What is the official Chinese dictionary?

The Kangxi Zidian served as the standard Chinese dictionary for generations, is still published and is now online.

How do Chinese people use a dictionary?

Nowadays, most English-Chinese dictionaries employ the pinyin order. Many Chinese-only dictionaries employ the radical and stroke method, where characters are first grouped by their primary radical, such as 亻(person) or 山 (mountain), then by the number of strokes added to the radical to form the full character.

Who invented Hanzi?

Cangjie
According to legend, Chinese characters were invented by Cangjie, a bureaucrat under the legendary Yellow Emperor. Inspired by his study of the animals of the world, the landscape of the earth and the stars in the sky, Cangjie is said to have invented symbols called zì (字) – the first Chinese characters.

What is the official language of China?

The Chinese language, spoken in the form of Standard Mandarin, is the official language in the largest part of mainland China and Taiwan, one of the four in Singapore, and an official idiom of the United Nations.

Why do most Chinese people consider the spoken varieties as one language?

Most Chinese people consider the spoken varieties as one single language because speakers share a common culture and history, as well as a shared national identity and a common written form.

What is the evidence for the pronunciation of Middle Chinese?

The evidence for the pronunciation of Middle Chinese comes from several sources: modern dialect variations, rhyming dictionaries, and foreign transliterations.

What is the earliest written record of ancient Chinese language?

The earliest Chinese written records are Shang dynasty-era oracle inscriptions, which can be traced back to 1250 BCE. The phonetic categories of Archaic Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry.