Chinese characters

Chinese characters (Harnji)

• Some characters are unique to Taiwanese and sometimes used in informal writing
• Borrowing of similar-sounding or similar-meaning characters is a common practice (see substitute character)
• "Most estimates of the Taiwanese morphemes that lack an appropriate sinographic written form are about 20-25% for typical running texts" (Mair (2003), Part 2)
• Often several "readings". For example: 老. See literary and colloquial readings of Chinese characters
  • Colloquial layers of Min varieties are believed to have branched from the mainstream of Chinese around the time of the Han dynasty, end of the Old Chinese period
  • Literary Taiwanese, which was originally developed in the 10th century in Fujian and based on Middle Chinese, was used at one time for formal writing, but is now largely extinct
• For readings, see MoeDict, DFT and TGJT