Chinese Characters across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese

by Zev J. Handel

Genres: China, History, Nonfiction, Linguistics, Language, Japan

276 pages, Paperback

Published March 18, 2025

Reviews

[Edwin Pietersma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introduction to and overview of the development, spread, and usage of Chinese characters. It is an enjoyable read although one has to be a linguist or really into languages to go through it. Sometimes the comparison with Latin or English is a bit too much, although this is expected given the perceived audience.

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am teaching Hebrew and learning how to teach English as a second language. I have been studying linguistic vocabulary to pass an ESL licensing exam, which I did. I wish I had read this book first! This book does an amazing job of explaining how writing systems have developed. While I loved getting to fit the hard-won vocabulary to the concepts in the book, it would have been easier to go the other direction!

I have held a lot of common misconceptions about Chinese writing and about Japanese use of kanji. It has held me back from attempting to learn Japanese for sure. I realized I was wrong to be afraid of learning another print concept. But that wasn't the most pleasurable part of the book, to me. I loved the way the transition from pictures to writing was captured here. It would be fun for people to read the old Scott McCloud book Understanding Comics alongside this book. (I know McCloud has written at least two more books on the theory of comics. I just read Understanding Comics with my kid when she was young and that's why I am thinking about that.)

Linguistics de-exoticizes speakers of other languages and changes everything. I was moved thinking about that. The dream is not of a common language (<==get it) but of having time to learn more languages. It's not that we have a common language but that the experience of making and using language is something we hold in common.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great and accessible introduction to how Chinese characters work, how it evolved, and how Korean/Japanese/Vietnamese/Zhuang made them work for themselves.

The book was a bit repetitive here and there, but I guess if you are totally new to this script, it's important to drive home the message that (a) the shock of being confronted with writing as a new technology influences the way you can adapt / "reinvent" a writing system, (b) Chinese characters are not some universal language à la Ricci or Bacon, (c) the human mind is great at creative adaptation and likes to experiment, seeing what will persist over time.

The chapters on Vietnamese and Zhuang were the most revelatory to me, but that's also because the Japanese and Korean adaptations are just much better known or disseminated. Makes me interested in reading Handel's Sinography (2019), which is the academic precursor to this book.