Hanja
Sign in to saveHanja (; ), alternatively spelled Hancha, are Chinese characters used to write the Korean language. After characters were introduced to Korea to write Literary Chinese, they were adapted to write Korean as early as the Gojoseon period.
AI overview
Hanja are Chinese characters that were adapted to write the Korean language, initially used to express Literary Chinese and later Korean itself. They have been part of Korean writing since ancient times, particularly from the Gojoseon period onward.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Key facts
- Writing system.name
- Hanja
- Writing system.sample
- Hanja.svg
- Writing system.caption
- The Korean word (Chinese script) in Hanja (top) and Hangul (bottom).
- Writing system.type
- Logographic
- Writing system.languages
- Korean, Classical Chinese
- Writing system.time
- 400 BC – present
- Writing system.fam1
- Oracle bone script
- Writing system.fam2
- Seal script
- Writing system.fam3
- Clerical script
- Writing system.fam4
- Regular script
- Writing system.sisters
- Kanji, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, Khitan script, Chữ Hán, Chữ Nôm, Jurchen script, Tangut script
- Writing system.iso15924
Article
25 sectionsContents
- History
- Introduction of literary Chinese to Korea
- Adaptation of ''hanja'' to Korean
- Decline of Hanja
- Character formation
- ''Eumhun''
- Education
- South
- North
- Uses
- Print media
- Dictionaries
- Personal names
- Toponymy
- Academia
- Art and culture
- Popular usage
- Gukja
- Yakja
- Pronunciation
- See also
- Notes
- References
- Citations
- Sources
Hanja (; ), alternatively spelled Hancha, are Chinese characters used to write the Korean language. After characters were introduced to Korea to write Literary Chinese, they were adapted to write Korean as early as the Gojoseon period.
() refers to Sino-Korean vocabulary, which can be written with Hanja, and () refers to Classical Chinese writing, although Hanja is also sometimes used to encompass both concepts. Because Hanja characters have never undergone any major reforms, they more closely resemble traditional Chinese and traditional Japanese characters, although the stroke orders for certain characters are slightly different. Such examples are the characters and , as well as and . Only a small number of Hanja characters were modified or are unique to Korean, with the rest being identical to the traditional Chinese characters. By contrast, many of the Chinese characters currently in use in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore have been simplified, and contain fewer strokes than the corresponding Hanja characters.