this is the navigation of this web page
Chinese(中文; Zhōngwén,especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the world's population) speak a variety of Chinese as their first language.
The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty. As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate a unified standard.
Chinese characters, also known as Hanzi, make up the written form of the language. Each character represents a word or a morpheme, which is a meaningful unit of language. Unlike alphabetic writing systems, such as English, where letters represent sounds, Chinese characters convey both meaning and pronunciation. There are thousands of characters in the Chinese writing system.
Mandarin Chinese, the most widely spoken dialect, is a tonal language. This means that the pitch or tone in which a word is spoken can change its meaning. Mandarin has four main tones and a neutral tone, each of which can alter the meaning of a word. For example, the word "ma" can mean "mother," "horse," "scold," or "hemp" depending on the tone used.
Chinese characters can be written in two main forms: simplified and traditional. Simplified characters were introduced in the 1950s in mainland China to increase literacy rates by simplifying the writing system. Traditional characters are still used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other Chinese-speaking communities outside mainland China.
Unlike many languages that use alphabets or syllabaries, Chinese does not have a native alphabet. This makes learning to read and write Chinese characters a significant challenge for learners. Instead, it relies on a system of strokes and radicals, which are components or building blocks of characters.