Most of the world’s languages are written alphabetically; in an alphabetic writing system the basic components represent sounds only without any reference to meaning. For example, the letter “b” in ...

Mandarin Chinese is the most common language in the world, estimated to be spoken by more than 1.2 billion people in countries like China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and Malaysia. With so many ...

Michael uncovers clues to China’s first dynasty, the Shang, in a traditional drug store. Michael Wood tells how China’s greatest archaeological discovery started with a packet of over the counter ...

Chinese civilisation can be dated back to the second millennium BC near the Yellow River, where the earliest undisputed archaeological evidence of the Shang (circa 1600BC to 1045BC), one of the first ...