Most of the world’s 7,000 languages build words by matching sounds to letters. Yet Chinese takes a different route - one that ...

At this very moment, the words you are reading are entering your mind at the speed of thought. Below your awareness, strings of letters are retrieving words and meanings as effortlessly as oxygen ...

You may not be surprised to know that some languages don't use the English alphabet in their writing systems. These languages possess their own names and special writing characters, so unfamiliar and ...

Introduction : writing as a phenomenon of literacy / Li Feng and David Prager Branner -- Getting "right" with heaven and the origins of writing in China / David W. Pankenier -- Literacy and the ...

The world's major writing systems have tended to simplify over time, with a notable exception: New research shows that the Chinese writing system has become increasingly complex over the course of its ...

The late, great sinologist Simon Leys once pointed out a peculiar paradox. China is the world’s oldest surviving civilization, and yet very little material of its past remains—far less than in Europe ...