🎓 Doc Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱
The way you describe it, it sounds like a cursive form of kanji. Which is cool in its own right.
Im a calligrapher as a hobby and while my girlfriends language doesnt have kanji it is asian. So ive been enjoying learning more about the languages from the region.
![天空вℓσи∂ [Unemployed edition]](https://gnusocial.jp/avatar/218776-48-20231130051710.webp){kind=small}
天空вℓσи∂ [Unemployed edition]
Just a simple demo to show how I normally write. The standard one is shown on the left side, they are 7, 5 and 8 strokes. And the left side is how I write those, the first one is 2 strokes because there is a separate dot there. The rest are 1 stroke.
A fun fact: In school teacher will not allow you to write like this.I was being criticized a lot when I was in school.
And because school don't allow and of course won't teach you how to write like this, almost everyone will develop their own way to write. So when talking about handwriting, unless it's intentionally write for others, it's hard to read other people's handwriting.
And I think I won't say it's cursive. The real cursive is much beautiful than this :)
🎓 Doc Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱
So in school youd have to learn the form on the left which is more "correct" but also less practical i guess?
In school you use pencils and pens? The older style of using brushes isnt very common for everyday writing i take it? With a brush i guess its more like calligraphy.
天空вℓσи∂ [Unemployed edition]
Actually we use pen and pencil daily. Now we only use brushes when doing calligraphy or we need write something big.
The left side is how you should write and print. And you should write like that if you want others to easily read what you write. And in school it's required to be written in the correct order of storkes, which I think some are reasonable, some are not.
This passage is write for japanese but most of the idea works for Chinese too.
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/kanji-stroke-order/
And now we're using simplified Chinese, which means much less strokes. In Taiwan and HongKong they still use traditional Chinese, which looks nicer, but with a lof ot strokes.
Some traditional Chinese looks like (copied from wikipedia):
漢字簡化運動可追溯至新文化運動中關於文字及語文教言和國家發展的討論。
The same text but in simplified Chinese:
汉字简化运动可追溯至新文化运动中关于文字及语文教言和国家发展的讨论。
🎓 Doc Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱
Why woukd the order of strokes matter? Doesnt it look the same regardless of what order you execute the strokes in? Thanks this is all very interesting to me.
天空вℓσи∂ [Unemployed edition]
I don't know, I didn't fully get the idea of stroke order. But from top to bottom and left to right does help shape your character.
----
It's a hard question since I never thought about it. Some anwser suggest it's part of the standard. Eventually you will write the same character no matter how you write it, but to resolve any ambiguity, there has to be a standard way to write. And some suggest the correct stroke order can help you learn cursive.
🎓 Doc Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱
Correct me if im wrong but chinese culture has a very strong aspect of conformity to it. So i suppose that is reflected even in how you are taught to write.
天空вℓσи∂ [Unemployed edition]
Maybe? I actually don't know. But I found some (most?) order are actually matches very well on how I developed my own writing style. If the orders are right, they can be combined to 1 stroke and won't looks mess. But some are not that intuitive (actually I'll call them counterintuitive).
Also, a friend of mine just send this video to me: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Mb4y1P75q
It's a Chinese lecture talking about Chinese shorthand, hosted on Chinese website, so good luck :)
🎓 Doc Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱
What i find interesting is in english there are hubdreds of different scripts to represent the same words. There is no standard form of writing. But in chinese seems much more standardized, all the way down to the stroke order.
天空вℓσи∂ [Unemployed edition]
If you rewind back to 200 years ago, in Qing Dynasty, the government actually enforced a style of essay called eight-legged essay. It defined the structure of a essay and is very limited. It's a standardized essay at that time. Writing anything other than that will be considered as non-mainstream and will be rejected by officals.
🎓 Doc Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱
This what i mean by conformity as a cultural component. It seems to me as an outsider to be very central to chinese culture to put pressure on people to conform.
天空вℓσи∂ [Unemployed edition]
You're right on that part. And now it's still the practise. How to make society stable? Raise salary? Make social security takes care of everyone? No. Just make house price super expensive and offers a 30 years loan. If it takes 3 generations' effort to buy a house in a family, then people won't have time/energy to care other problems.
🎓 Doc Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱
30 year loans are the norm in the usa too. Though id imagine the prices are much cheaper just due to population density.
天空вℓσи∂ [Unemployed edition]
As I found here: https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/rankings_by_country.jsp
The house price to income ratio in China is almost 30, while in US is less than 5. So...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
🎓 Doc Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱
Wow, not that surprising, but still, wow.
eshep
I can only answer as far as Japanese is concerned, but I expect Chinese has a similar reason for stroke order. In Japanese, it is considered to be a fundamental part of writing and uniquely defines each character. The main reason for the order though is fluidity. When written correctly, each stroke leaves you (mostly) where you need to be for the next; it aids in writing for both speed and legibility. A hand-written character done in the wrong order is more than not, easily identifiable as "incorrect". This difference is much easier to see when written with a brush or flat marker, but pen, pencil, chalk, rocks, burnt sticks ...they all leave a heavy and light side for each stroke made. The order in which strokes are made becomes even more important when writing similarly to the (not cursive) example @skyblond put above. Writing anything in this style would be impossible to read if strokes were not made in the correct order.
🎓 Doc Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱
Thanks so much. That lines up roughly wish some of my speculation. Much appreciate the culture sharing :)
🎓 Doc Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱
Do hanzi/kanji have an alphabetical ordering? If not how would you look them up in a list in a sane way?
天空вℓσи∂ [Unemployed edition]
When talking about names, we tend to use the number of strokes. For example if your surname is 王 (Wang), it's 4 strokes, and will be placed before someone with the surname 张 (Zhang), which is 7 strokes.
Another order is for dictionaries. Sorted by PinYin, so it's from A to Z. Also in the back of the dictionary there is an index based on character parts. For example, 杉 (Shan1, means fir, a type of tree) and 枝 (Zhi1, means branch of the tree) will be under the 木 (Mu4, means wood) part. You can find the character by part, then it will tell you which page this character is on.
🎓 Doc Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱
So very interesting. Thank you again for sharing with me.
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