The Chinese character numeral system consists of the Chinese characters used by the Chinese written language to write spoken numerals. Similarly to spelled-out numbers in English (e.g., "one thousand nine hundred forty-five"), it is not an independent system per se. And since it reflects spoken language, it does not use the positional system as is done in Hindu-Arabic numerals, in the same way that spelling out numbers in English does not. See also:

Chinese numerals, Chinese numerals - Written numbers, Chinese numerals - Numeral characters, Chinese numerals - Constructing numbers, Chinese numerals - Large number systems, Chinese numerals - SI prefixes, Chinese numerals - Suzhou 蘇州 or huāmǎ 花碼 numerals, Chinese numerals - Hand gestures, Chinese numerals - Miscellaneous

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Chinese numerals, Chinese numerals - Written numbers, Chinese numerals - Numeral characters, Chinese numerals - Constructing numbers, Chinese numerals - Large number systems, Chinese numerals - SI prefixes, Chinese numerals - Suzhou 蘇州 or huāmǎ 花碼 numerals, Chinese numerals - Hand gestures, Chinese numerals - Miscellaneous

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Just like Ancient Englishman used the Roman numerals for doing mathematics or commerce, Ancient Chinese used the rod numerals which is a positional system. The huāmǎ system is a variation of the rod numeral system. Rod numerals are closely related to the counting rods and the abacus, which is why the numeric symbols for 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8 in the huāmǎ system are represented in a similar way as on the abacus. Nowadays, the huāmǎ system is only used for displaying prices in Chinese markets or on traditional h ...

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Chinese numerals, Chinese numerals - Written numbers, Chinese numerals - Numeral characters, Chinese numerals - Constructing numbers, Chinese numerals - Large number systems, Chinese numerals - SI prefixes, Chinese numerals - Suzhou 蘇州 or huāmǎ 花碼 numerals, Chinese numerals - Hand gestures, Chinese numerals - Miscellaneous

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Bases Base 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13,16, 20, 24, 26, 27, 30, 32, 36, 60, 64 Today, speakers of Chinese use three numeral systems: the ubiquitous system of Hindu-Arabic numerals, along with two ancient Chinese numeral systems. The huama (Chinese: 花碼; Hanyu Pinyin: huāmǎ, lit. "flowery or fancy numbers") system has gradually been supplanted by the Arabic system in writing numbers. T ...

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Chinese numerals - Written numbers
Chinese numerals - Numeral characters Chinese numerals - Constructing numbers Chinese numerals - Large number systems Chinese numerals - SI prefixes
Chinese numerals - Suzhou 蘇州 or huāmǎ 花碼 numerals Chinese numerals - Hand gestures Chinese numerals - Miscellaneous

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The map on the right depicts the subdivisions ("languages" or "dialect groups") within Chinese. The traditionally recognized seven main groups, in order of population size are: Mandarin 官話/官话 or 北方方言(old name) Wu 吳/吴 Cantonese 粵/粤 Min 閩/闽 Xiang 湘 Hakka 客家 or 客 Gan 贛/赣 In parentheses above are the culturally dominant or representativ ...

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Chinese language, Chinese language - Spoken Chinese, Chinese language - Language or language family?, Chinese language - Written Chinese, Chinese language - Chinese characters, Chinese language - History, Chinese language - Influence on other languages, Chinese language - Sounds, Chinese language - Romanization, Chinese language - Other Transcriptions, Chinese language - Morphology, Chinese language - Loanwords, Chinese language - Grammar

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The relationship among the Chinese spoken and written languages is complex. It is compounded by the fact that spoken variations evolved for centuries, since at least the late Han Dynasty, while written Chinese changed much less. Until the 20th century, most formal Chinese writing was done in wényán (文言), translated as Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese, which was very different from any spoken variety of Chinese, much as Classical Latin differs from modern Romance languages. Since the May Fourth Movement of 1919, the f ...

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Chinese language, Chinese language - Spoken Chinese, Chinese language - Language or language family?, Chinese language - Written Chinese, Chinese language - Chinese characters, Chinese language - History, Chinese language - Influence on other languages, Chinese language - Sounds, Chinese language - Romanization, Chinese language - Other Transcriptions, Chinese language - Morphology, Chinese language - Loanwords, Chinese language - Grammar

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Most linguists classify all of the variations of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family and believe that there was an original language, called Proto-Sino-Tibetan, similar to Proto-Indo-European, from which the Sinitic and Tibeto-Burman languages descended. The relations between Chinese and other Sino-Tibetan languages are an area of active research, as is the attempt to reconstruct Proto-Sino-Tibetan. The main difficulty in this effort is that, while there is very good documentation that allows us to reconstruct the ancient sou ...

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Chinese language, Chinese language - Spoken Chinese, Chinese language - Language or language family?, Chinese language - Written Chinese, Chinese language - Chinese characters, Chinese language - History, Chinese language - Influence on other languages, Chinese language - Sounds, Chinese language - Romanization, Chinese language - Other Transcriptions, Chinese language - Morphology, Chinese language - Loanwords, Chinese language - Grammar

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The Chinese language (汉语/漢語, Pinyin: Hànyǔ, 华语/華語, Huáyǔ or 中文, Zhōngwén) forms part of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. About one-fifth of the people in the world speak some form of Chinese as their native language, making it the language with the most native speakers. In general, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. However, Chinese is also distinguished for a high level of internal diversity. Regional variation between different variants/dialects is comparable t ...

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Chinese language - Spoken Chinese
Chinese language - Language or language family?
Chinese language - Written Chinese
Chinese language - Chinese characters
Chinese language - History Chinese language - Influence on other languages Chinese language - Sounds Chinese language - Romanization Chinese language - Other Transcriptions Chinese language - Morphology
Chinese language - Loanwords
Chinese language - Grammar

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Throughout history Chinese culture and politics has had a great influence on unrelated languages such as Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese. Korean and Japanese both have writing systems employing Chinese characters (Hanzi), which are called Hanja and Kanji, respectively. The Vietnamese term for Chinese writing is Han Tu. It was the only available form to write the Vietnamese until the 14th century, used almost exclusively by Chinese-educated Vietnamese elites. From the 14th till late 19th century, Vietnamese was written with Chu Nom, a ...

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Chinese language, Chinese language - Spoken Chinese, Chinese language - Language or language family?, Chinese language - Written Chinese, Chinese language - Chinese characters, Chinese language - History, Chinese language - Influence on other languages, Chinese language - Sounds, Chinese language - Romanization, Chinese language - Other Transcriptions, Chinese language - Morphology, Chinese language - Loanwords, Chinese language - Grammar

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The phonological structure of each syllable consists of a nucleus consisting of a vowel (which can be a monophthong, diphthong, or even a triphthong in certain varieties) with an optional onset or coda consonant as well as a tone. There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where the nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. Across all t ...

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Chinese language, Chinese language - Spoken Chinese, Chinese language - Language or language family?, Chinese language - Written Chinese, Chinese language - Chinese characters, Chinese language - History, Chinese language - Influence on other languages, Chinese language - Sounds, Chinese language - Romanization, Chinese language - Other Transcriptions, Chinese language - Morphology, Chinese language - Loanwords, Chinese language - Grammar

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Romanization is the process of transcribing a language in the Latin alphabet. There are many systems of romanization for the Chinese languages; this is due to the complex history of interaction between China and the West, and to the Chinese languages' lack of phonetic transcription until modern times. Chinese is first known to have been written in Latin characters by Western Christian missionaries of the 16th century, but may be written down by West ...

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Chinese language, Chinese language - Spoken Chinese, Chinese language - Language or language family?, Chinese language - Written Chinese, Chinese language - Chinese characters, Chinese language - History, Chinese language - Influence on other languages, Chinese language - Sounds, Chinese language - Romanization, Chinese language - Other Transcriptions, Chinese language - Morphology, Chinese language - Loanwords, Chinese language - Grammar

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Chinese languages have been phonetically transcribed into many other writing systems over the centuries. The phagsba script, for example, has been very helpful in reconstructing the pronunciation of pre-modern forms of Chinese. Zhuyin is still widely used in Taiwan's elementary schools. A comparison table of Zhuyin to Pinyin exists in the Zhuyin page. Syllables based on Pinyin and Zhuyin can also be compared by looking at the following pages: Pinyin table Zhuyin table There are also at least two systems of cyrillization ...

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Chinese language, Chinese language - Spoken Chinese, Chinese language - Language or language family?, Chinese language - Written Chinese, Chinese language - Chinese characters, Chinese language - History, Chinese language - Influence on other languages, Chinese language - Sounds, Chinese language - Romanization, Chinese language - Other Transcriptions, Chinese language - Morphology, Chinese language - Loanwords, Chinese language - Grammar

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Chinese morphology is strictly bound to a set number of syllables with a fairly rigid construction which are the morphemes, the smallest building blocks, of the language. Some of these single-syllable morphemes can stand alone as individual words, but contrary to what is often claimed, Chinese is not a monosyllabic language. Most words in the modern Chinese spoken varieties are in fact multisyllabic, consisting of more than one morphem ...

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Chinese language, Chinese language - Spoken Chinese, Chinese language - Language or language family?, Chinese language - Written Chinese, Chinese language - Chinese characters, Chinese language - History, Chinese language - Influence on other languages, Chinese language - Sounds, Chinese language - Romanization, Chinese language - Other Transcriptions, Chinese language - Morphology, Chinese language - Loanwords, Chinese language - Grammar

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In general, all spoken varieties of Chinese are isolating languages, in that they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure) rather than morphology (changes in the form of the word through inflection). Because they are isolating languages, they make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood. Chinese features Subject Verb Object word order, and like many other languages in East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic-comment construction to form sentences. Even though Chinese has no grammatical gender, it h ...

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Chinese language, Chinese language - Spoken Chinese, Chinese language - Language or language family?, Chinese language - Written Chinese, Chinese language - Chinese characters, Chinese language - History, Chinese language - Influence on other languages, Chinese language - Sounds, Chinese language - Romanization, Chinese language - Other Transcriptions, Chinese language - Morphology, Chinese language - Loanwords, Chinese language - Grammar

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The map on the right depicts the subdivisions ("languages" or "dialect groups") within Chinese. The traditionally recognized seven main groups, in order of population size are: Mandarin 北方 or 官話/官话 (old name) Wu 吳/吴 Cantonese 粵/粤 Min 閩/闽 Xiang 湘 Hakka 客家 or 客 Gan 贛/赣 Chinese linguists have recently distinguished 3 more groups from the traditional seven: Jin 晉/晋 from Mandarin Hui 徽 from Wu ...

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Chinese language, Chinese language - Spoken Chinese, Chinese language - Language or language family?, Chinese language - Written Chinese, Chinese language - Chinese characters, Chinese language - History, Chinese language - Influence on other languages, Chinese language - Sounds, Chinese language - Romanization, Chinese language - Other Transcriptions, Chinese language - Morphology, Chinese language - Loanwords, Chinese language - Grammar

Read more here: » Chinese language: Encyclopedia II - Chinese language - Spoken Chinese

The map on the right depicts the subdivisions ("languages" or "dialect groups") within Chinese. The traditionally recognized seven main groups, in order of population size are: Mandarin 北方话/北方話 or 官話/官话 (old name) Wu 吳/吴 Cantonese 粵/粤 Min 閩/闽 Xiang 湘 Hakka 客家 or 客 Gan 贛/赣 Chinese linguists have recently distinguished 3 more groups from the traditional seven: ...

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Chinese language, Chinese language - Spoken Chinese, Chinese language - Language or language family?, Chinese language - Written Chinese, Chinese language - Chinese characters, Chinese language - History, Chinese language - Influence on other languages, Chinese language - Sounds, Chinese language - Romanization, Chinese language - Other Transcriptions, Chinese language - Morphology, Chinese language - Loanwords, Chinese language - Grammar

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Written crosses are used for many different purposes, particularly in mathematics. The Roman numeral for ten is X. In the Latin alphabet, the letter X and the miniscule form of T are crosses. The Chinese character for ten is 十 (see Chinese numerals). The dagger or obelus (†) The addition (or plus) sign (+) and the multiplication (or times) sign (×). If n≥1 is an integer, the numbers coprime to n, taken modulo n, form a group with multiplication as operation; it is written as (Z/nZ)× or ...

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Cross, Cross - History, Cross - As markings, Cross - As emblems and symbols, Cross - In heraldry, Cross - In flags, Cross - Other noteworthy crosses

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Three is often the largest number written with as many lines as the number represents. The Romans tired of writing 4 as IIII, but to this day 3 is written as three lines in Roman and Chinese numerals. This was the way the Brahmin Indians wrote it, and the Gupta made the three lines more curved. The Nagari started rotating the lines clockwise and ending each line with a slight downward stroke on the right. Eventually they made these strokes connect with the lines below, and evolved it to a character that looks very much like a modern ...

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3 number, 3 number - In mathematics, 3 number - The Arabic glyph, 3 number - In human culture, 3 number - In science, 3 number - In technology, 3 number - In music, 3 number - In sports, 3 number - In other fields

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Nine (九 pinyin jiǔ) is considered a good number in Chinese culture because it sounds the same as the word "longlasting" (久 pinyin jiǔ). The Japanese consider 9 to be unlucky, however. According to Anton Szandor LaVey, as written on his book The Satanic Rituals, 9 is the number of Satan. In Thai language, the word for nine, 'gao', is the same as the verb for 'to develop or progress'. ...

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9 number, 9 number - In mathematics, 9 number - In numeral systems, 9 number - The Arabic glyph, 9 number - As lucky or unlucky number, 9 number - In science, 9 number - In music, 9 number - In sports, 9 number - In technology, 9 number - In other fields

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Nine (九 pinyin jiǔ) is considered a good number in Chinese culture because it sounds the same as the word "longlasting" (久 pinyin jiǔ). The Japanese consider 9 to be unlucky, however. According to Anton Szandor LaVey, as written on his book The Satanic Rituals, 9 is the number of Satan. In Thai language, the word for nine, 'gao', is the same as the verb for 'to develop or progress'. ...

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9 number, 9 number - In mathematics, 9 number - In numeral systems, 9 number - The Arabic glyph, 9 number - As lucky or unlucky number, 9 number - In astronomy, 9 number - In music, 9 number - In sports, 9 number - In technology, 9 number - In other fields

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