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Chinese Characters - Some Interesting Facts

Among Chinese characters there are two characters which have only one stroke, they are “一”(one ) and “乙”(the second of the ten Celestial Stems),the most complicated simplified character has 36 strokes, it is “齉”nàng (snuffling).
Majority of Chinese characters consist of 9-strokes, it is about 11,1%, after them follow 10 and 8-strokes characters.
 
 Majority of Chinese characters belong to pictophonetic group and formed by two parts: the meaning element and the sound element. Ancient Chinese book 《说文解字》(Explanation of Chinese Characters) includes 9395 characters, 82% of them are pictophonetic characters.  
60-67% of Chinese characters have left-right structure, character components are written in direction from left to right.
 
The most common character in articles in Chinese Characters Dictionary is “的”(reserved word), it appears ones for every 25 characters.
The most popular character component is “口”(mouth), about 20 from 100 characters have "mouth" component is their structure.
Few Chinese characters have different readings, character “那”has 8 different readings and as a result different meanings.
 
A small group of Chinese characters are formed by doubling, trebling or even quadrupling the same character component. Some of these characters are not used in modern Chinese language, some of them are often chosen for people's names, but each of these characters can be served as a good sample of associative logic of the Chinese.
zhòng – three “men” - crowd
pǐn - three "mouths" – product, thing; grade
huà (old variant of character 话) – three “tongues” - speech, talk
niè (traditional form of character 聂) – three “ears” - whisper, Chinese surname Nie.
mò – three “eyes” - look nice
pá – three “hands” – pickpocket
ruǐ (old variant of character 蕊) – three “hearts” - pistil
cuì – three “hairs”- fine hair on animals
tà – three “speech, speak” - speak quickly
biāo – three “dogs” - 1. dogs moving 2. whirlwind
biāo – three “horses” - the manner of horses galloping
bēn – three “cows” - to run quickly
shān (old character, the same as 膻) – three “sheep” - the smell of mutton
cū (the same as粗) – three “deer” - rough; coarse
xiān (old character, the same as 鲜) – three “fish” – fresh
chóng (traditional form of character 虫) – three “insects” - insect
jiān (traditional form of simplified character 奸) – three “women”- evil; wicked commit adultery
zhuǎn – three “sons”- orphan
lěi – three “stones”- pile of stones; stout
yàn – three “fire” - flame of fire
yì – four “fire” – used in personal name
miǎo – three “water”- expanse of water stretches as far as the eye can see
yáo — three “soil” - mound; often used in personal name
xīn – three “gold” - used in personal name
bì – three “sea shells” - strong
sēn – three “trees”- forest
jīng – three “suns”- crystal, brilliant.
bìng – three “thunder” - imitation of thunder sound
lǎng (old character, the same as朗) – three “moons”- bright; loud and clear
léi – three “fields” - fields divided by dikes
xún (old character, the same as 泉) – three “fountains, springs” - spring, font
hōng (the same as 轰) – three “vehicles” - rumble
lí – three “knives” - family name Li
sè (old character, the same as 涩) – three “detain” - harsh
xié (old character, the same as 协) – three “power” - cooperate
mó (old character, the same as麽) – three “small”- tiny
xīn (old character, the same as馨) – three “fragrant” - strong and pervasive fragrance
xiǎo – three “white” – bright
zhé (old character, the same 哲) - three “luck” - wise, sagacious
chù – three “straight” - rising sharply
fēi – three traditional forms of simplified character 飞 “fly” - fly



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Created on: Jul 10th, 2009 - 10:59

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