There is no mention of simplified characters (either the slightly simplified kind used in Japan, or the extremely simplified kind now used in the PRC)...or categories such as 本字, 俗字, 同字, or 古字... (At least these are the terms used in Korean)...This is a little beyond my scope; can Menchi or someone else contribute something along these lines? --Sewing 22:27, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Well, the article (in my opinion) is not really well written. Aboout the four categories, they are simply official form, unofficial form, sysnonyms and ancient form. Do we really need to mention them? --wshun 22:36, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I actually haven't read this article. But Simplified Chinese is mentioned on Chinese written language (it's linked as Hanzi in this article's intro. I haven't read that either).

I think it's worthy to note and give some examples (maybe a table) of the official and verncacular forms. And another comparison of some obsolete forms with the modern forms to show the evolution is informative too. --Menchi 22:41, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Thanks...in response to wshun, it might be useful just to mention the terms and give a quick definition and example; sometimes it's hard to find a good definition of the Hanja "metalanguage," even in my (otherwise very useful) 實用國語辭典. --Sewing 22:48, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Correction: at home I looked up 본자 (本字) in my dictionary, and it was there. That dictionary is truly useful (確實히 實用하다)! (Get it?) --Sewing 18:23, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Chinese characters are employed to one degree or another in the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages, as well as Vietnamese before its colonization.

Also after -- the people who take orders at the Vietnamese place my girlfriend and I like use Chinese characters (as I discovered when they got our order wrong) --Charles A. L. 19:28, Nov 25, 2003 (UTC)

A minority of Vietnamese are actually Vietnamese with Chinese ancestry (how ever "far back" or not). I think a number of Vietnamese Americans are like this. These people at the take-out restaurant may therefore be "Chinese-Vietnamese Americans".

I think this is quite likely. Something that I found is many Vietnamese-Americans actually speak very good Mandarin because they were Sino-Vietnamese and learned Chinese in Chinese school in Vietnam. -RR

You could make a conversation with them about this. But my understanding is that Vietnamese schools don't teach Chinese anymore, so most have no way to learn them unless their parents know how to and are interested in teaching their children Chinese. --Menchi 02:42, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Or they be just Chinese Americans who happen to specialize in Vietnamese cuisine. I know many sushi stores are actually owned by Chinese. And probably most pizzerias are not owned by Italians. --Menchi 02:47, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Modern Vietnamese does not use Chinese characters. Most people do not know one character from another, save the characters on Chinese chess pieces. The restaurant might be owned by a Chinese person, or is specializing in Chinese cuisine.

Hanja and Kanji get their own articles, but not Hanzi. Actually, much of this article (esp the classification section) focuses on Chinese (really Chinese) characters only ("Chinese scholars classify Han characters..."). How about splitting this article to parallel the Korean and Japanese articles? --Jiang 16:14, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. How about discuss the common characteristics among C,J,K, and V in this article, then language-specific issues in the separate articles? --Sewing 22:00, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

agreed. This article is very Chinese Chinese character-centric. I also dispute the accuracy of the following statement regarding the character for "east": "All in all it represents a sun rising through trees; this character falls in the radical-radical category." If I'm not mistaken, Kenneth Henshall, while giving the above as a convenient mnemonic, says that in fact this is NOT the character's true etymology.Exploding Boy 13:53, Jan 28, 2004 (UTC)

Changed the example for different character meanings. The character for mother in Japanese is also used in Chinese, although its a somewhat formal usage. Roadrunner 05:25, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Of course, Hanja are not used in everyday life the way they are in China or Japan, but they are used more than just "primarily for emphasis and for names." They are used quite a bit in academic literature (much to my frustration, since I don't want to spend 5 minutes looking up a character in an Okpyeon every time I see a new one I don't know, especially when after all my deciphering, it turns out it's a word I knew all along, but only in its Hangul spelling!); and also in dictionaries, railway signs, and anywhere disambiguation is necessary. Perhaps you were thinking of the use of Hanja in newspaper headlines or shop signs, but this is more for the purpose of instant disambiguation and recognition than for emphasis. --Sewing 02:19, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The Japanese-style form with mixed Hangul and Hanja is still used in the constitution and some important laws. So lawyers study Hanja for work. --Nanshu 03:49, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Just remember that Koreans were using Chinese characters before the Japanese even knew what they were. Up until the 20th century, almost all writing was done exclusively in Hanja. Writing with mixed Hangul and Hanja is called "mixed script," not "Japanese-style" writing. --Sewing 19:34, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)