After the appearance of Chinese characters in the form of shell bone script, they continued to develop and have now formed approximately 90,000 characters. However, since the Han Dynasty, very few new characters have been added to the Chinese character dictionary. In contrast, English has approximately 600,000 defined words and continues to add 800-1000 new words each year. It is said that among the texts of various languages in the United Nations, Chinese text uses the fewest characters.
Why is it that only a few Chinese characters can express all meanings, while English requires tens of thousands of words? Why have Chinese doesn’t need to create new characters?
Some may say, "What about new Chinese vocabulary such as tanks, lasers, and the Internet? These are new words, but they are all made up of existing Chinese characters. What I am referring to are the smallest units of the Chinese language: the characters.
So how did Chinese characters manage to avoid the need for new characters? Let's take a look at the development of Chinese characters and the Chinese language.
The development of Chinese characters can be roughly divided into three stages:
Pictograms-象形字 ---> Ideograms – 会意字 (associative compounds) phrases ---> 词组 (two or more characters formed word).
Pictograms (which are similar to Indicative character - 指事字) generally represent objects with a specific shape, such as fire – 火 (which has a visible flame), mountains – 山, trees – 木, cars – 车, earth – 土, water – 水, horses – 马, and cows – 牛. They are independent characters, each one could not be divided to meaningful sub-parts.
会意字 is formed by two or more independent characters, such as good - 好（lady + child); bright - 明（sun + moon);
词组 is composed of individual and combined characters, such as 大山 (big mountain), 好看（gook looking), 明天（ tomorrow).
Let see examples.
火-flame (independent character）
---> 焚-burn (compound character) ---> 焚烧 - burn (phrase）
---> 灾- disaster(compound character） ---> 灾害 - disaster (phrase)
---> 炎- hot (compound character） ---> 炎热- hot (phrase）
---> 炒 - cook (compound character） ---> 炒菜 - cook meal (phrase）
象形字（independent character) can only express physical object with shape, such as 火 - flame above.
会意字（compound character, formed by two or more independent characters) can express verbs, adjectives which has no physical shape, such as 焚，灾，炎，炒。
词组（phrase, formed by two or more characters), can express anything from objective, subjective, adjective, etc. with or without physical existence. such as 焚烧，灾害，炎热，炒菜。
Independent character could form phrase (词组）directly, not necessarily go through the compound characters.
火 (independent character) ---> 火车 - train (phrase）
---> 火柴 - match（phrase）
---> 火速 - fast (phrase）
Another example
车 - vehicle (independent character)
---> 轻 - light (compound character) ---> 轻声 - low voice (phrase)
---> 输 - lose (compound character) ---> 输球 - lost game (phrase)
---> 阵 - position (compound character) ---> 雷阵雨 - thundershowers (phrase)
车 directly forms phrase.
车 (independent character) ---> 火车 - train (phrase)
---> 汽车 - car (phrase)
---> 马车 - carriage (phrase)
火车 comes from 火 and 车. 火车 is formed by two existing characters: 火 and 车. In English, we need Fire, Vehicle, and Train three words.
马车 comes from 马 and 车. 马车 is formed by two existing characters: 马 and 车. In English, we need Horse, Vehicle, and Carriage, three words.
Most Chinese characters are compound characters, formed by existing independent characters. For example, the compound characters mentioned earlier, such as burn – 焚, and disaster – 灾, as well as many others like red – 红, good – 好, smell – 闻, open – 张, run – 驰, drunk – 醉, and dizzy – 晕, all are formed by existing independent characters.
How many are there independent characters in Chinese? It is said about 400+. Even though the exactly number is not known right now, but it should be hundreds, not thousands of independent characters. They formed 90,000 + all characters, and more words.
The transition from pictograms to ideograms was the first leap in the development of Chinese characters, expanding them from being able to only represent concrete nouns with a specific shape to being able to represent verbs and adjectives without physical object shape, greatly enriching their expressive ability. Ancient Chinese was composed of Chinese characters and was very concise and refined.
However, Chinese characters have too many homophones, which can easily cause misunderstandings in spoken language contexts. Furthermore, some things require very detailed distinctions, such as big horse/small horse, red cloth/blue cloth, planting melons/planting vegetables, etc. It is not feasible to create a new character for every meaning, which would be difficult and time-consuming. Thus, phrases were created: two or more characters combined to express complex meanings. Phrases with more than two characters also greatly reduce the misunderstandings caused by homophones. For example, the character for rat – 鼠might be heard as 数 - count，暑 - heat，蜀 (ancient state in Sichuan)，黍 - broomcorn millet，沭 – A river name，叔 – uncle，曙 - dawn, while the phrase for mouse – 老鼠 immediately eliminates any misunderstandings. This also explains why phrases in vernacular Chinese far outnumber those in classical Chinese, as vernacular Chinese originates from spoken language and phrases can reduce misunderstandings in spoken language.
The entry of Chinese characters into phrase expression marks the second leap in the expression of Chinese characters. It enables Chinese characters to cover the vast majority of meanings and express even the smallest differences in a very precise way, such as deep red – 深红, light red – 浅红, dark red – 暗红, and so on.
The other advantage of phrases is that they can be assembled. When new things appear, people can assemble phrases based on their meaning to express them. For example, in ancient times, there were no trains. When trains appeared, people added the character for "vehicle"- 车 behind "fire" – 火 to create the new word "train" – 火车 without the need to create a new character specifically for "train." Lighters – 打火机did not exist in ancient times, but they can be assembled 打，火，机 into 打火机- "lighter" to express them. Modern new nouns are all formed by assembling existing Chinese characters into phrases to express them, such as computer – 计算机, refrigerator – 电冰箱, airplane – 飞机, satellite – 卫星, laser – 激光, email – 电邮, car – 汽车, cancer – 癌症, diabetes – 糖尿病, insulin – 胰岛素, insecticide – 杀虫剂, and so on. No matter what new thing it is, Chinese characters are sufficient to assemble new phrases to express it based on its meaning. English, on the other hand, has some combined words to express new things, such as Wash-machine, Super-market, High-way, etc. but it also has to create new words to express new stuffs, which results in the need for English to constantly expand its vocabulary, especially in the fields of medicine, chemistry, biology, and computer science. Chinese characters, on the other hand, are sufficient to assemble phrases by using the Chinese characters left by the ancestors.
This is the power and charm of Chinese characters. Our ancestors created pictographic characters for us, and characters are just pictures. They are the most interesting and easiest characters in the world. Then, by composing phrases, any needed meaning can be expressed by phrases, and new characters are basically unnecessary, keeping the total number of characters from increasing.
Note: Update information
1, Amazing Chinese Characters blog has changed name to Learn Chinese with Pictography, and changed its URL address too, the new URL is
Learn Chinese with Pictography.blogspot.com/
2, Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy blog has changed name to Chinese Pictographic Calligraphy, and the new URL is
Chinese Pictographic Calligraphy.blogspot.com/
You are welcome to access the new sites for Chinese learning. Please update your bookmarks.
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