Chinese character strokes

Chinese character strokes (Pinyin: hànzì bǐhuà; Traditional Chinese: 漢字筆劃; Simplified Chinese: 汉字笔画) are the smallest writing units of Chinese characters. When writing a character, the trace of a dot or a line left on the writing surface (such as paper) from pen-down, pen-move to pen-up is called a stroke.[1]

The beginnings and ends of the lines in ancient Chinese characters are often not clear, and it is difficult to count the number of lines. The strokes we use nowadays did not come into being before the appearance of the Clerical script (隸書, 隶书), [2] as illustrated by the history development of the strokes of character 馬 (马, horse): [lower-alpha 1]

Oracle Bronze Bigseal Seal Clerical Regular Simplified

In the following sections, there is an introduction to the number, form, order, sorting and combination of strokes in Chinese characters. And an afford is made to make the contents more complementary than repetitive with the other wiki article on strokes, i.e., Stroke (CJK character).

Stroke number
Main article: Stroke number

Stroke number, or stroke count, is the number of strokes of a Chinese character. Stroke number plays an important role in Chinese character sorting, teaching and computer information processing. [2] Stroke numbers vary dramatically from characters to characters, for example, characters "一" and "乙" have only one stroke, while character "齉" has 36 strokes, and "龘" (three 龍s, dragons) 48 strokes. The Chinese character with the most strokes in the entire Unicode character set is "𪚥" (four 龍s) of 64 strokes.[3]

Stroke counting

There are effective methods to count the strokes of a Chinese character correctly. First of all, stroke counting is to be carried out on the standard regular form (標準楷體, 标准楷体) of the character, and according to its stroke order. And if needed, a standard list of strokes or list of stroke orders issued by the authoritative institution should be consulted.[4] [5]

If two strokes are connected at the endpoints, whether they are separated into two strokes or linked into one stroke can be judged by the following rules: [6]

  • If the two strokes are connected in the upper left corner of a character or component, then separate them into two strokes, such as: 厂 (stroke order: ㇐㇓), 口 (㇑㇕㇐) and 日 (㇑㇕㇐㇐).
  • If they are connected in the upper right corner, then one stroke, such as: 口 (㇑㇕㇐), 月 (㇓㇆㇐㇐), 句 (㇓㇆㇑㇕㇐).
  • If they are connected in the lower left corner, then if it is a fully enclosed structure, then count as two separated strokes, such as: 口 (㇑㇕㇐), 回 (㇑㇕㇑㇕㇐㇐), 田 (㇑㇕㇐㇑㇐) [lower-alpha 2]; if it is not fully enclosed, then count as one stroke, such as: 山 (㇑㇗㇑), 区 (㇐㇓㇔㇗), 葛 (㇐㇑㇑㇑㇕㇐㇐㇓㇆㇓㇔㇗) [lower-alpha 3].
  • If they are connected in the lower right corner, then two strokes, such as: 口 (㇑㇕㇐), 回 (㇑㇕㇑㇕㇐㇐), 田 (㇑㇕㇐㇑㇐).

An important prerequisite for connecting two strokes into one stroke is: the tail of the first stroke is connected with the head of the second stroke.

Distribution of characters

In article Stroke number, there are several tables of statistical data illustrating the distributions of Chinese characters among all stroke numbers of some representative character sets. Here is a brief introduction:

Chart of Standard Forms of Common National Characters (常用國字標準字體表) is a standard character set of 4,808 characters issued by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (ROC). The stroke numbers of a character range from 1 to 32 strokes. The 11-strokes group has the most characters, taking 9.297% of the character set. On the average, there are 12.186 strokes per character.[5][7]

The List of Frequently Used Characters in Modern Chinese (现代汉语常用字表) is a standard character set of 3,500 characters issued by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China.[8] The stroke numbers of characters range from 1 to 24 strokes. The 9-strokes characters are the most, taking 11.857% of the character set. On the average, there are 9.7409 strokes per character.[4]

The Unicode Basic CJK Unified Ideographs is an international standard character set issued by ISO and Unicode, the same character set of the China national standard 13000.1. There are 20,902 Chinese characters, including simplified and traditional characters from China, Japan and Korea (CJK).[9] [7] The stroke numbers of characters range from 1 to 48 strokes. The 12-strokes group has the most characters, taking 9.358% of the character set. On the average, there are 12.845 strokes per character.[10]

Stroke forms and stroke tables

Stroke forms (筆形, 笔形) refer to the shapes of strokes. How many types of stroke forms are there in Chinese characters? The answers of scholars are not consistent. For example, From the perspective of Chinese teaching and reference book entries sorting, the types of strokes are usually relatively less; from the perspective of calligraphy art and font design, there are more types.[11] For example, stroke shu (竖, vertical) can be further divided into long shu (长竖), short shu (短竖) and hanging needle shu (悬针竖), etc. pie (撇) can be divided into horizontal pie (平撇), slanting pie (斜撇) and vertical pie (竖撇).

The stroke forms of a standard Chinese character set can be classified into a stroke table (or stroke list), for instance, the Unicode CJK strokes list has 36 types of strokes:

CJK Strokes[1][2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+31Cx ㇀ ㇁ ㇂ ㇃ ㇄ ㇅ ㇆ ㇇ ㇈ ㇉ ㇊ ㇋ ㇌ ㇍ ㇎ ㇏
U+31Dx ㇐ ㇑ ㇒ ㇓ ㇔ ㇕ ㇖ ㇗ ㇘ ㇙ ㇚ ㇛ ㇜ ㇝ ㇞ ㇟
U+31Ex ㇠ ㇡ ㇢ ㇣ ㇯
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 15.1
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

A stroke table is also called a stroke alphabet, whoes functions in the Chinese writing system is something like the Latin Alphabet in the English writing system. Another stroke alphabet worth mentioning here is the YES Stroke Alphabet of 30 strokes, used in YES stroke alphabetical order:

㇐ ㇕ ㇅ ㇎ ㇡ ㇋ ㇊ ㇍ ㇈ ㇆ ㇇ ㇌ 飞[lower-alpha 4] ㇀ ㇑ ㇗ ㇞ ㇉ ㄣ ㇙ ㇄ ㇟ ㇚ ㇓ ㇜ ㇛ ㇢ ㇔ ㇏ ㇂

To avoid repeating contents with other wiki articles, so much for this section. For more introduction to stroke forms, stroke naming and stroke tables, please visit page stroke (CJK character).

Stroke order
Main article: Stroke order

The concept of stroke order (bǐshùn, 筆順, 笔顺) has two meanings:

  1. The direction in which a stroke is written, for example, stroke heng (㇐, horizontal) is written horizontally from left to right, stroke shu (㇑, vertical) is written vertically from top to bottom.
  2. The order in which strokes are written one by one to form a Chinese character.

Because the direction of strokes is relatively simple, people generally refer to the latter meaning when talking about stroke order.

The most basic rules of stroke order are:

  • First heng (㇐, horizontal) and then shu (㇑, vertical), such as 十, 卄.
  • First pie (丿) then na (㇏), such as 乂, 文.
  • First up then down, such as 三, 旦.
  • First left then right, such as 川, 好.
  • First outside and then inside, such as 同, 廣，司.

More examples, the stroke orders of "筆順 笔顺" are

筆: ㇓㇐㇔㇓㇐㇔㇕㇐㇐㇐㇐㇑
順: ㇓㇑㇑㇐㇓㇑㇕㇐㇐㇐㇓㇔
笔: ㇓㇐㇔㇓㇐㇔㇓㇐㇐㇟
顺: ㇓㇑㇑㇐㇓㇑㇕㇓㇔

The order of strokes is a summary of people's experience in writing Chinese characters correctly and conveniently. It plays an important role in the teaching, sorting and computer information processing of Chinese characters. The stroke order of cursive script (草書) is quite flexible and changeable, so the standard of stroke order generally refers to the stroke order of regular script (楷書).

The currently effective standards for stroke orders in China mainland and Taiwan are "通用规范汉字笔顺规范 (Stroke Orders of the Commonly-used Standard Chinese Characters)" [4] and "常用國字標準字體筆順手册 (Handbook of the Stroke Orders of the Commonly-Used National Chinese Characters)" [5].

Stroke-based sorting
Main article: Stroke-based sorting

Chinese characters can be sorted into different orders by their strokes. The important stroke-based sorting methods include: Stroke-count sorting, Stroke-count-stroke-order sorting, GB stroke-based sorting and YES sorting.

Stroke combination

There are three types of stroke combinations between two strokes (筆劃組合, 笔划组合):[12]

  1. Separation: the strokes are separated from each other. Such as: 八, 三, 小.
  2. Connection: the strokes are connected, this type can be further divided into two categories:
    1. The end point of one stroke is connected with the body of another stroke
      1. An end of the first stroke is connected to the following stroke's body, such as 匕
      2. The body of the first stroke is connected to an end of following stroke, such as: 人
      3. Both types of connection are used: such as 正.
    2. Two strokes are connected end to end, including head-head (首首), tail-tail (尾尾) and tail-head (尾首). Such as: 厂, 弓, 凹, 凸.
  3. Intersection: the strokes are intersected. Such as: 十丈車.

In a Chinese character, multiple stroke combinations are usually used together. Such as: 港.

The same strokes and stroke order may form different Chinese characters or character components due to different combinations. For example,

刀力 (stroke order: ㇆㇓), 
由田 (㇑㇕㇐㇑㇐), 
工土士 (㇐㇑㇐), 
八人入乂 (㇓㇏), 
甲曱申叶 (㇑㇕㇐㇐㇑).

In other words, stroke combinations have the function of distinguishing Chinese characters.

See also

Notes
  1. created with wiki image files
  2. exceptions: 惯, 實, 母, 马, 鸟, 乌
  3. exceptions: 馬; 巨(Taiwan: 12511；Mainland：1515)
  4. the first stroke of 飞, which is not found on the computer as an independent character.

References

Citations
  1. Su 2014, p. 74.
  2. Su 2014, pp. 74–75.
  3. https://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=2A6A5&useutf8=true
  4. PRC 2021.
  5. Taiwan 1996.
  6. Su 2014, pp. 75–76.
  7. (Lecture notes of the subject "Modern Chinese Characters and Information Technology", Dept of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnical University, by Dr. Zhang Xiaoheng, June 12, 2017.)
  8. 现代汉语常用字表 Archived 2016-11-13 at the Wayback Machine [List of Frequently Used Characters in Modern Chinese], Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, 26 Jan 1988.
  9. https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U4E00.pdf
  10. National Language Commission of China 1999.
  11. Fei 1997.
  12. Su 2014, p. 82.

Works cited
  • Fei, Jinchang. (費錦昌) (1997). "現代漢字筆劃規範芻議". 世界漢語教學. (1997) (2).
  • National Language Commission of China (1999). GB13000.1字符集汉字字序(笔画序)规范 (Standard of GB13000.1 Character Set Chinese Character Order (Stroke-Based Order)) (PDF) (in Chinese). Shanghai Education Press. ISBN 7-5320-6674-6.
  • PRC, National Language Commission (2021). 通用规范汉字笔顺规范 (Stroke Orders of the Commonly-used Standard Chinese Characters) (in Chinese). Beijing: the Commercial Press. ISBN 978-7-100-19347-4.
  • Su, Peicheng (苏培成) (2014). 现代汉字学纲要 (Essentials of Modern Chinese Characters) (in Chinese) (3rd ed.). Beijing: 商务印书馆 (Commercial Press). ISBN 978-7-100-10440-1.
  • Taiwan, 國語推行委員會 (National Language Promotion Committee) (1996). 常用國字標準字體筆順手册 (Handbook of the Stroke Orders of the Commonly-Used National Chinese Characters) (in Chinese). Taipei: Ministry of Education. ISBN 978-9-57-090664-6.
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