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.
Manchu alphabet
The Manchu alphabet was also used to write Chinese. "Manchu: a textbook for reading documents", by Gertraude Roth Li, contains a list comparing a romanization of Chinese syllables written in Manchu compared to Hànyǔ Pīnyīn and Wade–Giles. Using the Manchu script to transliterate Chinese words is a source of loanwords for the Xibe language. Several Chinese-Manchu dictionaries contain Chinese characters transliterated with Manchu script and the Manchu version of the Thousand Character Classic is actually the Manchu transcription of all the Chinese characters. Also existing as a transliteration was the Manchu version of the Hong Loumeng (紅樓夢).