The complete history of Chinese Characters

Hello Children. This video is about the history of kanji. From ancient China's Oracle Bone Script - Standard Script, as well as modern day variants simplified and traditional.
That's not it, we'll also talk about Japan, Korea, and Vietnam's history with Chinese characters in a compounded, simplified 17 minute video that even you can understand maybe
If you like the video please give it a thumbs up and a subscribe
This is my Bluesky
bsky.app/profi...
president.jp/a...
K see ya

[@alexwang982]

mf thats the nike logo

[@maruhigakuen]

ジャストドゥイット！

[@manhae6]

💔💔💔💔

[@jantillett6611]

we did it boys. new zealand is in the map.

[@prof-eissa]

i was just looking for this comment lol

[@warido37]

i will use this video as a source in my essay

[@maruhigakuen]

😔

[@Jasi-Mori]

Im going to transcript and plagiarize it 😁

[@dragonapop]

I have a few facts: Older Chinese scripts are only preserved in bones or bronze because the leaves and paper they wrote on rotted away. These scripts coexisted, waning in usage as other scripts became more common. Traditional character aren't always older. Like 為 (wei), a simplification of 爲 (wei), which is different from simplified character 为 (wei). Or simple 云 (yun) being more older than traditional 雲 (yun). This is because traditional doesn't mean more historical, it means more strokes. And simplified means less strokes. Often time when character simplification took place, they where adopting shorthands already in use by writers. And not completely original characters, (also a joint commission by Republic of China created the first round of simplification that was adopted after the government was overthrow by the CCP, (like how people created simplification for Japanese before WWII but took place after the overthrow of the government)). It would be like the States making "cuz" and "U" official spellings of "cause" and "you". The Korean script's consonants where inspired by the ʼPhags-pa script, which was inspired by Tibetan script, which was inspired by Indic Devanagari.

[@Flozone1]

the relation between bronze script and oracle bone script is still kind of unclear. It seems that some bronze characters are older than oracle bones. However you are right, the actual precursor script. There are also a few older examples of glyphs from China, which seem to represent clan names and have already a similar structure as later characters, but do not form sentences. They appear on some objects from early Shang and the preceding Erlitou and older cultures.

[@dragonapop]

@Flozone1 Yea, that's why I say that all of the scripts sort of coexisted, gaining and waning in usage as other scripts became more used. Real sad we may never know where the script comes from.

[@giuseppeagresta1425]

Btw I don't know if it's just me but I find bronze inscriptions very cool

[@pattya4048]

the earlier overthrown of japanese government before ww2 was the Tokugawa government which has been overthrown in 1868, the attempts of overthrowing Japanese government afterwards were failed in 1936 and then 1945( 1945 to stop japan from surrendering to the US and allies) whereas the first mass simplifications was happened in 1909 in the Qing. The simplification efforts with ROC was also attempted but didn’t officially happen to Japan until after the ww2. Shinjitai 新字体happened afterward since 1946 during US occupation of Japan(1945-1952) and first few stages happened after 1950s but official changes were made into the lists in 1981 and 2010.

[@dragonapop]

@pattya4048 sigh, I can never remember dates. Thanks for the specifications.

[@jonascarva8032]

4:45 I actually managed to guess right the 龍 one lmao Anyways good vid

[@rawcopper604]

Pronouncing chu as chew and hanzi as hanzee is crazy

[@minicararnold]

zhou as zou i'm crying. fuck that h

[@cassiopesysg5423]

Some extra stuffs: 1.Aside from cursive and semi-cursive, later calligraphers also invented 行楷(quarter cursive) 行草 (three quarters cursive) as well the 狂草(extra cursive). 2. During the culture revolution, there was a committee creating the double simplified Chinese characters (二简字), but it was swiftly called to an end a few years later. However it's impact lasts and you sometimes you can still see it in China, like writing 歺厅 instead of 餐厅 (restaurant), 仃车场 instead of 停车场(car park) 3. Just like Janpanese having Hentaigana, Chinese also have Variant Chinese characters (异体字). Which is also different regional and time period standards. 4. Aside from the ones that you mentioned. There's also other now extinct Kanji systems. The Large Khitan script and Small Khitan script of the now extinct Khitan ethnicity. The tangut script of the extinct Tangut ethnicity. The juechen script of the manchu ethnicity.

[@yorgunsamuray]

Also Sawndip of Zhuang. Though you might as well think that it's still used among people, just not officially. I think it's the closest cousin to Hanzi. Though Khitan and Jurchen scripts are more or less Chinese inspired and have the look, Tangut is remarkably different, despite in a similar mentality. But they do look cool.

[@大明永曆皇帝]

As a Chinese who is living in China. I have never seen 歺厅and仃车.But I think that those characters are known by many people in China.

[@cassiopesysg5423]

@@大明永曆皇帝 一般停车场用油漆手刷的字，还有粉笔写的招牌会有一点。不过我也没见过打印体这么用的。

[@OctavioMovies]

I'd say that modern Japanese actually uses 4 scripts, with the 4th being the latin alphabet that is sometimes used to type into computers (wich then turn it into hiragana, kanji or whatever).

[@KuraSourTakanHour]

Everyone in Japan end up learning the alphabet whether they want to or not, because you still see it everywhere in brands and media, but without even knowing how to speak english 😅

[@spiralingspiral72]

technically 5, if you count the hindu arabic numbers (1234567890) that we use as a separate script

[@1nwb-4dnws]

​@@spiralingspiral72 Actual linguist or lurker in dictionary online like wiktionary, that's all of them. Tho there's old case of sake brand or shop using ye for ebisu thus yebisu Not sure if 変体仮名 or other term rare case but still comes up

[@harambe2552]

Even more if you include emojis

[@Tananko]

In mainland china too lol,you have pinyin,but quite different in Japan, because you use 3x3 katakana/hiragana keyboard in mobile/phone

[@elytaku5029]

Great vid. Looking forward to part 2 covering dialects and regional variants!

[@terrydakingslay]

6:58 the 贝 part is actually 见 which is completely different

[@埊]

i dislike these new versions of 見 and 貝

[@pattya4048]

but hey I think 見 version is kinda fancy too

[@terrydakingslay]

@ I grew up on the simplified versions but I do like how jian has the eye radical

[@Auradnor]

i haven't even finished the video but thank GOD chin won all those years ago jesus christ. imagine having to draw a football to spell out horse. my 馬 hero

[@埊]

秦, not 'chin'.

[@Auradnor]

@埊 idk i just spelt it the way i heard it, cheers for the kanji though

[@Ash-vv8zg]

@@Auradnor fun fact: it's Qin not Chin, and yes the pronouciation is different, but since english doesnt have that sound i guess chin is a close though awkward imitation

[@harrytsang1501]

7:13 thank you for including SF as places that uses Cantonese and Traditional Chinese

[@partycja24]

omg I absolutely loved this video! Your dedication for studying (and teaching) all of this is admirable. 🤩

[@Zejgar]

11:26 Aah, I wondered why the signs in Streetview looked so incomprehensible Thank you

[@pattya4048]

in the Showa era in documented before ww2 according to (1938) an antique Japanese passport (stamped entry to nagasaki in jan31st 1939) used traditional chinese letters for kanji 日本國 before we can see that japan switched to simplified 日本国 later on (shinjitai 1946) which is a detail to notice since the a little bit of kanji were simplified and modified during US occupation even before the cultural revolution in china’s mao era.

[@eskipotato]

9:00 is this pronunciation of Baekje a Bill Wurtz reference or am I going insane

[@diydylana3151]

Thanks I was feeling bad but you got a few laughs out of me :). I like the slides! And I love chinese characters I made my own language of them. I think a fun fact is that plenty of characters actually developed to be more complicated over time because theyd borrow 1 char to mean something else or there was a similar char but then would try to clarify the meaning of the old character by adding something :"D. 2 questions. -You said "we", are you Japanese? Chinese? -......Was your name inspired by マル秘ゲーム?(don't take this too seriously I know its a turn of phrase this was just a personal association lol)

[@maruhigakuen]

Thanks for watching the video Lana! To answer your question, yea I'm Japanese but I'll get more into that in my million subscriber special And the reason why I chose the name 丸秘学園 was because not only was there an emoji for it ㊙️㊙️㊙️, but I thought the name was funny because it sounded like something I'd see in porn

[@diydylana3151]

@maruhigakuen oh wow!! Its not very common to see a Japanese person make this kind of content. Also lmao your name origin :"). めっちゃ草

[@NerfMaster000]

7:07 You have 东 repeated twice for 長, it should be 长.

[@maruhigakuen]

whoops ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ thx for noticing

[@KamiAme]

One day this guy will blow up into millions 君の動画がめちゃ面白くて、かっこいい 動画を沢山見てみたい。頑張って下さいよ

[@SemiLobster]

You can't just have Mongolia in light blue on the map and not talk about it!

[@maruhigakuen]

Eventually!

[@Flozone1]

Secret history of the Mongols was written in Chinese characters in the Middle Mongol language, but the Mongols themselves never used Hanzi. The Khitan, a people related to the Mongols, once had a Chinese-derived script, well two actually. Also the Khitan small script is more like a syllabary as well.

[@epicsouththeoduskiangamer]

The current Mongolian Script actually comes from the Perso-Arabic script, but even that isn't used in favor of Cyrillic, except for some communities in Inner Mongolia (China)

[@Flozone1]

@@epicsouththeoduskiangamer Almost true. The traditional Mongolian script comes from the Old Uyghur script, which in turns comes from Sogdian and Iranian scripts, which are derived from Aramaic/Syriac, not Perso-Arabic. Perso-Arabic on the other hand is also a descendant of Aramaic/Syriac. So they're more like cousins in the end, but work similarly, except Uyghur/Mongol is vertical. The Mongols never really adopted Han characters for writing though. They had a lot of other scripts like Phags-pa and different variants of vertical scripts though.

[@StephenYoung1379]

@@Flozone1 Mongolian used Hanzi under Yuan and slowly became Han Chinese, then they got kicked out to outer Mongolia, and turned back to their nomadic life again.

[@zacharytarnow7290]

Let’s go new MaruHI academy video 🙏

[@Affa01]

Nice video but the enka singing is the best. I want a video like the heart sutra but with you singing enka. Also other buddhist chant and stuff would be dope, I really enjoyed it

[@someasianguy6686]

Yep, I'm like one of those 67 Vietnamese viewers. Thank you for the mention and informative segment on Vietnamese history and writing systems. I also heard about a script called 蝌蚪文 (literally Tadpole Script and chữ Khoa Đẩu in Vietnamese) being used in ancient Viet tribes before the Chinese characters or something, but the information on this script is somewhat confusing.

[@someasianguy6686]

Also, I think optional courses on Chinese characters (and chữ Nôm) should be incorporated into the official curriculum. Many criticize the former script as complicated and perplexing, but we're missing so much on Vietnamese culture, history, etc. without knowledge of the characters. Also, it gets way easier once we get past with all the "squiggly lines" part, since Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary makes up a huge part of the language, which helps with overall memorization and acquisition of Sinosphere languages. For example: 注意 - ちゅうい - Chú ý 管理 - かんり - Quản lý 破壊 - はかい - Phá hoại

[@nomnaday]

Chữ Khoa Đẩu is a fake script claimed by Đỗ Văn Xuyền to be the script used by ancient Vietnamese. But sources have found that he just copied the Tai Viet script and applied it to Vietnamese. The chữ Khoa Đẩu does not even make any sense since it writes modern Vietnamese instead of old Vietnamese which had consonant clusters such as /kr/ /bl/ /tl/ and /ml/ which are not found in Modern Vietnamese.

[@riton349]

5:25 Boldly Showing Japan with the South Kurilen Islands

[@MaryIam13]

oh this was such an interesting video! even tho I'm a beginner in learning chinese, its interesting to see how the characters evolved and I felt happy recognizing the horse stroke for which kingdom won lol also now I see why they use those seal scripts in historical cdramas, manhuas and donghuas especially when it comes to demons, curses and purifying stuff, I've always wondered why it looked different to traditional chinese^^

[@andreasjoannai6441]

10:06 You don't use Hiragana because of gendered association. I don't use Hiragana because it's more difficult to write than Katakana. We are not the same.

[@poof117]

Yoo! Epic video. When can we expect animals third edition? Please :)

[@maruhigakuen]

@@poof117 definitely this year 👍

[@giuseppeagresta1425]

MARUHI ACADEMY UPLOAD 🛐🛐🛐🛐🛐🛐🛐

[@mayanightstar]

Don't lie. Technically Japanese uses FOUR writing systems! The fourth is just the one I'm using now.

[@conho4898]

"we haven't found earlier scripts yet" u ever heard of proto-writing? look up Chinese neolithic symbols. They're literally predecessors of oracle bone scripts.

[@howefan4650]

if you think Chu Nom is weird, go look at historical Jurchen, Tangut, and Khitan scripts. Uncanny as hell

[@artugert]

Wanna see some crazy characters? Check out the Bird-Worm Seal Script.

[@ferretyluv]

Hey buddy, that’s Delaware, not Idaho. Equally unimportant, but as different as Tottori and Niigata.

[@davirochaaulasonline8224]

thank you for enlightning us, Maruhi Academy

[@OttugiBap]

good video. but why face stuck in right corner?

[@Flozone1]

Really nice video, but you forgot Zhuang and its Sawndip. Of course there are still a few minor scripts not used today anymore and some Hanzi imitations that got sadly wiped out by the Mongols. Khitan, Tangut, Jurchen and Bohai are those which look like Hanzi but don't work like Hanzi at all. Actually if there is a worst script contest, Tangut should be mentioned. Nothing about it makes sense. Jurchen later tossed its Hanzi-like script in favor of the Mongolian script also renaming itself to Manchu. Khitan got wiped out by the Mongols and Bohai is simply not researched much at all. Most sites are probably located in North Korea so good luck with that. There are also some small weird scripts like Yi and Geba, which look like they are early offsprings or imitations of the oracle bone script. If I remember correctly there are also a bunch of weird script-imitations found all over Japan claimed to be pre-Hanzi scripts but basically all were found to be fakes.

[@danielantony1882]

Tangut is fine, bro.

[@1nwb-4dnws]

for romanization, i think Gwoyeu Romatyzh is better cuz all tones are distinct

[@Flozone1]

@@danielantony1882 To quote Gerard Clauson on the subject: "[Tangut] is remarkable for being written in one of the most inconvenient of all scripts, a collection of nearly 5,800 characters of the same kind as Chinese characters but rather more complicated; very few are made up of as few as four strokes and most are made up of a good many more, in some cases nearly twenty... There are few recognizable indications of sound and meaning in the constituent parts of a character, and in some cases characters which differ from one another only in minor details of shape or by one or two strokes have completely different sounds and meanings." Frankly if it would still exist today it would have a traditional and simplified variant too.

[@埊]

theres a reason why 西夏文 is named '死文' also 龍 in 辽文 looks like 女 with additional strokes

[@danielantony1882]

@@Flozone1 Again, it’s fine. I watched a Japanese video on it, and if we ignore the stroke count, it’s fine. You don’t need less strokes to recognize a character-Taiwan and Honk Kong still use Traditional Chinese.

[@SukacitaYeremia]

GODDAMMIT I WAS GONNA USE THIS VIDEO AS A SOURCE

[@rawcopper604]

8:31 Japan uses two types of writing systems, not three. Two syllabaries and one logography.

[@tramsung8175]

Hiragana and katakana are usually grouped together. Kitakana

[@ricardohoang2548]

two types of writing systems three types of scripts

[@play247gamests9]

love your singing at the end

[@johnsherfey3675]

Also, interestingly around and a few hundred years before the han dynasty. Often times only part of the characrer was written, usually the left side. Some times the right. It allowed for quicker writing rather than writing a monolith of a character.

[@ebonymaw8457]

I’m gonna use this video as a source

[@youngthomasyorke4074]

Good video, some pronunciation was scuffed and you need to put a volume limit on your mic or EQ after recording.

[@ngohaydenmoe]

saying kanji history is equivalent to saying alphabets of liberty

[@446r-og7pf]

7:06 you forgot to change the 车 character into 长

[@aaaa69696-]

Way too high quality good stuff

[@somgears1589]

Hey man I wanted to ask if your major is to study this stuff then what kind of jobs can you get? Besides making youtube videos.

[@maruhigakuen]

1) Watermelon salesman 2) Nickelodeon background character 3) President of Mars No this isn't my major lol I'm actually trynna be a pilot. But if you're interested in history you can work in schools, museums, archeology, among others. Or if you're interested in language you can probably be a teacher, UN translator, Mafia translator, etc.

[@kibo98764]

maybe i did not understand everything well in watching the video, but why did they make the characters "two" and "three" so more complicated like that, were they not good enough the way there were to them? or what? and why did they change all the characters like this?🤔 am confused cause it was obviously not to simplify them ..

[@DELTA38g]

What do you mean? 2 and 3 are 二 and 三

[@kibo98764]

@ yeah, why they made them more complicated? was it to make them more poetic? because my english is not very good sometimes so i did not understand everything from the video

[@DELTA38g]

@kibo98764 But what is complicated about 二 and 三 ?

[@kibo98764]

@ i was talking over the vietnamese versions lol .. (i cant type em with the keyboard..)

[@DELTA38g]

@kibo98764 Ooooh I see what you mean now! I'm not an expert in Vietnamese but Chữ Nôm makes use of phono-semantic compounds for their characters to represent their words. Phono-semantic means that one part of the character shows the pronunciation (phonetic) while another part shows the meaning (semantic). As the video mentioned, Vietnamese had chữ Hán with sino-vietnamese characters (words derived from Chinese), and Chữ Nôm was made for native words. In the case of chữ Hán, the characters 二 and 三 would have the Chinese derived pronunciations nhị and tam (compare the Japanese ni and san, also derived from Chinese). But in Chữ Nôm the phono-semantic (reading+meaning) characters 𠄩 and 𠀧 were made to show the native pronunciations hai and ba. So 𠄩 consists of 台 (hai) + 二 (two) and 𠀧 consists of 巴 (ba) + 三 (three).

[@terrydakingslay]

Dont you dare say kanji when the video is mostly about Hànzì or else the natives are gonna get you.

[@newwaveinfantry8362]

13:24 - 1989???

[@benginaldclocker2891]

Where's Sawndip?

[@ikkue]

9:01 Is that a Bill Wurtz reference?!?!

[@Christan_yui]

I still can’t remember how to write 0-10 in chữ nôm 喃字. Although I’m pretty good in Traditional chinese. I remember how to write bad word in chữ nôm

[@glairliquid5103]

Bro acting like Japan owns traditional Chinese

[@埊]

天下有一民族名西夏，其有自文字而很难。

[@Link56731]

9:19 Feliratkoztam.

[@paiwanhan]

@4:56 That says Maruhi right?

[@mikzin630]

Vancouver moment

[@shiinachan_227]

Hokkien has similar vocabularies due to Hokkien retaining old Chinese?🤔

[@zen_ith]

i got JUMPED by my birthday in 2027 being n the video WHATS GOIING TO HAPPEN PLEASE TELL ME

[@andreasjoannai6441]

0:21 A lot more like 15-ish minutes, but okay.

[@翻译器]

hanzi or Chinese Characters, not kanji.

[@damocles7909]

Ok, Kanji

[@DELTA38g]

There is a Chinese commenter like this under every kanji video 😂

[@alkaid5572]

​​@@DELTA38g Because too often people act if as Japanese invented Hanzi/Hanja/Kanji/Chinese Character and unqiue to it. People always insist using the Japanese pronunciation Kanji even without the context of discussing Japanese language, and are just generally do not want to give credit to Chinese because China Bad. That is why some Chinese are mad that the most unique and native part of their language is always considers as "Japanese"

[@ricardohoang2548]

Kanji in Japan context Hanja in Korean context Hanzi in Chinese context Chinese characters in most of context

[@ShangDiAboveGodhood]

@1:20 Remember To Show Reverence to The Centrealm. Do Not Blaspheme Oracle Scripture.

[@ANOtherPC668]

4:57 Nike logo

[@thanhthongdang9290]

aw hell yea việt nam mentioned

[@davirochaaulasonline8224]

4:58 食

[@Ptaku93]

pronouncing Zhao as 'zaao' was absolutely atrocious, do you also pronounce jam as 'zaam', or badge as 'baaz'?

[@mango_bug]

hanzì

[@Emotionlesschess]

Topic : kanji Title : hanzi 😂

[@Ash-vv8zg]

they are actually the same thing, like same characters even, just different ways of pronunciation

[@ΜάριοςΕλευθεριάδης-π1σ]

Pls do a QnA

[@maruhigakuen]

10,000 subs

[@tristanx3508]

Too bad Japanese revert from Chinese 2-dimensional written language into 1.5-dimension Katakana and Hiragana. Vietnam even worst, losing their Chinese roots accumulated over thousands of years of a sophisticated and unique Chinese language for a Latin 1-dimensional alphabet written language with letter forming side-by-side along a line. Variation of Latin alphabets that are not standardized among various European countries and new word yet to arrive concepts from the future will be longer and longer spreading period over a few thousand years.

[@damocles7909]

In fact, that's better, because Mandarin often encounters the problem of too many strokes when translating foreign languages. First, Kanji itself has too many strokes, which can easily cause writing difficulties if transliteration is used. Secondly, each Kanji has its own unique meaning, which leads to a direct need to make trade-offs in semantic meaning and intonation accuracy.

[@faustinuskaryadi6610]

Vietnamese isn't Sinitic language in first place so using only Hanzi to write Vietnamese is actually pain.

[@NoCareBearsGiven]

@@faustinuskaryadi6610 using Han Nom is not much harder than writing traditional Chinese. To me it makes Vietnamese easier to read. Just because you are not used to it does not make it 'pain'

[@AnHang0707]

@@faustinuskaryadi6610 Although Vietnamese is not in the same language branch as Chinese, Vietnamese is still a monosyllabic analytic language, which is really similar to Chinese, so a type of logographic scripts like Han character 漢字 and Chu Nom 字喃 still works really well in Vietnamese and is much more suitable for Vietnamese when compared to Japanese and Korean (which is one of the reasons why Vietnamese never invented any other phonetic scripts like Japanese and Korean since Han Nom 漢喃 [Han for Sino Vietnamese words and Nom for Native] worked just fine already). We just need to standardize and simplify the Han Nom writing system and reform the education system and we're good to go. If we talk about language branches, Japanese (a Japonic language) and Korean (a Koreanic language) are also not Sinitic languages either ​​and even worse, they are polysyllabic agglutinative languages ​​which are very different from Chinese so using Chinese characters to write Japanese and Korean is much more painful (which it really is). Korean used to use a mixed Hanja + Hangeul script (Hanja for Sino-Korean words and Hangeul for native words) but eventually switched to writing entirely in Hangeul. Japanese also used to have a similar system to Vietnamese Chu Nom called Ateji (kind of an upgraded form of Manyogana) but then had to switch to write the language in 3 different writing systems due to the nature of the Japanese language. I also think they are pretty pushy with the use of Kanji in the language, they used Kanji for both Sinitic and native vocabulary thus creating a myriad of ways to read a Kanji, which to me is a mess

[@faustinuskaryadi6610]

@@AnHang0707 Still you need to use current Vietnamese Alphabet as pinyin of Vietnamese.

[@konplayz]

Pinyin

[@DimiDzi]

私は漢字が嫌いです。