The Origins of Chinese Language Characters

An informative TED-Ed lesson, written by Mandarin teacher/translator Gina Marie Elia, PhD and animated by PeiHsin Cho, talks about the origins and evolution of the innovative characters, known as logograms, that make up the Chinese language.

Trace the history of Chinese characters, and find out how this writing system has changed and evolved over thousands of years.

Also Included is a short lesson on the structure of Chinese words.

…Most modern-day characters are known as logograms, and are constructed of two components: a radical component, which gestures at the meaning of the character, and a sound component, which hints at its pronunciation. And all characters are built from a variety of strokes, which are often simplified to eight basic types. There are 214 radicals, each with its own definition. Some can stand alone, while others cannot