Its Automagical!

Song typeface (serif)



Black typeface (sans serif)

Here are examples of two common Chinese typefaces. The shape of each radical will need to transform slightly inside each 'glyph' or character to retain an aesthetic balance. For this reason Chinese printers will carve a plate for each page of print. Programming a digital font for a system of ideographs like Chinese is equally as time consuming. One of the techniques used to do this employs a human calligrapher or experienced designer(human?). The designer's brain is attached to a writing utensil which is then attached to the computer's processor. An element of mystery makes this process semi-automagical. The number of Chinese fonts available are limited. I can't find a specific number, anyone know?

These the characters for Hanzi written in the cursive style. These same two characters are used to represent Japanese Kanji and Korean Hanja. This seems similar to how Latin-root and romance languages use similar letters (the alphabet) to make different words and sounds.

Hanzi Roots

The roots meaning of the characters or Hanzi of Mandarin Chinese often relate to the overall meaning of the word. Sometimes a complex word containing many characters will have a root character called a 'radical' that will help us have a greater understanding of the history, context and definition of that word. Some of my favorites are the 'sun' radical, fire, horse, grass, rain and lightning, mouth, hand, and silk radical. It is easy to see that these Hanzi were once hand painted pictures representing the specific subjects they are named after.
Chinese is the oldest continually used language in the world. Crude carvings and pictographs have been found dating back 8000 years and more. These can't necessarily be called a language but they have linked to more recent uses of Chinese. The earliest true records date between 3000 and 5000BC.
I would say those are some pretty deep roots.