The world's major writing systems have tended to simplify over time, with a notable exception: New research shows that the Chinese writing system has become increasingly complex over the course of its ...

At this very moment, the words you are reading are entering your mind at the speed of thought. Below your awareness, strings of letters are retrieving words and meanings as effortlessly as oxygen ...

The late, great sinologist Simon Leys once pointed out a peculiar paradox. China is the world’s oldest surviving civilization, and yet very little material of its past remains—far less than in Europe ...

Chinese calligraphy is more than brush-and-ink writing — it embodies Confucianism, Taoism, Zen Buddhism, and yin and yang ...

As a growing number of people around the world learn simplified Chinese instead of the more complicated traditional characters, young creatives in Taiwan are fighting to promote what they fear will ...

Andrew Robinson is the author of Lost Languages (2002) and other books on scripts and decipherment. He is based in London. How the world’s largest language family spread — and why others go extinct ...