Most of the world’s languages are written alphabetically; in an alphabetic writing system the basic components represent sounds only without any reference to meaning. For example, the letter “b” in ...

This research was conducted with Simon Jerome Han as lead author. Piers Kelly receives funding from an ARC DECRA Fellowship. Charles Kemp's work on this project was supported by an ARC Future ...

Few things in Chinese culture are more widely misunderstood outside of China than the Chinese language. The Chinese write very differently from us and indeed from all other literate societies in today ...

Two books on Chinese writing illustrate how tumultuous technological evolution can be. Every second of every day, someone is typing in Chinese. In a park in Hong Kong, at a desk in Taiwan, in the ...

Chronology of China -- Part I. Theories and Philosophies of Writing -- 1. The Nature of Chinese Writing -- 2. Traditions of Inquiry on Language and Writing -- 3. What Is Writing? -- Part II. The ...