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.
Chinese characters
One area where character usage is officially restricted is in names, which may contain only government-approved characters. Since the "jōyō kanji" list excludes many characters that have been used in personal and place names for generations, an additional list, referred to as the "jinmeiyō kanji" (, lit. "kanji for use in personal names"), is published. It currently contains 983 characters.