For example, the letter “b” in English represents a voiced bilabial stop, but no particular meaning can be attached to it in its function as a letter of the alphabet. Chinese writing is logographic, ...

This worked, but it put Chinese at a disadvantage. Numbers in Morse code contain five dots or dashes and letters only one to three, which made Chinese telegrams both more expensive and less efficient.

Chinese: 汉字. The Chinese writing system is the most widespread writing system in East Asia. ... This alphabet is used for writing Berber languages, which are spoken in the Sahara region.

In the historian Jing Tsu’s “Kingdom of Characters,” the evolution of Chinese writing tells the story of the country’s past, present — and future.