Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Zev Handel, "Chinese Characters Across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese" (U Washington Press, 2025)
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Zev Handel, "Chinese Characters Across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese" (U Washington Press, 2025)
For centuries, scribes across East Asia used Chinese characters to write things down–even in languages based on very different foundations than Chinese. In southern China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, people used Chinese to read and write–and never thought it was odd. It was, after all, how things were done.
Even today, Cantonese speakers use Chinese characters to reflect their dialect with no issues, while kanji remains a key part of Japanese writing. Even in South Korea, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper uses Chinese characters for its title, even as most of Korea has turned to hangul.
Zev Handel talks about how classical Chinese came to dominate East Asia in his book Chinese Characters across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese (University of Washington Press, 2025). How do Chinese characters even work? How did Chinese script spread across the region? And what was it like to read and write in a language that you couldn’t even speak?
Zev Handel is professor of Chinese linguistics in the Department of Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington. He is author of Sinography: The Borrowing and Adaptation of the Chinese Script and associate coeditor of Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics.
You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Chinese Characters Across Asia. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.
Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies
View all episodes
By New Books Network
4.7
1919 ratings
For centuries, scribes across East Asia used Chinese characters to write things down–even in languages based on very different foundations than Chinese. In southern China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, people used Chinese to read and write–and never thought it was odd. It was, after all, how things were done.
Even today, Cantonese speakers use Chinese characters to reflect their dialect with no issues, while kanji remains a key part of Japanese writing. Even in South Korea, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper uses Chinese characters for its title, even as most of Korea has turned to hangul.
Zev Handel talks about how classical Chinese came to dominate East Asia in his book Chinese Characters across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese (University of Washington Press, 2025). How do Chinese characters even work? How did Chinese script spread across the region? And what was it like to read and write in a language that you couldn’t even speak?
Zev Handel is professor of Chinese linguistics in the Department of Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington. He is author of Sinography: The Borrowing and Adaptation of the Chinese Script and associate coeditor of Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics.
You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Chinese Characters Across Asia. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.
Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies
More shows like New Books in Southeast Asian Studies
View all
Fresh Air
38,189 Listeners
New Books in History
209 Listeners
Planet Money
30,845 Listeners
99% Invisible
26,159 Listeners
New Books in Psychoanalysis
193 Listeners
New Books in Military History
162 Listeners
New Books in African American Studies
161 Listeners
New Books in Environmental Studies
18 Listeners
New Books in Political Science
63 Listeners
New Books in Literary Studies
23 Listeners
New Books in Philosophy
110 Listeners
The Urbanist
290 Listeners
New Books in Intellectual History
61 Listeners
New Books in Asian American Studies
25 Listeners
Asia Geopolitics
316 Listeners
Sinica Podcast
591 Listeners
Southeast Asia Crossroads Podcast - CSEAS @ NIU
8 Listeners
The Asia Chessboard
103 Listeners
Independent Thinking
23 Listeners
The Rachman Review
137 Listeners
Chinese Whispers
146 Listeners
Hold Your Fire!
64 Listeners
Ones and Tooze
346 Listeners
The Foreign Affairs Interview
421 Listeners
Empire
2,107 Listeners