China

Alphabet

The Chinese language has no alphabet. Or, to be more precise, the Chinese written language does not have an alphabet in the traditional sense of a set of letters that are combined to represent the sounds of words. The idea of the alphabet can be helpful, though, in understanding how Chinese characters are constructed. Just as a standard alphabet consists of a small number of letters that can be recombined to form a large number of words, so the "Chinese alphabet" consists of a (relatively) small number of structural elements that are recombined to form a much larger number of characters.

A typical Chinese character consists of two component parts, referred to as the radical and phonetic. The radical part often provides some indication of the meaning of the character, while the phonetic part often provides a clue as to the pronunciation of the character. The complete set of all the radicals (189 in simplified Chinese) and all the phonetics (several thousand) can be understood as forming something like a "Chinese alphabet."

While mastering this Chinese alphabet is obviously much more difficult than learning the 26 letters of the standard alphabet, understanding how radical and phonetic elements from the Chinese alphabet come together to form Chinese characters is very useful in learning to read or write Chinese.



Flag



History

The oldest records about China date back to the period of ruler Fu Si, who lived in 30th centuries BC. Supposedly gods inspired him to write the holy book of ancient China "Itzin" from which originated the theory that Universe arose and developes due to alternation of Ing and Yang. Historical sources do not mention any rulers of China preceeding to Shang dynasty (1766-1122 BC). Shang rulers were subdued by Zhou dynasty, who built their capital nearby the modern Xian. Later, aproximately in 750 BC, they had to escape from barbarians who invaded the country and new capital was founded near the present day Liaoyan, In the early period of ruling power was concentrated in the hands of Emperor. Later local rulers managed to create soveraign fiefdoms. From 770 BC these rulers were constantly involved in wars with each other and the whole period from 476 till 221 BC was called The period of Warring States. At the same time China was attacked by barbarians from the north and north-east. It was decided to build gigantic walls for defence of territory. Finally the central power was concentrated in the hands of prince Qin, whose army overthrew the Zhou ruler.
New Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi ( First Emperor) became the founder of Qin dynasty in 221 BC. He was one of the most famous Emperors in the history of China and the first one who united Chinese Empire. After the death of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi in 210 governors of two provinces started the struggle for power. The winner Liu Ban founded new Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD). During the rule of Han dynasty territory of China expanded.

The Silk Road originated in the 2nd century BC from a desire for military and political purpose instead of for trade. In order to seek allies to against Xiongnu repeated invasion, a court official named Zhang Qian was sent by Han Wudi to the Western Regions. However, on the way to the Western Regions, the Xiongnu captured Zhang and detained him for ten years. Escaped from Xiongnu's detention, Zhang Qian continued his journal to the Central Asia. While at that time, the local rulers were satisfied with their status and refused to ally with Han Empire. Although the mission failed in its original purpose, the information Zhang Qian conveyed to China about Central Asia, and vice versa, made people in each area desire goods produced in the other.

While when the Silk Road was first established, silk was not the chief commodity. Han dynasty made very little profit from it until the Romans became fanatic about silk that the large profits came in. During the Tang dynasty, thirty percent of the trade on the Silk Road was accounted for silk.

The fall of the Han dynasty in the early 3rd century once caused Silk Road trade to decline. However, the rise of the Tang dynasty in the 7th century revived this commerce and by mid 8th century the route reached its height.

At the same time, with the spread of various religions in the world, more and more missionaries reached the east via this road. With the Silk Road acting as an information superhighway, the exchange of ideas grew to a larger scale than ever before. And as a result, the Tang dynasty fortunately experienced the best flourishing period of the Silk Road.

The fall of the Tang in the early 10th century gave a deathblow to the trade on the Silk Road. The trade on the road declined sharply till in the 13th century, when the conquests of the Mongols ushered in an era of frequent and extended contacts between the East and the West. This increased contact created a demand for Asian goods in Europe, a demand that eventually inspired the search for a sea route to Asia.
The discovery of a sea route from Europe to Asia in the late 15th century dealt a damaging blow to the Silk Road trade again. Since then, the prosperous Silk Road was on its downhill.

After the fall of Han dynasty three kingdoms commenced strife for domination - Wei, Shou and Wu. In short period 16 provinces joined the war. In 581 the founder of Sui dynasty took hold of the power and made efforts to unite the Empire. The activity started from Great Canal, which connected lower part of Yantze with middle flow of Huang He.

After the fall of Sui dynasty, during the Tang epoch, the history of China reached its heyday.

Just in this period China became the strongest state of the world and constituted the main power in Asia. The population of Xian, the capital of empire, exceeded million. The art and culture flourished: the development of classic painting, music, dance and opera, production of finest pottery, discovery of secrets of semi-transparent white porcelain happened in this period. Confucian ethics and Buddhism dominated in all fields and progress was observed in science - mainly in astronomy and geography.

At the end of 9th century the neighbouring tribes started invading the territory of China, also internal rebellions broke out. In 907 the dynasty fell and very soon was replaced by five others. This instable period of Chinese history was marked by invention of paper money and the primitive printing-press. In the beginning of 13th century Genghis Khan conquered part of China to the north from Huan He. Sung dynasty was rooted in 1279 when Hubilai conquered the whole of China and became Emperor. He founded the mongol Yuang dinasty and the capital was moved to Khanbalik, modern Peking. At that time China was the part of huge Empire stretching from Europe and Persia in the west till plains and stepps of Siberia in the north. In 14th century the mongols were driven from China and replaced by Ming dynasty. Ming Emperors ruled till 17th century which was marked by development of architecture and marine expeditions to Yava, Sri-Lanka and even Persian Gulf and Africa. In 1644 China was conquered by Manchus and the following 150 years were the period of stability and peace, but in the beginning of 19th century Opium War was initiated by Britain and the British troops occupied Shanghai and Nankin and later Hong Kong. In 1894 the war with Japan started and China lost Korea, Taiwan and Pescador islands. Qing dynasty of Manchus was uprooted in 1911 by revolutionary movement of Sun Yatsen and in 1912 China was declared as Constitutional Republic.In 1916 Japan invaded China and power passed to Japanese. In 1917 China took part in World War I. In 1925 Sun Yatsen died and national government was headed by Chan Kaishi who ruled the country for ten years. Japan conquered Manchuria in 1933 and querilla war commenced. In 1935 Mao Zedong became the leader of communist party. In 1945 after Japanese capitulation the civil war broke out which ended in 1949 by creation of People's Republic of China which was headed by Mao Zedong. The period of Mao's rule was that of experiments in economy, agriculture and social life. In 1976 Mao Zedong died and Den Siaoping became the leader of communist party. China started developing with programm of "four modernisations", i.e. industry, agriculture, scince and defence. In 1989 during dispersal of students' demonstrations troops were involved. Hundreds of people died, thousends were arrested. Zhao Tziang was removed from governing. Since 1994 when the official control of money exchange was abolished, China's economy is developing intensively.