sentence-transformers/squad huggingface dataset:
Passage: Based on studies of these bronze inscriptions, it is clear that, from the Shang dynasty writing to that of the Western Zhou and early Eastern Zhou, the mainstream script evolved in a slow, unbroken fashion, until assuming the form that is now known as seal script in the late Eastern Zhou in the state of Qin, without any clear line of division. Meanwhile, other scripts had evolved, especially in the eastern and southern areas during the late Zhou dynasty, including regional forms, such as the gǔwén ("ancient forms") of the eastern Warring States preserved as variant forms in the Han dynasty character dictionary Shuowen Jiezi, as well as decorative forms such as bird and insect scripts.

Question: What has evolved over time?

Question: What type of forms are bird and insect scripts considered?

Question: What is guwen considered as?
Passage: Seal script, which had evolved slowly in the state of Qin during the Eastern Zhou dynasty, became standardized and adopted as the formal script for all of China in the Qin dynasty (leading to a popular misconception that it was invented at that time), and was still widely used for decorative engraving and seals (name chops, or signets) in the Han dynasty period. However, despite the Qin script standardization, more than one script remained in use at the time. For example, a little-known, rectilinear and roughly executed kind of common (vulgar) writing had for centuries coexisted with the more formal seal script in the Qin state, and the popularity of this vulgar writing grew as the use of writing itself became more widespread. By the Warring States period, an immature form of clerical script called "early clerical" or "proto-clerical" had already developed in the state of Qin based upon this vulgar writing, and with influence from seal script as well. The coexistence of the three scripts – small seal, vulgar and proto-clerical, with the latter evolving gradually in the Qin to early Han dynasties into clerical script – runs counter to the traditional belief that the Qin dynasty had one script only, and that clerical script was suddenly invented in the early Han dynasty from the small seal script.

Question: What has evolved slowly in the State of of Qin?

Question: What script runs counter to the traditional belief that the Qin dynasty had one script only?

Question: What was invented in the early Han dynasty from the small seal script?
Passage: Contrary to the popular belief of there being only one script per period, there were in fact multiple scripts in use during the Han period. Although mature clerical script, also called 八分 (bāfēn) script, was dominant at that time, an early type of cursive script was also in use by the Han by at least as early as 24 BC (during the very late Western Han period),[b] incorporating cursive forms popular at the time, well as many elements from the vulgar writing of the Warring State of Qin. By around the time of the Eastern Jin dynasty, this Han cursive became known as 章草 zhāngcǎo (also known as 隶草 / 隸草 lìcǎo today), or in English sometimes clerical cursive, ancient cursive, or draft cursive. Some believe that the name, based on 章 zhāng meaning "orderly", arose because the script was a more orderly form of cursive than the modern form, which emerged during the Eastern Jin dynasty and is still in use today, called 今草 jīncǎo or "modern cursive".

Question: Were multiple scripts used during the Han period?

Question: What was one of the more dominant scripts during the time?

Question: What name stood for "orderly"?
Passage: By the late Eastern Han period, an early form of semi-cursive script appeared, developing out of a cursively written form of neo-clerical script[c] and simple cursive. This semi-cursive script was traditionally attributed to Liu Desheng c. 147–188 AD,[d] although such attributions refer to early masters of a script rather than to their actual inventors, since the scripts generally evolved into being over time. Qiu gives examples of early semi-cursive script, showing that it had popular origins rather than being purely Liu’s invention.

Question: What appeared at the end of the late Eastern Han period?

Question: What script was traditionally attributed to Liu Desheng?

Question: Who showed examples of early semi-cursive script?
Passage: Regular script has been attributed to Zhong Yao, of the Eastern Han to Cao Wei period (c. 151–230 AD), who has been called the "father of regular script". However, some scholars postulate that one person alone could not have developed a new script which was universally adopted, but could only have been a contributor to its gradual formation. The earliest surviving pieces written in regular script are copies of Yao's works, including at least one copied by Wang Xizhi. This new script, which is the dominant modern Chinese script, developed out of a neatly written form of early semi-cursive, with addition of the pause (頓/顿 dùn) technique to end horizontal strokes, plus heavy tails on strokes which are written to the downward-right diagonal. Thus, early regular script emerged from a neat, formal form of semi-cursive, which had itself emerged from neo-clerical (a simplified, convenient form of clerical script). It then matured further in the Eastern Jin dynasty in the hands of the "Sage of Calligraphy", Wang Xizhi, and his son Wang Xianzhi. It was not, however, in widespread use at that time, and most writers continued using neo-clerical, or a somewhat semi-cursive form of it, for daily writing, while the conservative bafen clerical script remained in use on some stelae, alongside some semi-cursive, but primarily neo-clerical.

Question: What had been linked to Zhong Yao?

Question: What was Zhong Yao known for?

Question: Who was the son of Wang Zishi?
Passage: It was not until the Northern and Southern dynasties that regular script rose to dominant status. During that period, regular script continued evolving stylistically, reaching full maturity in the early Tang dynasty. Some call the writing of the early Tang calligrapher Ouyang Xun (557–641) the first mature regular script. After this point, although developments in the art of calligraphy and in character simplification still lay ahead, there were no more major stages of evolution for the mainstream script.

Question: What were the North and South considered as?

Question: What continued to evolve stylistically?

Question: What script saw no more stages of evolution?
Passage: For instance, to look up the character where the sound is not known, e.g., 松 (pine tree), the user first determines which part of the character is the radical (here 木), then counts the number of strokes in the radical (four), and turns to the radical index (usually located on the inside front or back cover of the dictionary). Under the number "4" for radical stroke count, the user locates 木, then turns to the page number listed, which is the start of the listing of all the characters containing this radical. This page will have a sub-index giving remainder stroke numbers (for the non-radical portions of characters) and page numbers. The right half of the character also contains four strokes, so the user locates the number 4, and turns to the page number given. From there, the user must scan the entries to locate the character he or she is seeking. Some dictionaries have a sub-index which lists every character containing each radical, and if the user knows the number of strokes in the non-radical portion of the character, he or she can locate the correct page directly.

Question: What contains four strokes?

Question: What do some dictionaries have?

Question: What gives remaining stroke numbers?
Passage: Chinese character dictionaries often allow users to locate entries in several ways. Many Chinese, Japanese, and Korean dictionaries of Chinese characters list characters in radical order: characters are grouped together by radical, and radicals containing fewer strokes come before radicals containing more strokes (radical-and-stroke sorting). Under each radical, characters are listed by their total number of strokes. It is often also possible to search for characters by sound, using pinyin (in Chinese dictionaries), zhuyin (in Taiwanese dictionaries), kana (in Japanese dictionaries) or hangul (in Korean dictionaries). Most dictionaries also allow searches by total number of strokes, and individual dictionaries often allow other search methods as well.

Question: What often allow users to locate entries in several ways?

Question: What lists Chinese characters in radical order?

Question: What is grouped together by radicals?
Passage: While new characters can be easily coined by writing on paper, they are difficult to represent on a computer – they must generally be represented as a picture, rather than as text – which presents a significant barrier to their use or widespread adoption. Compare this with the use of symbols as names in 20th century musical albums such as Led Zeppelin IV (1971) and Love Symbol Album (1993); an album cover may potentially contain any graphics, but in writing and other computation these symbols are difficult to use.

Question: What can be easily coined by writing on paper?

Question: What has their been a prominent supply of in the 20th century?

Question: What can be difficult to represent on a computer?
Passage: New characters can in principle be coined at any time, just as new words can be, but they may not be adopted. Significant historically recent coinages date to scientific terms of the 19th century. Specifically, Chinese coined new characters for chemical elements – see chemical elements in East Asian languages – which continue to be used and taught in schools in China and Taiwan. In Japan, in the Meiji era (specifically, late 19th century), new characters were coined for some (but not all) SI units, such as 粁 (米 "meter" + 千 "thousand, kilo-") for kilometer. These kokuji (Japanese-coinages) have found use in China as well – see Chinese characters for SI units for details.

Question: What can be coined at any time?

Question: What may not be adopted?

Question: What are also known as Japanese-coinages?
Passage: In addition, there are a number of dialect characters (方言字) that are not used in formal written Chinese but represent colloquial terms in non-Mandarin varieties of Chinese. One such variety is Written Cantonese, in widespread use in Hong Kong even for certain formal documents, due to the former British colonial administration's recognition of Cantonese for use for official purposes. In Taiwan, there is also an informal body of characters used to represent Hokkien Chinese. Many varieties have specific characters for words exclusive to them. For example, the vernacular character 㓾, pronounced cii11 in Hakka, means "to kill". Furthermore, Shanghainese and Sichuanese also have their own series of written text, but these are not widely used in actual texts, Mandarin being the preference for all mainland regions.

Question: What are not used in formal written Chinese?

Question: What contains a block of characters used to showcase Hokkien Chinese?

Question: What was the preference for all mainland regions?
Passage: In the Republic of China (Taiwan), which uses traditional Chinese characters, the Ministry of Education's Chángyòng Guózì Biāozhǔn Zìtǐ Biǎo (常用國字標準字體表, Chart of Standard Forms of Common National Characters) lists 4,808 characters; the Cì Chángyòng Guózì Biāozhǔn Zìtǐ Biǎo (次常用國字標準字體表, Chart of Standard Forms of Less-Than-Common National Characters) lists another 6,341 characters. The Chinese Standard Interchange Code (CNS11643)—the official national encoding standard—supports 48,027 characters, while the most widely used encoding scheme, BIG-5, supports only 13,053.

Question: What supports 48,027 characters?

Question: What supports 13,053 characters?

Question: What area uses traditional Chinese characters?
Passage: In China, which uses simplified Chinese characters, the Xiàndài Hànyǔ Chángyòng Zìbiǎo (现代汉语常用字表, Chart of Common Characters of Modern Chinese) lists 2,500 common characters and 1,000 less-than-common characters, while the Xiàndài Hànyǔ Tōngyòng Zìbiǎo (现代汉语通用字表, Chart of Generally Utilized Characters of Modern Chinese) lists 7,000 characters, including the 3,500 characters already listed above. GB2312, an early version of the national encoding standard used in the People's Republic of China, has 6,763 code points. GB18030, the modern, mandatory standard, has a much higher number. The New Hànyǔ Shuǐpíng Kǎoshì (汉语水平考试, Chinese Proficiency Test) covers approximately 2,600 characters at its highest level (level six).

Question: What country uses simplified Chinese characters?

Question: What lists 2,500 common characters?

Question: What is an early version of the national encoding standard used in the people's public of China?
Passage: Modified radicals and new variants are two common reasons for the ever-increasing number of characters. There are about 300 radicals and 100 are in common use. Creating a new character by modifying the radical is an easy way to disambiguate homographs among xíngshēngzì pictophonetic compounds. This practice began long before the standardization of Chinese script by Qin Shi Huang and continues to the present day. The traditional 3rd-person pronoun tā (他 "he, she, it"), which is written with the "person radical", illustrates modifying significs to form new characters. In modern usage, there is a graphic distinction between tā (她 "she") with the "woman radical", tā (牠 "it") with the "animal radical", tā (它 "it") with the "roof radical", and tā (祂 "He") with the "deity radical", One consequence of modifying radicals is the fossilization of rare and obscure variant logographs, some of which are not even used in Classical Chinese. For instance, he 和 "harmony, peace", which combines the "grain radical" with the "mouth radical", has infrequent variants 咊 with the radicals reversed and 龢 with the "flute radical".

Question: What is written in modern usage?

Question: What is one consequence of modifying radicals?

Question: What combines "grain radical" with the "mouth radical"?
Passage: Even the Zhonghua Zihai does not include characters in the Chinese family of scripts created to represent non-Chinese languages. Characters formed by Chinese principles in other languages include the roughly 1,500 Japanese-made kokuji given in the Kokuji no Jiten, the Korean-made gukja, the over 10,000 Sawndip characters still in use in Guangxi, and the almost 20,000 Nôm characters formerly used in Vietnam.[citation needed] More divergent descendents of Chinese script include Tangut script, which created over 5,000 characters with similar strokes but different formation principles to Chinese characters.

Question: What does not include characters in the Chinese family?

Question: What is formed by Chinese principles?

Question: What created over 5,000 characters with similar strokes?
Passage: The total number of Chinese characters from past to present remains unknowable because new ones are developed all the time – for instance, brands may create new characters when none of the existing ones allow for the intended meaning. Chinese characters are theoretically an open set and anyone can create new characters, though such inventions are rarely included in official character sets. The number of entries in major Chinese dictionaries is the best means of estimating the historical growth of character inventory.

Question: What remains unknowable?

Question: What becomes developed all the time?

Question: What is the best means of estimating the historical growth of character inventory?
Passage: One of the most complex characters found in modern Chinese dictionaries[g] is 齉 (U+9F49) (nàng, listen (help·info), pictured below, middle image), meaning "snuffle" (that is, a pronunciation marred by a blocked nose), with "just" thirty-six strokes. However, this is not in common use. The most complex character that can be input using the Microsoft New Phonetic IME 2002a for traditional Chinese is 龘 (dá, "the appearance of a dragon flying"). It is composed of the dragon radical represented three times, for a total of 16 × 3 = 48 strokes. Among the most complex characters in modern dictionaries and also in frequent modern use are 籲 (yù, "to implore"), with 32 strokes; 鬱 (yù, "luxuriant, lush; gloomy"), with 29 strokes, as in 憂鬱 (yōuyù, "depressed"); 豔 (yàn, "colorful"), with 28 strokes; and 釁 (xìn, "quarrel"), with 25 strokes, as in 挑釁 (tiǎoxìn, "to pick a fight"). Also in occasional modern use is 鱻 (xiān "fresh"; variant of 鮮 xiān) with 33 strokes.

Question: What is one of the most complex characters in modern Chinese dictionaries?

Question: What features 33 strokes?

Question: What are among the most complex characters in modern dictionaries?
Passage: There are also some extremely complex characters which have understandably become rather rare. According to Joël Bellassen (1989), the most complex Chinese character is /𪚥 (U+2A6A5) zhé listen (help·info), meaning "verbose" and containing sixty-four strokes; this character fell from use around the 5th century. It might be argued, however, that while containing the most strokes, it is not necessarily the most complex character (in terms of difficulty), as it simply requires writing the same sixteen-stroke character 龍 lóng (lit. "dragon") four times in the space for one. Another 64-stroke character is /𠔻 (U+2053B) zhèng composed of 興 xīng/xìng (lit. "flourish") four times.

Question: What have become more rare?

Question: What is the most complex Chinese character?

Question: What is one 64-stroke character?
Passage: One man who has encountered this problem is Taiwanese politician Yu Shyi-kun, due to the rarity of the last character in his name. Newspapers have dealt with this problem in varying ways, including using software to combine two existing, similar characters, including a picture of the personality, or, especially as is the case with Yu Shyi-kun, simply substituting a homophone for the rare character in the hope that the reader would be able to make the correct inference. Taiwanese political posters, movie posters etc. will often add the bopomofo phonetic symbols next to such a character. Japanese newspapers may render such names and words in katakana instead of kanji, and it is accepted practice for people to write names for which they are unsure of the correct kanji in katakana instead.

Question: Who is a Taiwanese politician?

Question: What will often add bopomofo phonetic symbols?

Question: What may render certain names in katakana instead of kanji?
Passage: The use of such contractions is as old as Chinese characters themselves, and they have frequently been found in religious or ritual use. In the Oracle Bone script, personal names, ritual items, and even phrases such as 受又(祐) shòu yòu "receive blessings" are commonly contracted into single characters. A dramatic example is that in medieval manuscripts 菩薩 púsà "bodhisattva" (simplified: 菩萨) is sometimes written with a single character formed of a 2×2 grid of four 十 (derived from the grass radical over two 十). However, for the sake of consistency and standardization, the CPC seeks to limit the use of such polysyllabic characters in public writing to ensure that every character only has one syllable.

Question: What have been constantly found in religious or ritual use?

Question: What seeks to limit the use of polysyllabic characters?

Question: What is sometimes written as a single character?
Passage: Modern examples particularly include Chinese characters for SI units. In Chinese these units are disyllabic and standardly written with two characters, as 厘米 límǐ "centimeter" (厘 centi-, 米 meter) or 千瓦 qiānwǎ "kilowatt". However, in the 19th century these were often written via compound characters, pronounced disyllabically, such as 瓩 for 千瓦 or 糎 for 厘米 – some of these characters were also used in Japan, where they were pronounced with borrowed European readings instead. These have now fallen out of general use, but are occasionally seen. Less systematic examples include 圕 túshūguǎn "library", a contraction of 圖書館, A four-morpheme word, 社会主义 shèhuì zhǔyì "socialism", is commonly written with a single character formed by combining the last character, 义, with the radical of the first, 社, yielding roughly 礻义.

Question: What are disyllabic and usually written with two characters?

Question: What is a less systematic example?

Question: What is commonly written with a single character formed by combining the last character with the radical of the first?
Passage: A commonly seen example is the double happiness symbol 囍, formed as a ligature of 喜喜 and referred to by its disyllabic name (simplified Chinese: 双喜; traditional Chinese: 雙喜; pinyin: shuāngxǐ). In handwriting, numbers are very frequently squeezed into one space or combined – common ligatures include 廿 niàn, "twenty", normally read as 二十 èrshí, 卅 sà, "thirty", normally read as 三十 sānshí, and 卌 xì "forty", normally read as 四十 "sìshí". In some cases counters are also merged into one character, such as 七十人 qīshí rén "seventy people". Another common abbreviation is 门 with a "T" written inside it, for 問題, 问题, wèntí ("question; problem"), where the "T" is from pinyin for the second syllable tí 题. Since polysyllabic characters are often non-standard, they are often excluded incharcter dictionaries.

Question: What characters are often non-standard?

Question: What is a commonly seen example?

Question: What is formed as a ligature?
Passage: In certain cases compound words and set phrases may be contracted into single characters. Some of these can be considered logograms, where characters represent whole words rather than syllable-morphemes, though these are generally instead considered ligatures or abbreviations (similar to scribal abbreviations, such as & for "et"), and as non-standard. These do see use, particularly in handwriting or decoration, but also in some cases in print. In Chinese, these ligatures are called héwén (合文), héshū (合書) or hétǐzì (合体字), and in the special case of combining two characters, these are known as "two-syllable Chinese characters" (双音节汉字, 雙音節漢字).

Question: What may be contracted into single characters?

Question: What can be considered as set phrases?

Question: What are logograms?
Passage: Chinese characters are primarily morphosyllabic, meaning that most Chinese morphemes are monosyllabic and are written with a single character, though in modern Chinese most words are disyllabic and dimorphemic, consisting of two syllables, each of which is a morpheme. In modern Chinese 10% of morphemes only occur as part of a given compound. However, a few morphemes are disyllabic, some of them dating back to Classical Chinese. Excluding foreign loan words, these are typically words for plants and small animals. They are usually written with a pair of phono-semantic compound characters sharing a common radical. Examples are 蝴蝶 húdié "butterfly" and 珊瑚 shānhú "coral". Note that the 蝴 hú of húdié and the 瑚 hú of shānhú have the same phonetic, 胡, but different radicals ("insect" and "jade", respectively). Neither exists as an independent morpheme except as a poetic abbreviation of the disyllabic word.

Question: What are primarily morphosyllabic?

Question: What are written with a single character?

Question: What have the same phonetic, but different radicals?
Passage: In addition to strictness in character size and shape, Chinese characters are written with very precise rules. The most important rules regard the strokes employed, stroke placement, and stroke order. Just as each region that uses Chinese characters has standardized character forms, each also has standardized stroke orders, with each standard being different. Most characters can be written with just one correct stroke order, though some words also have many valid stroke orders, which may occasionally result in different stroke counts. Some characters are also written with different stroke orders due to character simplification.

Question: What are written with very precise rules?

Question: What has standardized character forms?

Question: What are also written with different stroke orders due to character simplification?