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.
Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage
First, Lin breaks down all Chinese characters into 33 basic stroke formations, called the "letters of the Chinese Alphabet", arranged into ten groups suggested by the characters for numerals. For instance, the character for "liu" 六 "6" is the mnemonic basic for "letters" 亠 (60), 广 (61), 宀 (62), and 丶 (63). Second, Lin lists the "fifty radicals" (common among the traditional 214 Kangxi radicals) designated with letters A through D, as in 氵 (63A), 礻 (63B), 衤 (63C), and 戸 (63D). Third, characters that can be divided vertically into left and right components are called "split" (S), and those characters that cannot are called "non-split" (NS), thus 羊 and 義 are (NS) while 祥 and 佯 are (S).