Chinese character forms

Chinese character forms (simplified Chinese: 汉字字形; traditional Chinese: 漢字字形; pinyin: hànzì zìxíng) are the shapes and structures of Chinese characters. They are the physical carriers of written Chinese.

Modern Chinese characters appear in the form of square blocks. There are two methods to analyze the forms of Chinese characters, source tracing analysis (溯源分析) and current status analysis (現狀分析, 现状分析). Source tracing analysis is also called the method of character creation (造字法). It takes the form of a character when it was created (本字) as the object of analysis. Current status (or current situation) analysis takes the current regular script standard form (標準楷體, 标准楷体) as the object. As an academic subject, modern Chinese characters pay more attention to current status analysis.

Current status analysis studies how the writing units are combined level by level into a complete Chinese character. There are three levels of structural units of Chinese characters: strokes (笔画; 筆劃), components (部件), and whole characters (整字). For example, character 字 (character) is composed of two components, each of which is composed of three strokes:

字 = 宀(㇔㇔㇇) + 子(㇇㇚㇐).