Sinosphere 漢字文化圈 (汉字文化圈)

Hànzì wénhuà quān · from Chinese

What is the Sinosphere?

The Sinosphere (East Asian cultural sphere) is the group of cultures that historically used Chinese characters: China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam.

Classical Chinese served as the shared written language of scholarship and diplomacy for centuries. As a result, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese share huge amounts of Sino-derived vocabulary despite being unrelated languages. Today only Chinese and Japanese use characters daily.

Examples

漢字 hànzì / kanji / hanja / Hán tự; 學生 xuésheng / gakusei / haksaeng / học sinh (student)

Kungfucius says: Four countries, four unrelated languages, one shared stack of Chinese loanwords.