient? By exploring the spread and adaptation of the script across two millennia and thousands of miles, Chinese Characters across Asia addresses these questions and provides insights into human cognition and culture. Written in an approachable style and meant for readers with no prior knowledge of Chinese script or Asian languages, it presents a fascinating story that challenges assumptions about speech and writing.
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Books by Zev Handel
Because of its unique status in the modern world, myths and misunderstandings about Chinese characters abound. Where does this writing system, so different in form and function from alphabetic writing, come from? How does it really work? How did it come to be used to write non-Chinese languages? And why has it proven so resilient? By exploring the spread and adaptation of the script across two millennia and thousands of miles, Chinese Characters across Asia addresses these questions and provides insights into human cognition and culture. Written in an approachable style and meant for readers with no prior knowledge of Chinese script or Asian languages, it presents a fascinating story that challenges assumptions about speech and writing.
ILONA ZSOLNAY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION. ILONA ZSOLNAY
SECTION ONE: EXPERIENTIAL WRITING
CHAPTER ONE. TEXT IN CONTEXT: RELIEF AND HIERARCHY ON PIEDRAS NEGRAS PANEL 3
CLAUDIA BRITTENHAM, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
CHAPTER TWO. THE ICONICITY OF THE VERTICAL: HIEROGLYPHIC ENCODING
AND THE AKHET IN ROYAL BURIAL CHAMBERS OF EGYPT’S NEW KINGDOM
JOSHUA ROBERSON, UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS
CHAPTER THREE. FOR THE EYE ONLY: ASPECTS OF THE VISUAL TEXT IN ANCIENT EGYPT
ANDRÉAS STAUDER, ÉCOLE PRATIQUE DES HAUTES ÉTUDES, UNIVERSITÉ PARIS SCIENCES ET LETTRES (UMR 8167 AOROC)
SECTION TWO: CLASSIFIERS
CHAPTER FOUR. ANIMAL CATEGORIZATION IN MESOPOTAMIA AND THE ORIGINS OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
GEBHARD SELZ, VIENNA UNIVERSITY
CHAPTER FIVE. WAS THERE AN “ANIMAL” IN ANCIENT EGYPT? STUDIES IN LEXICA AND CLASSIFIER SYSTEMS, WITH A GLIMPSE TOWARDS SUMER
ORLY GOLDWASSER, HEBREW UNIVERSITY
CHAPTER SIX. THE COGNITIVE ROLE OF SEMANTIC CLASSIFIERS IN MODERN CHINESE WRITING
AS REFLECTED IN NEOGRAM CREATION
ZEV HANDEL, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE
CHAPTER SEVEN. ICONIC AND GRAMMATICAL DIMENSIONS OF SIGN LANGUAGE CLASSIFIERS
DIANE BRENTARI, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
SECTION THREE: SCRIPT EVOLUTIONS
CHAPTER EIGHT. ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN SCRIPTS IN BRONZE AGE ASIA MINOR
ELISABETH RIEKEN AND ILYA YAKUBOVICH, UNIVERSITY OF MARBURG
CHAPTER NINE. ICONICITY, COMPOSITION AND SEMANTICS:
A STRUCTURAL INVESTIGATION OF PICTURES IN AN EARLY WRITING ENVIRONMENT
HOLLY PITTMAN, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
CHAPTER TEN. ABa AND ABb, A MEMOIR, OR THE CURIOUS CASE OF NIĜIN/NANŠE SIGNIFICATION
ILONA ZSOLNAY, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
SECTION FOUR: RESPONSE
HAICHENG WANG, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE
The aim of this study is to carry out a new comparison between OC and TB, taking into account these advances, in order to refine our understanding of OC, and to arrive at a clearer picture of Proto-Sino-Tibetan [PST], the presumed common ancestor of OC and PTB.
The study focuses on one of the components of the Old Chinese syllable that is presently least well understood, since it is precisely where internal Chinese evidence is inconclusive that we can appeal most profitably to the application of Sino-Tibetan comparison. There is general agreement in the field of Old Chinese historical phonology about the nature of simple initial consonants and endings. It is the intervening elements—medials and vowels—about which the greatest uncertainty and controversy still exists. Clarifying the reconstruction of these elements in Old Chinese would help us to better understand the structure of the Old Chinese syllable, the nature of the vowel system as a whole, and the type and extent of consonant cluster initials. I have chosen to structure the study around medial elements, since these are in a very concrete sense central to the Old Chinese syllable, and their reconstruction touches directly on a number of crucial issues in OC reconstruction.
It is hoped that this study will be of value both to specialists in the fields of Chinese and Tibeto-Burman historical linguistics and to the general Sinologist. New proposals regarding the reconstruction of Old Chinese words are placed at the beginning of each chapter for easy reference, and are also summarized in the final chapter. Supporting data and detailed discussion follow these proposals. All Chinese and Tibeto-Burman forms referenced in the study, along with my proposed reconstructions for the Chinese forms, can be found in the indices and appendices.
Papers by Zev Handel
1997 年，我的老師丁邦新教授發表了名為〈重紐的介音差異〉的一篇文章。這篇文章 沒有得到應有的關注。在本文中，我對於丁老師寫作的文章內容進行了總結和評論。在我 看來，他的文章對漢語歷史音韻學至少做出了三項重要貢獻:一、提出了上古漢語 *-r- 介 音在早期中古時代還存在著。二、根據漢越字音、漢韓字音等多種證據，展示了 -r- 介音 消失之後，重紐的語音差別發生變化，到了晚期中古時代就跟三等、四等的韻母分別合併， 這已反映在等韻圖的結構中。三、為構擬上古漢語哪些字到底曾經有 *-r- 介音提供了證據。 儘管丁教授的文章已經發表了二十五年多了，但今天仍然和這個領域息息相關，值得我們 的關注。
Review of Yurou Zhong. Chinese Grammatology: Script Revolution and Literary Modernity, 1916-1958. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.