East Asia, in general terms, consists of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Japan, South Korea and North Korea; sometimes, Mongolia and Vietnam are included in the definition. The major ethnicities of East Asia are: Han, Yamato, and Korean. Other ethnic groups of East Asia include: Tibetan, Uyghur, Kazakh, Manchu, and Mongol. Geographically East Asians farther north would also include groups such as the Buryats, Evenks, Yakuts, but due to the national and political dividing lines, the inclusion of East Asians north of China and Mongolia is not considered. Mainly, the language families/isolates of East Asia are: Sinitic, Tibeto-Burman, Japonic, Ainu languages, the Korean language, Mongolic, Tungusic, Turkic, Miao--Yao, Tai--Kadai and Mon--Khmer; The dominant influence historically has been China. Evidence of this can be seen in the cuisine, architecture, and lexicons, for example, throughout the region; in modern times, however, cultural exchange has flowed more bi-directionally. Major characteristics of this region include shared Chinese-derived language characteristics, as well as similar social and moral philosophies derived from Confucianism. The script of the Han Chinese has long been a unifying feature in East Asia as the vehicle for Chinese culture. It was passed on first to Korea, Vietnam in the 1st century, then to Japan, where it forms a major component of the Japanese writing system. In Korea, however, Sejong the Great invented an alphabet called hangul, which has now largely supplanted Chinese characters, and in Japan, much of the Japanese language is written in hiragana, katakana in addition to Chinese characters. In East Asian countries, in particular China and Japan, the educational level of a person is traditionally measured by the quality of his or her calligraphy, rather than diction, as is sometimes the case in the West. Japan, Korea and Vietnam, though not Chinese-speaking regions, have had their languages influenced by Chinese to some extent. Even though their writing systems have changed over time, Chinese is still found in the historical roots of many borrowed words, especially technical terms. Apart from the unifying influence of Confucianism, Buddhism, Chinese characters, and other Chinese cultural influences, there is nevertheless much diversity between the countries of the region. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asians#East_Asia

• published: 03 Aug 2014
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