What does the Chinese idiom mean? History of the expression: "Chinese letter"

Along the roads of millennia Drachuk Viktor Semenovich

"Chinese letter"

Modern Chinese writing, both in form and in method of application, is so different from ours that we have great difficulty in penetrating its essence. Everyone knows the common expression “Chinese literacy”, which involuntarily breaks out when you are faced with something that is extremely difficult or impossible to comprehend.

And this writing is unique and the most ancient of all that people of our time use. And it survived, the same age as ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and Sumerian cuneiform, only because it had a special path of development.

China of the 3rd century BC. The foundations of ancient Chinese culture had already been laid in the country. The religious and philosophical systems of Confucianism and Taoism were formed. The first collection of literary monuments appeared, “The Book of Songs” (Shijing), a collection of ancient Chinese folk poetry (it contains more than three hundred works dating back to the 11th–7th centuries BC), and “The Book of Changes” (Iijing), a monument to Chinese natural philosophy.

The period when China was unified into a centralized empire and the Great Wall of China was built. At this time, in 221 BC, a reform of Chinese writing was carried out, which streamlined the hieroglyphs and introduced a unified writing system for the entire country.

By that time, Chinese writing was an established ideographic system. Each hieroglyph stood for a separate word.

Sounding Chinese very unique and whimsical. In it, tonality, raising or lowering the pitch of the sound, is of particular importance. This feature of the Chinese language is very difficult for foreigners to grasp and assimilate. The same set of sounds (and there are many monosyllabic words in the Chinese language), depending on the key in which it is pronounced, has completely different meanings.

A word pronounced in a low tone takes on one meaning, in a rising tone - another, in a high tone - a third. Therefore, a li syllable written in Russian letters without indicating the tone of its pronunciation means nothing to a Chinese person. However, an intonated syllable has many independent meanings: strength, ritual, hill, grain, dominate, stand etc. Each meaning has a special sign by which the Chinese know which concept is meant.

Another feature of the Chinese language: it completely lacks grammatical forms and categories; it has no grammar. But there is a syntax that is different from ours. The order of words in a sentence is strictly defined. The same hieroglyph can be a verb, a noun, and an adjective. It all depends on what place the hieroglyph occupies in the sentence.

Hieroglyphs are written in vertical columns from right to left. The first word on the page is at the top and right, the last at the bottom and left.

Chinese writing, like most writing systems, originates from pictograms. The oldest monuments of Chinese writing from the second millennium BC, discovered in 1899 during excavations in Henan province, confirm this. The signs, which still retained the design of the object, but were already quite schematized and reminiscent of hieroglyphs, were applied to the bones of animals and the shells of turtles. These items were used for fortune telling. Scientists believe that the remains of the archives of the royal soothsayers have been found. The inscriptions are well preserved. Some bones are polished to a mirror shine.

The ritual of fortune telling was a very important ritual in life. ancient man. Without fortune telling they did not start a single serious business. The ceremony went like this. The bone with signs carved on it was burned on the reverse side with a bronze stick. The signs contained a question that needed to be answered. The outlines of the cracks that appeared when the bone was cauterized resembled some kind of hieroglyph and were considered answer signs.

In more late times, when the forms of the hieroglyphs changed so much that the original characters became incomprehensible, the ancient “oracle” bones were considered sacred and highly valued as a healing remedy. They were called “dragon bones” (“long gu”), ground into powder and added to various medicines.

The discovered written monuments, more than one hundred thousand, made it possible to trace the evolution of hieroglyphs.

However, not all of the ancient signs of Chinese writing have been deciphered, although decipherment began back in 1900. At first, experts, including Chinese, were unable to compose entire inscriptions. Only individual signs could be deciphered.

The decryption was carried out like this. They built a kind of series of signs for each hieroglyph, dating back to different times. Creating such an “evolutionary” series, scientists compared it with drawings on bones, similar in outline, and found out their meaning.

Following this path, they recognized a third of all signs, more than one and a half thousand. (It is assumed that the remaining signs could have been lost as the language developed.) It was possible to read inscriptions containing requests addressed to the spirits of the earth, mountains, rivers, sun, moon, rain, wind, which, according to the ideas of the ancient Chinese, could bring or avert different natural disasters. In these fortune-telling inscriptions, the king is designated by the same hieroglyphs as the “supreme deity.”

This decipherment, according to Professor X. Krill, is no less remarkable than the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

For four thousand years, the Chinese language has not seriously changed its structure. Only the form of the characters has changed significantly. Of course, the vocabulary has expanded, but the principles of word formation and sentence construction remain the same. The classification of hieroglyphs, which was given almost two thousand years ago, has not lost its meaning today. It was outlined in the work of the Chinese scientist Xu Shen entitled “Explanation of Ancient Symbols and Analysis of Composite Signs.” Based on the method of conveying sound words in writing, the scientist divides the entire mass of hieroglyphs into six groups.

The first category of signs consists of hieroglyphs indicating a specific object. In terms of their design, these hieroglyphs go back to the drawing signs. This group is called "xiang" in Chinese, which literally translates to "similarity in shape."

The second group of signs is called “zhi-shi”. It includes hieroglyphs depicting abstract concepts. They are conveyed with the help of objects or gestures associated with these concepts, for example, the concept of “craft” is conveyed by the image of a tool.

The third group of “hui-i” includes complex concepts and logical combinations. The sign is constructed from a combination of two or more hieroglyphs. For example, the sign woman, repeated twice - argument, three times - intrigue, man plus word - frank, field plus strength - young.

The fourth group - “zhuan-zhu” is translated as “deviations and rearrangements.” It combines hieroglyphs used in a new meaning. Depending on the position of the hieroglyph in the text, the sign prince, for example, it can mean official or clerk.

The fifth group “jia-ze” is translated: “help through borrowing.” Words that sound similar but have different meanings - homonyms - receive one hieroglyph.

The sixth group is “se-sheng”, which means “to coordinate the meaning with the sound.” The largest group of hieroglyphs, making up nine-tenths of all characters. Each sign consists of two parts: a phonetic element, which indicates the sound of the word, and a “key sign”.

If for thousands of years the principles of character formation in the Chinese language have not changed significantly, then externally, in their outlines, Chinese characters have evolved significantly.

A Chinese character is made up of nine initial strokes. Their combination makes up the entire variety of hieroglyphic signs. Some strokes are repeated two or three times in one character. Hieroglyphs can have from 1 to 28 strokes. The evolution of the hieroglyph form is primarily related to the material on which they were reproduced. When writing on silk with thin bamboo sticks, it was easier to draw straight and curved lines of the same size. A writing brush made of hair had a huge influence on the design of signs.

The ability to write beautifully was considered the highest art in China. Poems dedicated to the art of calligraphy were created, and many instructions were developed regarding lengthening, shortening, connecting and omitting individual lines of written characters. There is even a concept of “square arrangement”. This means that each hieroglyph fits into a square. Skilled calligraphers, inventors of new handwriting, had no less fame than the greatest artists, writers and poets. Many elaborate and difficult to understand handwritings appeared with figurative names: “tadpole writing”, “star writing”, “dragon writing”, “cloud writing”.

A very important milestone for the development of hieroglyph drawing was the invention of paper. For a long time, inconvenient bamboo tablets and expensive silk scrolls were used for writing. When the text written on the tablets was long, they were tied into bundles, like a fan. The silk was wound around a stick in the shape of a scroll. The first paper was invented by Cai Lun, a Confucian scholar and major government official. This happened in 105 AD. In Chinese, paper was called "zhi". It was first made from waste silk, flax tow, bast of young bamboo and mulberry. "Zhi" was light and more durable than papyrus. It can be folded into notebooks.

Printing also arose early in China. Even before our era, stamps were used in China. Brief texts were carved into stone and imprinted in ink on paper. From the 8th to 8th centuries, wooden boards were used. The text on them was carved in the form of relief. Since the 8th century, the world's first printed government bulletin began to be published in China, first called “Palace Copies” (“Dichao”), and then “Capital Bulletin” (“Qingbao”).

Since 1050, a set of separate characters has been introduced. Its inventor was the blacksmith Bi Sheng - “a man in cotton clothes,” as stated in an encyclopedic work of that time. The font was first made from baked clay, and from the 14th century it began to be cast from bronze. The cash register consisted of 7 thousand different letters.

This is how, according to the description of the same encyclopedic work, a set of movable type was produced: “... he took viscous clay and cut out written characters on it, as high as the rim of a coin, and for each character he made a separate type, fired it on fire to make it hard. First, he prepared an iron tablet and covered it with a mixture of soya resin, wax and paper ash. Intending to print, he took an iron frame and placed it on an iron plate, then he placed the letters in the frame, close to one another. When the frame was filled, it formed a single printed board. He placed it over the fire to warm it up somewhat and soften the sticky composition; then he took a completely smooth board, placed it on the board with the set and pressed so that the surface of the set became so smooth as to the whetstone. If they wanted to print only two or three impressions, then this procedure was neither fast nor convenient, but when tens of hundreds or thousands of copies were printed, things went as fast as spirit...

For each written sign he had several letters; for common characters... he has names of more than 20 characters, in order to have a reserve when they are repeated on the same page. If he came across rare signs that were not prepared, he immediately cut them out and burned them on burning straw; in an instant it was ready...

After printing was completed, the letters on the iron tablet were again held over the fire to soften the adhesive mass; then he made a blow with his hand, so that the letters fell out by themselves and were not at all soaked or stained with glue.”

Modern Chinese is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Almost a billion people speak it. Chinese hieroglyphic writing perfectly matches the structure of a language that does not have grammatical forms: no cases, no tenses, no inflection. Convenient to convey in hieroglyphs and similar sounding words, differing only in pitch

However, Chinese writing has so many characters that it becomes cumbersome and difficult to master. To understand the simplest text, you need to know at least two thousand hieroglyphs, and to read modern texts of average complexity you need to remember up to eight thousand hieroglyphs.

All this is a serious obstacle to the spread of Chinese literacy among the masses.

In China, repeated attempts were made to create an alphabet that could convey the sound of Chinese speech. One of them appeared in 1918 (“zhu-yin tzu-mu”). It consisted of 40 letters and was used for writing (transcribing) foreign names and names. There were other alphabets - “Guoyu Lomazi” (Romanization state language), "latinhua xinwenzi" (latinized new script).

The transition to alphabetic writing is complicated by the many dialects common in the country. And although the basic structure and vocabulary of all dialects are common, they differ fundamentally in sound and somewhat in vocabulary. A Beijinger and a Cantonese, for example, can understand each other using hieroglyphs, but read them differently. It would be much more difficult for them to understand each other if they used phonetic writing.

And one more, perhaps the most important reason, is preventing China from switching to phonetic writing. This is an inevitable break with the old centuries-old culture embodied in hieroglyphic writing. The peculiarity of Chinese characters is that they receive additional stylistic and semantic shades both from the graphic structure and from combination with each other.

All this makes it impossible to make a sudden transition to a new alphabet.

This is what it is, “Chinese literacy”, a kind of synonym for sophistication and incomprehensibility.

From the book of the Land of Genghis Khan author Penzev Konstantin Alexandrovich

Addition. Chinese literacy In consciousness Russian citizen China is a monolithic power, inhabited exclusively by Chinese and speaking exclusively Chinese. However, this impression is somewhat misleading. Let's start with Chinese

From the book History of St. Petersburg Inside Out. Notes on the margins of city chronicles author Sherikh Dmitry Yurievich

From the book History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages author Gregorovius Ferdinand

2. Gregory X goes to Lyon. - Guelphs and Ghibellines in Florence. - Cathedral in Lyon. - Gregory X issues a law on the conclave. - Rudolph's letter of honor in favor of the church. - Gregory X's view on the relationship of the church to the empire. - Certificate given to Lausanne. - Gregory X in Florence. - His

From the book The Unperverted History of Ukraine-Rus. Volume II by Dikiy Andrey

Certificate of Federation Understanding that the defeat of Germany will entail the withdrawal of its troops from Ukraine and knowing the all-Russian sentiment, both the overwhelmingly anti-Bolshevik in the built circles of the Ukrainian population, and the Entente - the victor, Hetman makes a cool move

From the book Moscow words, catchphrases and catchphrases author Muravyov Vladimir Bronislavovich

Filka's letter Filka's letter is now called a document that has no force, a fake, a forgery that should not be given any significance. Moscow legend connects this expression with the name of Philip Kolychev (1507–1569) - Metropolitan of Moscow and All Rus'. He was

From the book Folk traditions China author Martyanova Lyudmila Mikhailovna

Chinese noodles Noodles or Chinese pasta occupy second place after rice among cereal dishes in the Chinese diet. It also has its own history. Noodles were invented about 2000 years ago. The first Chinese emperor to taste noodles was Wang Mang, who reigned for only 14 years.

From the book Ancient East author Nemirovsky Alexander Arkadevich

Literacy and Schools As we have already mentioned, literacy in Mesopotamia was quite widespread and highly respected. The cuneiform heritage includes texts of various genres: works of mythological content, telling about the affairs of the gods, including their

From the book Japan: History of the Country by Thames Richard

Literacy and Literature Japan adopted from China its respect for people who mastered all the complexities of written language. Skilled calligraphers have always been valued. The “laureate calligraphers” of the Edo period include Emperor Go-Yedzei (1571-1617), the Zen monk Hakuin (1675-1768), and

From the book History of the Russian State and Law: Cheat Sheet author Author unknown

8. PSKOV JUDGMENT LETTER. NOVGOROD COURT CHARTER The legal status of the dependent population according to the Pskov Judicial Charter is similar to their position according to the Russian Pravda. The legal status of ladles, i.e. people, was established. must pay half of the debt

From the book Two Faces of the East [Impressions and reflections from eleven years of work in China and seven years in Japan] author Ovchinnikov Vsevolod Vladimirovich

Chinese literacy is understandable and increasingly needed. A new remarkable trend has emerged in Russian-Chinese relations: to move from quantitative to qualitative indicators. That is, not only expand trade and economic cooperation and intensify

From the book Order of Secret Affairs and its people author Ziberov Dmitry Alekseevich

“GARABAR LITERATURE” This was the name of the accepted method of composing a secret message at that time. The whole simple secret was that some letters were replaced by others. Sometimes he was also called “intriguing.” They also wrote the so-called “half-word”, when the letters of phrases were arranged

From the book The Rise of China author Medvedev Roy Alexandrovich

The Chinese Army and the Chinese Revolution The People's Republic of China was created as a result of 20 years of civil and national liberation wars, and the creation of a strong people's revolutionary army turned out to be no less important a condition for victory than the creation

author Markevich Nikolai Andreevich

I I. Granted Certificate of God's grace We, the Great Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich, Autocrat of all Great and Lesser Russia, Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod, Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Astrakhan, Tsar of Smolensk, Sovereign of Pskov and Great

From the book History of Little Russia - 4 author Markevich Nikolai Andreevich

I I I. Letter of grant After the title. We granted Our Royal Majesty the homeland of Little Russia to the inhabitants, people of the camp of the nobility, which in the current year 162, as by the grace of God, Hetman Bogdan Khmelnytsky and the entire army were committed under Our State's high hand

From the book History of Little Russia - 4 author Markevich Nikolai Andreevich

IV. Certificate granted by God's Grace We, the Great Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich, Autocrat of all Great and Little Russia, etc. and so on. and so on. We granted our subject Bohdan Khmelnitsky, Hetman of the Zaporozhye army, which is in the current year 162,

From the book Life and Manners of Tsarist Russia author Anishkin V. G.

In Russian there is a very convenient expression “Chinese letter”. This is what they say when something becomes unclear or when something is difficult to understand. Let's say that for many, speaking Thai will also be “Chinese literacy”. But Thai is not Chinese. Why do they say this?

It is easy to guess that the expression “Chinese literacy” arose due to the fact that Chinese characters are really difficult to understand for a person who has never studied Chinese. Hieroglyphic writing has always attracted people, but it has always seemed inaccessible. And everything that is difficult to understand, people often associate with Chinese. But why then don’t we say “Arabic writing” or “Japanese writing”? Why is their writing worse? Probably, folk etymology will not answer this question.

Still, there are certain patterns that shed light on this issue. It is known that in a number of languages there are similar expressions that are used in similar cases. They all blame Chinese for its incomprehensibility. For example:

Polish: to dla mnie chińszczyzna

French: c"est du chinois

Spanish: me suena a chino, esto es chino para mí

Romanian: e chineză pentru mine

Dutch: dat is Chinees voor mij

Greek: είναι κινέζικα για μένα

Hungarian: ez nekem kínai

Hebrew: זה סינית בשבילי (ze sinit bishvili)

Of course, there are many more ways to convey the same meaning. A German, for example, may say ich verstehe nur Bahnhof or ich verstehe nichts “I don’t understand anything.” A Chinese person will probably say something like 完全不懂 “I don’t understand anything at all.” There are also more exotic expressions. For example, the German das sind böhmische Dörfer für mich "for me these are Bohemian villages." Another geographical reference is already visible. Bohemia is a part of the Czech Republic where they speak Czech, which is “too strange and incomprehensible” for the German ear. The Czechs, in turn, talk about “Spanish villages”: to je pro mě španělská vesnice. The Spaniards are also considered incomprehensible by some Germans, using the expression das kommt mir Spanisch vor. There is a similar expression in Serbo-Croatian: “shpanska sela” - this is what Serbs say when they cannot understand their interlocutor.

But for example, here is a similar English phrase: it’s all Greek to me “for me it’s Greek.” The British blame the Greeks for the lack of clarity. Speakers of other languages do the same:

Norwegian: det er helt gresk for meg

Swedish: det är rena grekiskan

Portuguese: para mim você está falando grego

Why do the poor Greeks seem incomprehensible to the Germans? Unknown. Greek gave other languages a large layer of its vocabulary, so it is still possible to somehow understand the meaning of individual words. But, let’s say, this won’t work with the Semitic language. Turks speak very expressively about Arabic: bir şey anladıysam Arap olayım. Modern Turkish is teeming with Arabisms and even once used Arabic script as a writing system, so Arabic is not alien to the Turks. But the Italians have every right to say: per me è arabo. There are people who really don’t understand Arabic.

Some openly declare that everything incomprehensible to them sounds “Jewish”:

French: c'est de l'hébreu

Icelandic: þetta er hebreska fyrir mér

Finnish: tämä on minulle täyttä heprea a

Chinese letter Razg. Something difficult or incomprehensible. I have never written a review in my entire life, for me this is a Chinese letter(Chekhov. Letter to V.F. Komissarzhevskaya, January 19, 1899).

Phraseological dictionary of the Russian literary language. - M.: Astrel, AST. A. I. Fedorov. 2008.

Synonyms:

See what “Chinese literacy” is in other dictionaries:

Chinese letter- Cm … Dictionary of synonyms

Chinese letter- ■ Everything incomprehensible... Lexicon of common truths

Chinese letter- Chinese (Tatar) letter (foreign) illegible, incomprehensible writing. Wed. From childhood, reading a book, except boredom, He felt nothing, Chinese literacy in science, Considered art to be nonsense... Nekrasov. Parable about “jelly”. Wed. Not just a theory... ... Michelson's Large Explanatory and Phraseological Dictionary (original spelling)

Chinese letter- Razg. Disapproved Same as gibberish letter 1. FSRYaa, 110; ZS 1996, 376; BTS, 225... Big dictionary Russian sayings

Chinese letter- About something that is completely incomprehensible or difficult to make out... Dictionary of many expressions

CREDIT- (from the Greek grammata reading and writing) 1) the ability to read and write. 2) An official written act certifying any international agreement or establishing any legal relations (Ratification, Credential, etc.) ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

CREDIT Modern encyclopedia

Certificate- (from the Greek grammata reading and writing), 1) the ability to read and write. 2) A written act, official or private, in Russia in the 10th and early 20th centuries, a certificate granting a person or community rights, possessions, awards, distinctions (This Charter, Granted... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

diploma- See the document Chinese letter, gibberish letter, Tatar letter... Dictionary of Russian synonyms and expressions similar in meaning. under. ed. N. Abramova, M.: Russian Dictionaries, 1999. charter document, charter; certificate, letter of credit, chrisovul, letter... Dictionary of synonyms

CREDIT- GRAMOTA, s, female. 1. Ability to read and write. Learn to read and write. 2. Official document. Credential city Security city Patent city Pokhvalnaya city 3. In the old days: document, letter. Collection of Novgorod charters. Birch bark charters (Old Russian charters... ... Dictionary Ozhegova

Books

Beijing and its surroundings (Nelles Pocket), Bergmann Jurgen. Why to Beijing? Do not immerse yourself - no, just touch the mysterious and beautiful country, whose ancient culture for us is “Chinese literacy”. Envy an orderly world, where temples...

Polish: to dla mnie chińszczyzna

French: c"est du chinois

Spanish: me suena a chino, esto es chino para mí

Romanian: e chineză pentru mine

Dutch: dat is Chinees voor mij

Greek: είναι κινέζικα για μένα

Hungarian: ez nekem kínai

Hebrew: זה סינית בשבילי (ze sinit bishvili)

But for example, here is a similar English phrase: it’s all Greek to me “for me it’s Greek.” The British blame the Greeks for the lack of clarity. Speakers of other languages do the same:

Norwegian: det er helt gresk for meg

Swedish: det är rena grekiskan

Portuguese: para mim você está falando grego

Some openly declare that everything incomprehensible to them sounds “Jewish”:

French: c'est de l'hébreu

Icelandic: þetta er hebreska fyrir mér

Finnish: tämä on minulle täyttä heprea a

"Chinese letter"

China 3rd century BC. The foundations of ancient Chinese culture had already been laid in the country. The religious and philosophical systems of Confucianism and Taoism were formed. The first collection of literary monuments appeared, “The Book of Songs” (Shijing), a collection of ancient Chinese folk poetry (it contains more than three hundred works dating back to the 11th-7th centuries BC), and “The Book of Changes” (Iijing), a monument to Chinese natural philosophy.

By that time, Chinese writing was an established ideographic system. Each hieroglyph stood for a separate word.

The sounding Chinese language is very unique and whimsical. In it, tonality, raising or lowering the pitch of the sound, is of particular importance. This feature of the Chinese language is very difficult for foreigners to grasp and assimilate. The same set of sounds (and there are many monosyllabic words in the Chinese language), depending on the key in which it is pronounced, has completely different meanings.

Hieroglyphs are written in vertical columns from right to left. The first word on the page is at the top and right, the last is at the bottom and tear.

The ritual of fortune telling was a very important rite in the life of ancient man. Without fortune telling they did not start a single serious business. The ceremony went like this. The bone with signs carved on it was burned on the reverse side with a bronze stick. The signs contained a question that needed to be answered. The outlines of the cracks that appeared when the bone was cauterized resembled some kind of hieroglyph and were considered answer signs.

In later times, when the forms of hieroglyphs changed so much that the original characters became incomprehensible, the ancient “oracle” bones were considered sacred and highly valued as a healing remedy. They were called “dragon bones” (“long gu”), ground into powder and added to various medicines.

The discovered written monuments, more than one hundred thousand, made it possible to trace the evolution of hieroglyphs.

Following this path, they recognized a third of all signs, more than one and a half thousand. (It is assumed that the remaining signs could have been lost as the language developed.) It was possible to read inscriptions containing requests addressed to the spirits of the earth, mountains, rivers, sun, moon, rain, wind, which, according to the ideas of the ancient Chinese, could bring or avert various natural disasters. In these fortune-telling inscriptions, the king is designated by the same hieroglyphs as the “supreme deity.”

This decipherment, according to Professor X. Krill, is no less remarkable than the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The third group of “hui-i” includes complex concepts and logical combinations. The sign is constructed from a combination of two or more hieroglyphs. For example, the sign woman, repeated twice, - argument, three times - intrigue, Human plus word - frank, field plus strength - young.

The fourth group - “zhuan-zhu” is translated as “deviations and rearrangements.” It combines the hieroglyphs used in a new meaning. Depending on the position of the hieroglyph in the text, the prince sign, for example, can mean official or clerk.

The fifth group “jia-ze” is translated: “help through borrowing.” Words that sound similar but have different meanings - homonyms - receive one hieroglyph.

The ability to write beautifully was considered the highest art in China. Poems dedicated to the art of calligraphy were created, many instructions were developed regarding lengthening, shortening, connecting

I omitted individual lines of written characters. There is even a concept of “square arrangement”. This means that each hieroglyph fits into a square. Skilled calligraphers, inventors of new handwritings, had no less fame than the greatest artists, writers and poets. Many elaborate and difficult to understand handwritings appeared with figurative names: “tadpole writing”, “star writing”, “dragon writing”, “cloud writing”.

Printing also arose early in China. Even before our era, stamps were used in China. Brief texts were carved into stone and imprinted in ink on paper. Since the 7th-8th centuries, wooden boards have been used. The text on them was carved in the form of relief. Since the 8th century, the world's first printed government bulletin began to be published in China, first called “Palace Copies” (“Dichao”), and then “Capital Bulletin” (“Qingbao”).

This is how, according to the description of the same encyclopedic work, a set of movable type was produced: “...he took viscous clay and cut out written characters on it, as high as the rim of a coin, and for each character he made a separate type, burned it on fire to make it hard. First, he prepared an iron tablet and covered it with a mixture of soya resin, wax and paper ash. Intending to print, he took an iron frame and placed it on an iron plate, then he placed the letters in the frame, close to one another. When the frame was filled, it formed a single printed board. He placed it over the fire to warm it up somewhat and soften the sticky composition; then he took a completely smooth board, placed it on the board with the set and pressed so that the surface of the set became so smooth as to the whetstone. If you wanted to print only two or three impressions, then this procedure was neither quick nor convenient, but when tens of hundreds or thousands of copies were printed, things went as fast as spirit...

For each written sign he had several letters; for common characters... he names more than 20 characters each, in order to have a reserve when they are repeated on the same page. If he came across rare signs that were not prepared, he immediately cut them out and burned them on burning straw; in an instant it was ready...

Modern Chinese is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Almost a billion people speak it. Chinese hieroglyphic writing perfectly matches the structure of a language that has no grammatical forms: no cases, no tenses, no inflection. It is convenient to convey in hieroglyphs similar-sounding words that differ only in pitch

All this is a serious obstacle to the spread of Chinese literacy among the masses.

In China, repeated attempts were made to create an alphabet that could convey the sound of Chinese speech. One of them appeared in 1918 (“zhu-yin tzu-mu”). It consisted of 40 letters and was used to record (transcribe) foreign names and names. There were other alphabets - “Guoyu Lomazi” (Romanization of the state language), “Latinhua Xinwenzi” (Romanized new script).

All this makes it impossible to make a sudden transition to a new alphabet.

This is what it is, “Chinese literacy”, a kind of synonym for sophistication and incomprehensibility.