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.
A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language
Williams' preface to "A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language " explains, "The number of characters in this work is 12,527, contained in 10,940 articles, and placed under 522 syllables, which follow each other alphabetically, aspirated syllables coming after the unaspirated. Those syllables which begin with "ts", on account of their number, are placed by themselves after "tw'an"" (1874: ix). The additional 1,587 characters are differently written variant characters. For instance, the standard character 醫 for "yī" "medical doctor" has 酉 "wine vessel" indicating medicinal wine, but the earlier variant character 毉 has 巫 "Chinese shaman" indicating shamanic healing.