Written Chinese
Written Chinese () comprises Chinese characters used to represent the Chinese language. Chinese characters do not constitute an alphabet or a compact syllabary. Rather, the writing system is roughly logosyllabic; that is, a character generally represents one syllable of spoken Chinese and may be a word on its own or a part of a polysyllabic word. The characters themselves are often composed of parts that may represent physical objects, abstract notions, or pronunciation. Literacy requires the memorization of a great many characters: educated Chinese know about 4,000. The large number of Chinese characters has in part led to the adoption of Western alphabets as an auxiliary means of representing Chinese.
CKC Chinese Input System
The encoding uses a maximum of 4 digits ("0" - "9") to represent a Chinese character. All possible shapes of strokes that forms any given Chinese character are classified into 10 groups, each represented by one of the ten possible digits 0-9. Chinese characters can then be input by following the order in which the strokes are identified at the 4 corners of the character. As a result of this simplicity in coding using the ten numeric digits, users typically need to use only a numeric keypad to input Chinese.