Chinese Calligraphy: From Pictograph to Ideogram: The History of 214 Essential Chinese/Japanese Characters

Name: Chinese Calligraphy: From Pictograph to Ideogram: The History of 214 Essential Chinese/Japanese Characters
Brand: Abbeville Press
SKU: 9780789208705-G
Price: 19.54 EUR
Availability: OutOfStock
Rating: 5 (1 reviews)

By Edoardo Fazzioli

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Description

Written Chinese can call upon about 40,000 characters, many of which originated some 6,000 years ago as little pictures of everyday objects used by the ancients to communicate with one another. To convey more abstract ideas or concepts, the Chinese stylized and combined their pictographs. For instance, the character for "man"--a straight back above two strong legs--becomes, with the addition of a head and shoulders and arms held sternly akimbo, the character for "official." This book, modeled after a classic compilation of the Chinese language done in the 18th century, introduces readers to the 214 root pictographs or symbols upon which this writing system, whose rich complexities hold a wealth of cultural meaning, is based. These key characters, called radicals, are all delightfully presented in this volume, with their graphic development traced stage-by-stage to the present representation, where even now (in many of them) one can easily make out what was originally pictured--with the author's guidance. Centuries ago, when the Japanese took up writing, they also adopted these symbols, though they gave them different names in their own spoken language.

Product details

Binding:: Paperback
Edition:: 1
Number of Pages:: 252
Release Date:: 2005-09-15
Publication Date:: 2005-09-30
Publisher:: Abbeville Press
Languages:: Original: English
ISBN10:: 0789208709
ISBN13:: 9780789208705
Minimum Reading Age:: 6
Weight:: 685 g
Height:: 160 cm
Width:: 238 cm
Thickness:: 23 cm

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