Stroke order
Encyclopedia
Chinese character
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...
are written. A stroke is a movement of a writing instrument on a writing surface. Chinese characters are used in various forms in Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, and in Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
. They are known as hanzi in Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, kanji
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
in Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, and hanja
Hanja
Hanja is the Korean name for the Chinese characters hanzi. More specifically, it refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation...
in Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
.
Development
Because most Chinese characters have many strokes, certain stroke orders were recommended to ensure speed, accuracy, and legibility in composition. In the twentieth century, simplification of Chinese charactersSimplified Chinese character
Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Xiandai Hanyu Tongyong Zibiao for use in Mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of many standard character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language...
took place in mainland China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, greatly reducing the number of strokes in some characters, and a similar but more moderate simplification also took place in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. In some cases the character was unchanged, but the stroke order changed; the basic rules of stroke order within each region, however, remained the same. Because writing characters in the official stroke order can greatly facilitate learning and memorization, children are required to learn and use it in school; adults, however, may ignore or forget it for certain characters, or develop idiosyncratic ways of writing. While this is rarely a problem in day-to-day writing, incorrectly ordered or written strokes can produce illegible or incorrect characters. Also, the accuracy of handwriting recognition software may be reduced when entering strokes out of order.
The Eight Principles of Yong
Eight Principles of Yong
Stroke order animated and in color gradation from black to red The strokes numbered Where there are multiple numbers in an area, the strokes overlap briefly and continue from the previous number to the next....
(永字八法 Pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
: yǒngzì bā fǎ; Japanese: eiji happō; Korean: 영자팔법, yeongjapalbeop, yŏngjap'albŏp) uses the single character 永, meaning "eternity", to teach eight of the most basic strokes in Regular Script
Regular script
Regular script , also called 正楷 , 真書 , 楷体 and 正書 , is the newest of the Chinese script styles Regular script , also called 正楷 , 真書 (zhēnshū), 楷体 (kǎitǐ) and 正書 (zhèngshū), is the newest of the Chinese script styles Regular script , also called 正楷 , 真書 (zhēnshū), 楷体 (kǎitǐ) and 正書 (zhèngshū), is...
.
Ancient China
In ancient China, the Jiǎgǔwén charactersOracle bone script
Oracle bone script refers to incised ancient Chinese characters found on oracle bones, which are animal bones or turtle shells used in divination in Bronze Age China...
carved on ox
Ox
An ox , also known as a bullock in Australia, New Zealand and India, is a bovine trained as a draft animal. Oxen are commonly castrated adult male cattle; castration makes the animals more tractable...
scapula
Scapula
In anatomy, the scapula , omo, or shoulder blade, is the bone that connects the humerus with the clavicle ....
and tortoise
Tortoise
Tortoises are a family of land-dwelling reptiles of the order of turtles . Like their marine cousins, the sea turtles, tortoises are shielded from predators by a shell. The top part of the shell is the carapace, the underside is the plastron, and the two are connected by the bridge. The tortoise...
plastrons showed no indication of stroke order. The characters show huge variations from piece to piece, sometimes even within one piece. During the divination ceremony, after the cracks were made, the characters were written with a brush on the shell or bone (to be carved in a workshop later). Although the brush-written stroke order is not discernible after carving, there exists some evidence that it was not entirely idiosyncratic: a few of the characters, often marginal administrative notations recording the provenance of the shells or bones, were not later recarved, and the stroke order of these characters tends to resemble traditional and modern stroke order. For those characters (the vast majority) which were later engraved into the hard surface using a knife, perhaps by a separate individual, there is evidence (from incompletely engraved pieces) that in at least some cases all the strokes running one way were carved, then the piece was turned, and strokes running another way were then carved.
        |
Imperial China
In early Imperial China, the common script was the Xiaozhuan styleXiaozhuan
Lesser Seal Script, or Small Seal Script , or Hsiao-chuan, is an archaic form of Chinese calligraphy. It was standardized by Li Si, prime minister under the First Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huangdi, and promulgated for use during the first imperial dynasty of China, the Qin DynastyBefore the Qin...
. About 220 BCE, the emperor Qin Shi Huang
Qin Shi Huang
Qin Shi Huang , personal name Ying Zheng , was king of the Chinese State of Qin from 246 BC to 221 BC during the Warring States Period. He became the first emperor of a unified China in 221 BC...
, the first to conquer all China, imposed the Li Si
Li Si
Li Si was the influential Prime Minister of the feudal state and later of the dynasty of Qin, between 246 BC and 208 BC. A famous Legalist, he was also a notable calligrapher. Li Si served under two rulers: Qin Shi Huang, king of Qin and later First Emperor of China—and his son, Qin Er Shi...
's character uniformisation, a set of 3300 standardized Xiǎozhuàn characters Its graphs on old steles — some dating from 200 BCE — start to reveal tiny indications of the stroke order of the time. However, stroke order could still not yet be ascertained from the steles, and no paper from that time is extant.
The true starting point of stroke order is the Lìshū style
Clerical script
The clerical script , also formerly chancery script, is an archaic style of Chinese calligraphy which evolved in the Warring States period to the Qin dynasty, was dominant in the Han dynasty, and remained in use through the Wèi-Jìn periods...
(clerical script) which is more regularized, and in some ways similar to modern text. In theory, by looking at the Lìshū style steles' graphs and the placement of each stroke, one can see hierarchical priority between the strokes, which indicates the stroke order used by the calligrapher or stele sculptors.
Kǎishū style
Regular script
Regular script , also called 正楷 , 真書 , 楷体 and 正書 , is the newest of the Chinese script styles Regular script , also called 正楷 , 真書 (zhēnshū), 楷体 (kǎitǐ) and 正書 (zhèngshū), is the newest of the Chinese script styles Regular script , also called 正楷 , 真書 (zhēnshū), 楷体 (kǎitǐ) and 正書 (zhèngshū), is...
(regular script) — still in use today — is more regularized, allowing one to more easily guess the stroke order used to write on the steles. The stroke order 1000 years ago was similar to that toward the end of Imperial China. For example, the stroke order of 广 is clear in the Kangxi dictionary
Kangxi dictionary
The Kangxi Dictionary was the standard Chinese dictionary during the 18th and 19th centuries. The Kangxi Emperor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty ordered its compilation in 1710. The creator innovated greatly by reusing and confirming the new Zihui system of 596 radicals, since then known as 596 Kangxi...
of 1716; but in a modern book, the official stroke order (the same) will not appear clearly. The Kangxi and current shapes have tiny differences, while current stroke order is still the same, according to the old style. However, the stroke orders implied by the Kangxi dictionary are not necessarily correct.
Cursive styles and hand-written styles
Cursive styles such as XíngshūSemi-cursive script
Semi-cursive script is a cursive style of Chinese characters. Because it is not as abbreviated as cursive, most people who can read regular script can read semi-cursive....
(semi-cursive or running script) and Cǎoshū (cursive or grass script) show stroke order more clearly than Regular Script, as each move made by the writing tool is visible.
Stroke order per polity
| Different stroke orders of the character 必, from black to red. | |||
| Traditional |
ROC & Hong Kong |
Japan |
PRC |
The modern governments of mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan have standardized
Standardization
Standardization is the process of developing and implementing technical standards.The goals of standardization can be to help with independence of single suppliers , compatibility, interoperability, safety, repeatability, or quality....
official stroke orders to be taught in schools. These stroke order standards are prescribed in conjunction to each government's standard character sets. The various official stroke orders agree on the vast majority of characters, but each have their differences. No governmental standard matches traditional stroke orders completely. The differences between the governmental standards and traditional stroke orders arise from a lack of adequate understanding of calligraphy
East Asian calligraphy
East Asian calligraphy is a form of calligraphy widely practised and revered in the Sinosphere. This most often includes China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. The East Asian calligraphic tradition originated and developed from China. There is a general standardization of the various styles of...
on the part of those who standardize stroke orders, and accommodation for schoolchildren who may be overwhelmed if the rules about stroke orders are too detailed, or if there are too many exceptions. The differences listed below are not exhaustive.
- Traditional stroke order: Widely used in Imperial China, currently used in the SinosphereSinosphereIn areal linguistics, Sinosphere refers to a grouping of countries and regions that are currently inhabited with a majority of Chinese population or were historically under Chinese cultural influence...
secondary to each region's governmental standards. Practiced mainly by informed scholars of calligraphy. Also called "calligraphic" stroke order. These stroke orders are established by study of handwritten documents from pre-Republic China, especially those of notable calligraphers. These stroke orders are most conservative regarding etymology, character construction, character evolution, and tradition. Many characters have more than one stroke correct formVariant Chinese characterVariant Chinese characters are Chinese characters that are homophones and synonyms. Almost all variants are allographs in most circumstances, such as casual handwriting...
. Stroke orders may vary depending on the script style. Unlike the other standards, this is not a governmental standard. - ROC stroke order : Prescribed mostly in modern TaiwanTaiwanTaiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
. The standard character set of the ROC Ministry of EducationMinistry of Education (Republic of China)The Ministry of Education of the Republic of China is responsible for incorporating educational policies and managing public schools throughout the Free Area of the Republic of China. The ministry is a cabinet level governmental body of the Executive Yuan...
is the Standard Form of National CharactersStandard Form of National CharactersThe Standard Form of National Characters is a standardized form of Chinese characters set by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China.-Characteristics:...
. This standard diverges from the traditional stroke order in that the upper-right dot of the 戈 component is written second to last. The vertical stroke in 忄 is written second. 成 starts with the horizontal. Also, the 𠂇 component, as seen in 左 and 右, is written with the horizontal stroke first in all instances, while the traditional stroke order differentiates the stroke order of 𠂇 according to etymology and character structure. - Japanese stroke order: Prescribed mostly in modern JapanJapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. The standard character set of the MEXT is the Jōyō kanjiJoyo kanjiThe is the guide to kanji characters announced officially by the Japanese Ministry of Education. Current jōyō kanji are those on a list of 2,136 characters issued in 2010...
, which contains many characters reformedShinjitaiShinjitai are the forms of kanji used in Japan since the promulgation of the Tōyō Kanji List in 1946. Some of the new forms found in shinjitai are also found in simplified Chinese, but shinjitai is generally not as extensive in the scope of its modification...
in 1946. The MEXT lets editors freely prescribe a character's stroke order, which all should "follow commonsensical orders which are widely accepted in the society". This standard diverges from the traditional stroke order in that the two sides of the grass radical (艹) are joined, and written with three strokes. Also, this standard is influenced by semi-cursive scriptSemi-cursive scriptSemi-cursive script is a cursive style of Chinese characters. Because it is not as abbreviated as cursive, most people who can read regular script can read semi-cursive....
, leading to some vertical strokes to precede intersecting horizontal strokes if the vertical stroke does not pass through the lowest horizontal stroke, as in 隹 and 生. 必 is written with the top dot first, while the traditional stroke order writes the 丿 first. - PRC stroke order excluding Hong Kong: Prescribed mostly in modern mainland ChinaMainland ChinaMainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
except Hong KongHong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
. In 1956, government of the PRC introduced many newly created characters and substitutions, called Simplified Chinese characterSimplified Chinese characterSimplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Xiandai Hanyu Tongyong Zibiao for use in Mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of many standard character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language...
s, which form part of the PRC Ministry of EducationMinistry of Education of the People's Republic of ChinaThe Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China , formerly Ministry of Education, Central People's Government from 1949 to 1954, State Education Commission from 1985 to 1998, is headquartered in Beijing. It is the agency of the State Council which regulates all aspects of the...
's standard character set, the Xiàndài Hànyǔ Chángyòng ZìbiǎoXiandai Hanyu changyong zibiaoThe List of Commonly Used Characters in Modern Chinese is a list of 7,000 commonly used Simplified Chinese characters in Chinese. It was created in 1988 in the People's Republic of China.It is comparable to the Standard Form of National Characters in Taiwan....
. This in turn reformed the stroke order of many characters. Besides these characters, this standard diverges from the traditional stroke order in characters with the 艹 radical, merging both sides like the Japanese standard. Also, the horizontal stroke of the 𠂇 component is written first in all instances. 乃 ends with 丿. 成 starts with the horizontal. - Hong Kong stroke order: Prescribed mostly in modern Hong KongHong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
. The standard character set of the Hong Kong Education Bureau is the List of Forms of Frequently Used Characters. The standard stroke order differs from the traditional stroke order in that the 艹 radical is written vertical, horizontal, vertical, horizontal. The traditional stroke order ends 艹 with the right vertical stroke. 成 starts with the horizontal.
Alternative stroke orders
Besides general errors and regional differences in stroke order, it is common in the PRC to apply alternative stroke orders which resemble PRC stroke orders to Traditional Chinese characters, although the PRC generally uses Simplified characters. In the below example, the traditional character 問 (simplified: 问) is shown with both the traditional stroke order (left, starting with the left vertical stroke), as in imperial China, Taiwan, Japan, and Hong Kong, and with the Simplified stroke order (right, with the left vertical stroke fourth).General guidelines
Note: There are exceptions within and among different standards. The following are only guidelines.1. Write from top to bottom, and left to right.
As a general rule, strokes are written from top to bottom and left to right. For example, among the first characters usually learned is the number one, which is written with a single horizontal line: 一. This character has one stroke which is written from left to right.
The character for "two" has two strokes: 二. In this case, both are written from left to right, but the top stroke is written first. The character for "three" has three strokes: 三. Each stroke is written from left to right, starting with the uppermost stroke.
When there are upper and lower components, the upper components are written first, then the lower components, as in 品 and 星.
2. Horizontal before vertical
When horizontal and vertical strokes cross, horizontal strokes are usually written before vertical strokes: the character for "ten," 十, has two strokes. The horizontal stroke 一 is written first, followed by the vertical stroke → 十.
In the Japanese standard, a vertical stroke may precede many intersecting horizontal strokes if the vertical stroke does not pass through the lowest horizontal stroke.
3. Character-spanning strokes last
Vertical strokes that pass through many other strokes are written after the strokes through which they pass, as in 聿 and 弗.
Horizontal strokes that pass through many other strokes are written last, as in 毋 and 舟.
4. Diagonals right-to-left before diagonals left-to-right
Right-to-left diagonals (丿) are written before left-to-right diagonals (乀): 文.
Note that this is for symmetric diagonals; for asymmetric diagonals, as in 戈, the left-to-right may precede the right-to-left, based on other rules.
5. Center before outside in vertically symmetrical characters
In vertically symmetrical characters, the center components are written before components on the left or right. Components on the left are written before components on the right, as in 兜 and 承.
6. Enclosures before contents
Outside enclosing components are written before inside components; bottom strokes in the enclosure are written last if present, as in 日 and 口. Enclosures may also have no bottom stroke, as in 同 and 月.
7. Left vertical before enclosing
Left vertical strokes are written before enclosing strokes. In the following two examples, the leftmost vertical stroke (|) is written first, followed by the uppermost and rightmost lines (┐) (which are written as one stroke): 日 and 口.
8. Bottom enclosures last
Bottom enclosing components are usually written last: 道, 建, 凶.
9. Dots and minor strokes last
Minor strokes are usually written last, as the small "dot" in the following: 玉, 求, 朮.
Representations
There are various ways to describe the stroke order of a character. Children learn the stroke order in courses, as part of writing learning. Various graphical representations are possible, most notably successive images of the character with one more stroke added (or changing color) each time, numbering strokes, color coding, fanning, and more recently animations. Stroke order is often described in person by writing characters on paper or in the air.See also
- Chinese characterChinese characterChinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...
- CJK strokes
- East Asian calligraphyEast Asian calligraphyEast Asian calligraphy is a form of calligraphy widely practised and revered in the Sinosphere. This most often includes China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. The East Asian calligraphic tradition originated and developed from China. There is a general standardization of the various styles of...
- Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scriptsHorizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scriptsMany East Asian scripts can be written horizontally or vertically. The Chinese, Japanese and Korean scripts can be oriented in either direction, as they consist mainly of disconnected syllabic units, each occupying a square block of space...
- Chinese characters description languages
- Radical (Chinese character)Radical (Chinese character)A Chinese radical is a component of a Chinese character. The term may variously refer to the original semantic element of a character, or to any semantic element, or, loosely, to any element whatever its origin or purpose...
External links
PRC- Animated stroke order, from the California State University, Long Beach
ROC
- Learning Program for Stroke Order of Frequently Used Chinese Characters (常用國字標準字體筆順學習網) with animated stroke order, by the Ministry of Education, R.O.C. (Taiwan).
Hong Kong
- 中英對照香港學校中文學習基礎字詞 - Lexical Items with English Explanations for Fundamental Chinese Learning in Hong Kong Schools, by the Hong Kong Education Bureau
- 香港標準字形及筆順 - stroke orders following the Hong Kong Education Bureau's List of Commonly Used Characters
Japanese
- Kanji Stroke Order, from the Engineering Department of New Mexico Tech, Socorro.
- Kanji alive, a free interactive online tool for learning Japanese kanjiKanjiKanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
with stroke order animations, from the University of Chicago. - SODER Project, 1,513 Japanese kanjiKanjiKanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
stroke order diagrams and animations, freely downloadable under license. - Kakijun Kanji stroke order animations.
- Kanji Stroke Order Font, 6,373 Japanese kanjiKanjiKanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
stroke order diagrams presented as a TrueType font.
Korean
- hanja.naver.com, 한자사전(漢字辭典) with stroke order diagrams