History of education
Although there are more than 40,000 Chinese characters in written Chinese, many are rarely used. Studies have shown that full literacy in the Chinese language requires a knowledge of only between three and four thousand characters.
Chinaknowledge
With 1.5 billion speakers, the Chinese language is the most spoken language of the world. It is nevertheless one single language that is spoken in the same form in all parts of China, nor has it been unchanged over time. The script by which the Chinese language is written is an ideographic script embedded into clouds of mystery. It is an obstacle for education and literacy and has nevertheless been used for a vast treasury of literature. And it has provided an example for the scripts of neighbouring states. This part of the encyclopedia provides an introduction into important aspects of both the Chinese language and the Chinese script.