The Popularity of Chinese Characters
Chinese characters are a key medium for communication in the Chinese language. They are also unique carriers of Chinese culture and "living fossils" of Chinese civilization. With nearly 6000 years of history, Chinese characters are one of the world's oldest scripts, and their users are not limited to Chinese people and include those in neighboring Korea, Vietnam, Japan, and beyond. Chinese characters promote cultural exchange between China and the rest of the world. In the Sui (581-618) and Tang (618-907) dynasties, a sphere with a shared cultural identity marked by Chinese characters, known as the "Chinese Character Culture Circle" gradually took shape.
The westward spread of Chinese characters only happened much later. Missionaries first introduced them to Europe during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1616-1911) dynasties. The introduction of the characters and grammar of the Chinese language satisfied a thirst for Oriental languages among European scholars. Missionaries compiled dictionaries and researched Chinese grammar to make it more available to Western linguists seeking to undertake comparative linguistic analyses of the Chinese language, which has continued unabated until this day.
汉字的传播
汉字是汉语的载体，是中国文化的独特形式，是记录华夏文明的“活化石”。作为世界上最古老的文字之一，汉字已有6000年左右的历史。汉字不仅为中国人所使用，而且传入与中国邻近的朝鲜、越南和日本并远播海外，推动和促进了中外文化交流。从汉字的流传及使用的历史来看，到了隋唐时期，东亚地区已开始形成一个以汉字为标志的、在文化上有共同特色的区域，即“汉字文化圈”。
汉字的西传则相对要晚得多。明清之际来华传教士首先向欧洲介绍汉字。中国汉字的西传及对汉语语法的介绍，一方面满足了欧洲学者对于东方语言的兴趣，另一方面，传教士所提供的汉语词典及语法文献，直接促使西方语言学家从比较语言学的角度对中国语言开展研究，直至今日仍方兴未艾。
