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 ...

Mandarin Chinese is spoken by over a billion people across Asia and around the globe, making it a useful language for travelers to know. Learning pinyin, which romanizes Chinese characters, can ...

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 ...