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Are Chinese symbols pictures or real
words?
Many people like to ask whether Chinese writing symbols are written
words or pictures. It is an interesting question. At the early stage, most Chinese words (writing symbols) were
formed based upon the pictures of real objects. Most of these Chinese symbols' meanings can be expressed directly by
their shape or the way they look. We call these Chinese writing characters "pictographic characters".
The symbol given above is Chinese character for "Human".Does "human"
in in Chinese look like a real personstanding with his or her legs apart? Or can you resemble it to a human walking past
you on the street? Have a close look at this Chinese writing symbol's structure 人, does it look
like that?
The Chinese character for "Field" is also a typical pictographic
character, as is shown on the right. It look like a field, a square shaped field with crisscross footpaths, doesn't it!
On the left is the Chinese character for "Mountain".
It is also a pictographic character. Do you think it looks like a moutain peaks rise from the horizon?
The Chinese symbol for mouth is presented on the left.
It is so easy to get recognized. It was created directly based upon the picture of our mouths, although our mouths can not
be exactly square shaped ... |