CJK characters
Chinese is written almost exclusively in Chinese characters. It requires over 3,000 characters for general literacy, but up to 40,000 characters for reasonably complete coverage. Japanese uses fewer characters — general literacy in Japanese can be expected with 1,945 characters. The use of Chinese characters in Korea is becoming increasingly rare, although idiosyncratic use of Chinese characters in proper names requires knowledge (and therefore availability) of many more characters. However, even today, students in South Korea are taught 1,800 characters.
A Dictionary of the Chinese Language
Part I, A Dictionary of the Chinese Language, is supertitled in Chinese—but not English—as a "character dictionary" (). It was a Chinese-to-English dictionary, organized by the 214 radical system employed by the 1716 "Kangxi Dictionary". These radicals are the initial or major graphic components of Chinese characters, ranging from 1 to 17 strokes. In Morrison's dictionary, Volume I starts with Radical 1 (, "one") and ends at Radical 41 ( ("thumb; Chinese inch") ; Volume II starts with Radical 42 (, "small") and stops at Radical 119 (, "rice") ; and Volume III begins with Radical 120 (, "silk") and ends the dictionary with Radical 214 (, "flute") . Vols. II & III were published simultaneously in London by Kingsbury, Parbury, & Allen.