Presented by the PSU Center for Japanese Studies
Co-sponsored PSU Department of World Languages and Literatures
A lecture by Professor Zev Handel, University of Washington
Chinese characters originated in China over 3,000 years ago. Prior to their creation, East Asia was completely devoid of writing. By the time of the Han Dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE), China already had a long literary tradition, a flourishing culture, and a sophisticated government bureaucracy. As the strongest political and cultural force in the region, Chinese writing exerted an enormous influence on surrounding peoples and places, including the areas of modern-day Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Eventually, the Chinese-character script was adapted to write the languages spoken in these three places. At one time, the spoken languages of Korea, Japan, and Vietnam were written entirely in Chinese characters — yet these languages are as unlike Chinese as is spoken English. In this talk, Zev Handel will explain how the building blocks of the Chinese script were adapted to represent the words and sounds of Vietnamese, Japanese, and Korean — and why today, only Japanese still uses kanji in its writing. Along the way, you’ll learn what makes Chinese writing different from alphabetic writing, and what makes it similar.
Zev Handel is professor of Chinese and chair of the Department of Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he has been teaching since 1998. Trained at UC Berkeley in Chinese historical linguistics with a specialization in the earliest stages of the Chinese language, Professor Handel has developed an interest in East Asian writing systems. He is the author of 'Sinography: The Borrowing and Adaptation of the Chinese Script' and is currently completing a book for a general readership about the spread of Chinese characters across Asia and their adaptations in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.
Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Portland State University’s Superb Japanese Language Program: Where People in Greater Portland Come to Learn Japanese.