Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions influenced by Chinese culture. The function, style, and means of writing characters have changed greatly over the past three millennia. Unlike letters in alphabets that directly reflect the sounds of speech, Chinese characters generally represent morphemes—the units of meaning in a language—often encoding aspects of pronunciation as well as meaning. Writing all of a language's frequently used vocabulary requires 2000–3000 characters; as of 2024, nearly 100,000 have been identified and included in The Unicode Standard. Characters are composed of strokes written in a fixed order. Historically, methods of writing them include inscribing stone, bone, or bronze; brushing ink onto silk, bamboo, or paper; and printing with woodblocks or moveable type. More recent technologies using Chinese characters include telegraph codes and typewriters, as well as input methods and text encodings on computers.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1689:

The Act of Toleration became law, granting freedom of worship to English nonconformists under certain circumstances, but deliberately excluding Catholics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toleration_Act_1688

1798:

The Irish Rebellion of 1798 began, with battles beginning in County Kildare and fighting later spreading across the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Rebellion_of_1798

1963:

United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy met with African American author James Baldwin in an unsuccessful attempt to improve race relations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin%E2%80%93Kennedy_meeting

2014:

A gunman involved in Islamic extremism opened fire at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, killing four people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Museum_of_Belgium_shooting

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

smidgen: 1. Chiefly in the form a smidgen of: a very small amount or quantity; a bit, a trace. 2. (by extension) Chiefly in the form a smidgen of a: a very small or insignificant person or thing; also, an example of such a person or thing. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smidgen

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

He who chooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means that determine the end.   --Harry Emerson Fosdick https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harry_Emerson_Fosdick