The CJK strokes (also known as the CJK(V) or CJKV strokes) are the strokes needed to write the Chinese characters used in East Asia. The corresponding CJKV characters being the characters that come from Chinese Hanzi, and which are now used in China, Japan, Korea, and still a little in Vietnam.
There are some thirty distinct types of strokes recognized in Chinese characters, some of which are compound strokes made from basic strokes. The compound strokes comprise more than one movement of the writing instrument, and many of these have no agreed-upon name.
Each single stroke includes all the motions necessary to produce a given part of a character before lifting the writing instrument from the writing surface; thus, a single stroke may have abrupt changes in direction within the line. For example:
is one stroke, named Shu, and also a
basic stroke (one direction)
is a compound stroke, named ShuZheZhe,
comprising 3 basic strokes but written without lifting the writing
instrument from the writing surface.Several aspects of interest in the study of CJK(V) strokes are, for example, their use in East Asian calligraphy (how write them, which shape, which way), their change according to which style is in use, their naming and counting conventions, and their use on computers.
Contents |
| Name (Char, pinyin) |
Stroke |
Translation of Chinese name |
Additional description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic strokes | |||
| 點 diǎn |  |
"Dot" | Tiny dash |
| 横 héng |  |
"Horizontal" | Rightward stroke |
| 豎 shù |  |
"Vertical" | Downward stroke |
| 提 tí |  |
"Rise" | Flick up and rightwards |
| 捺 nà |  |
"Press down" | Falling rightwards (fattening at the bottom) |
| 撇 piě |  |
"Throw away" | Falling leftwards (with slight curve) |
| Combining strokes | |||
| 折 zhé | n/a | "Break" | Usually 90° turn, going down or going right only. |
| 鉤 gōu |  |
"Hook" | Appended to other strokes, suddenly going down or going left only. |
| 彎 wān |  |
"Bend" | Usually concave on the left |
| 斜 xié |  |
"Slant" | Usually concave on the right |
The "dot" is rarely a real dot. Instead it usually takes the shape of a very small line pointing in one of several directions, and may be long enough to be confused with other strokes.
Certain strokes (such as zhé and gōu, the "hook" and "break") never occur alone, but always in compound strokes. Thus, they are not in themselves individual strokes.
The character for "eternity" shown at right demonstrates some of these compound strokes. The centre line is a compound stroke that combines three stroke shapes in a single stroke.
To write CJK characters, one must know how to write CJK strokes, and thus, needs to identify the basic strokes that make up a character. The following section lists the most usual common shapes of the basic CJK strokes, and the proper way of writing each. Many different lists of basic strokes coexist and there is no broad agreement as far as the stroke names are concerned (examples). We use a set of 37 CJK strokes based on the 8 basic strokes of 永, and 29 other compound strokes. We also use a common naming system, which is not the only available. The strokes are painted in black and a red arrow shows the way to write it (you can click on images to enlarge them).
－ the Diǎn 點, is a Dot. Filled from the
top, to the bottom, traditionally made by "couching" the brush on
the page. － the Héng 横, is horizontal. Filled from
left to right, the same way the Latin letters A, B,C,D are
written. － the Shù 豎, is vertical-falling. The
brush begins by a dot on top, then falls downward. － the Gōu 鉤, ending another stroke, is a
sharp change of direction either down (after a Heng) or left (after
a Shù). － the Tí 提, is a flick up and
rightwards － the Wān 彎, follows a concave path on
the left or on the right － the Piě 撇, is a falling leftwards
(with a slight curve) － the Nà 捺, is falling rightwards (with
an emphasis at the end of the stroke) － the Xié 斜 is some time added to the
永's strokes. It's a concave Shù falling right, always ended by a
Gōu, visible on this image). |
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This 8 traditional basic strokes are used to make all other
compound strokes －or complex strokes－. In example, Shù
plus Gōu produce 
named ShùGōu. The new way of naming
strokes is simply the sum of the names of the basic strokes, in the
writing order. Moreover, a turn of 90⁰ (and only of 90⁰) producing
a Shù or a Héng is called Zhé 折. In example, Héng plus Shù
plus Gōu produces 
named HéngZhéGōu. Shù
plus Héng plus Shù produces a
ShùZhéZhé (
). Nearly all complex strokes can be
named using this simple scheme.
It is essential to recognize and know how to draw the different strokes that make a character. To properly draw a Chinese character, it is also necessary to draw the strokes with respect to a certain order.
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