Refinding book on basic Mandarin Chinese characters
November 17, 2024 12:55 AM   Subscribe

About 25 years ago I borrowed a small book that explored the core set of Chinese characters. I think there were 32 or 36 characters, one per double page spread with the graphic character on one page and usage / words including the character on other page.

The author was an Italian linguist who had married a Chinese person and moved to China.

I'd really like to refind it but can't find it in any library catalog, or anywhere else. I don't have a clue re authors name or title, but the cover may have been blue.
posted by unearthed to Writing & Language (4 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: Edoardo Fazzioli's Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters [internetarchive] maybe?

each radical/character [wiki] is explored in the way you describe, though there's a single-page, rather than double, format
posted by HearHere at 3:01 AM on November 17, 2024 [2 favorites]


I just added this to my daughter's Christmas list. How lovely.
posted by nkknkk at 8:04 AM on November 17, 2024


Response by poster: Amazing, in one, thank you HearHere! My memory of the book was obv. a little hazy. And there's one copy in NZ at Te Puna so I can interloan it unless I can buy second-hand from Wanderlust.
posted by unearthed at 10:15 AM on November 17, 2024


Purely FYI, though not directly related to your question: Character Amnesia in China.
posted by forthright at 3:02 PM on November 17, 2024


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