The history of Chinese characters dates back to ancient times, with the history of at least several thousand years.
There are many tales and legends about the origin of hanzi, Chinese characters: there is Cangjie, the legendary inventor of Chinese characters; the ancient practice of knot-tying: the eight trigrams (八卦); and ancient painting legends to name a few. It is generally agreed that hanzi began as simple pictures, images that the ancient Chinese people drew, painted or carved to describe nature or their lives. Other ancient cultures developed picture-based writing systems as well, such as the hieroglyphs(象形文字) of ancient Egypt or the script of the ancient Mayan civilization. Hanzi, however, is the only one of these ancient writing systems to survive.
Today, Chinese characters are the oldest continuously used system of writing in the world. Researchers agree that the oldest symbols recognizable as Chinese characters are those found on ancient oracle bones (甲骨文). These 3000-year-old symbols, known as jiaguwen, were carved on turtle shells or bones of animals. The jiaguwen can give all of us in the modern era insight into how ancient Chinese saw the world around them and into their great creativity in expressing their observations. Take, for example, the modern character jia, meaning home or family. The jiaguwen character looks like a house with a nice pig inside, originating from the ancient idea that a good family home has plenty of food. Over thousands of years, this hanzi evolved into a variety of different forms but finally developed in a more stable manner after the unification of China under Emperor Qinshihuan.
When you first look at Chinese characters, you will most likely feel that they are very complicated. However, if you know just a little about how these characters are formed, you will find that they are not nearly as difficult as they seem. About 80% of Chinese characters are composed of small parts, known as radicals (部首), which are combined in many different ways to form tens of thousands of hanzi. Fortunately, you need to know only about two or three thousand characters for use in daily life!
As China takes its place in the international community, the Chinese writing system has spread to other countries. Today, many international students are studying Chinese, both the spoken and written language, and are coming to appreciate China's fascinating culture. And, as Chine's culture and society have continued to develop, the amazingly versatile (多功能的) Chinese characters( hanzi) have been adapted for use in digital format on computers and other devices, And so written Chinese lives on, spreading Chinese culture wherever it goes.
【小题1】According to the passage, we can learn that Chinese characters________.| A．have a long history with seven thousand years. |
| B．began as simple pictures |
| C．are the only one ancient writing system |
| D．are so complicated that nobody can understand |
| A．Because he was the inventor of Chinese character |
| B．Because hanzi evolved into a variety of different forms |
| C．Because he helped developed hanzi in a more stable manner. |
| D．Because he unified China and created hanzi |
| A．Radicals are smaller parts which can be combined to form hanzi. |
| B．Chinese characters are composed of radicals. |
| C．Chinese characters can be combined. |
| D．Radicals can be combined into thousands of hanzi only. |
| A．The relation between Chinese characters and Chinese culture. |
| B．Tips for foreigners on how to learn Chinese well. |
| C．Another Chinese traditional culture |
| D．The origin of Chinese characters. |
| A．The jiaguwen is known as the oldest Chinese character. |
| B．From the jiaguwen, we can know how ancient Chinese saw the world. |
| C．the jiaguwen was invented 3000 years ago. |
| D．We can find the jiaguwen on turtle bones. |
