The Popularity of Chinese Characters

Chinese characters are a key medium for communication in the Chinese language. They are also unique carriers of Chinese culture and "living fossils" of Chinese civilization. With nearly 6000 years of history, Chinese characters are one of the world's oldest scripts, and their users are not limited to Chinese people and include those in neighboring Korea, Vietnam, Japan, and beyond. Chinese characters promote cultural exchange between China and the rest of the world. In the Sui (581-618) and Tang (618-907) dynasties, a sphere with a shared cultural identity marked by Chinese characters, known as the "Chinese Character Culture Circle" gradually took shape.

The westward spread of Chinese characters only happened much later. Missionaries first introduced them to Europe during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1616-1911) dynasties. The introduction of the characters and grammar of the Chinese language satisfied a thirst for Oriental languages among European scholars. Missionaries compiled dictionaries and researched Chinese grammar to make it more available to Western linguists seeking to undertake comparative linguistic analyses of the Chinese language, which has continued unabated until this day.

漢字的傳播

漢字是漢語(yǔ)的載體，是中國(guó)文化的獨(dú)特形式，是記錄華夏文明的“活化石”。作為世界上最古老的文字之一，漢字已有6000年左右的歷史。漢字不僅為中國(guó)人所使用，而且傳入與中國(guó)鄰近的朝鮮、越南和日本并遠(yuǎn)播海外，推動(dòng)和促進(jìn)了中外文化交流。從漢字的流傳及使用的歷史來(lái)看，到了隋唐時(shí)期，東亞地區(qū)已開始形成一個(gè)以漢字為標(biāo)志的、在文化上有共同特色的區(qū)域，即“漢字文化圈”。

漢字的西傳則相對(duì)要晚得多。明清之際來(lái)華傳教士首先向歐洲介紹漢字。中國(guó)漢字的西傳及對(duì)漢語(yǔ)語(yǔ)法的介紹，一方面滿足了歐洲學(xué)者對(duì)于東方語(yǔ)言的興趣，另一方面，傳教士所提供的漢語(yǔ)詞典及語(yǔ)法文獻(xiàn)，直接促使西方語(yǔ)言學(xué)家從比較語(yǔ)言學(xué)的角度對(duì)中國(guó)語(yǔ)言開展研究，直至今日仍方興未艾。