The Chinese characters constitute one of mankind's oldest systems of writing, and have the most users in the world. There are many Chinese characters, totaling about 60,000, with about 6,000 basic ones.
Chinese characters have a long history. The oldest Chinese characters discovered till now are jiaguwen (ancient Chinese characters carved on tortoise shells or animal bones), dating back 3,400 years, which were already mature characters. As scientists estimate, Chinese characters have a history of about 5,000 years.
Chinese characters originate from pictures for keeping records. From ancient to modern times, the form and structure of Chinese characters has changed a lot, evolving from jiaguwen, jinwen (ancient language used in inscriptions on ancient bronze objects), xiaozhuana (small seal character), lishub (official script), and kaishuc (regular script). The current script of Chinese characters is kaishu (regular script).
There are mainly four word-formation methods as follow