Chinese/Asian Keyboard Question and Invention Possibility
The Chinese have so many intonations, and over 100,000 characters
This image demonstrates my confusion about how the Chinese can use a keyboard, given they have over 100,000 characters. https://www.digmandarin.com/how-to-type-in-chinese.htmlhttps://www.digmandarin.com/how-to-type-in-chinese.html
It’s May 24, 2025, and I’m just getting this realization. So I’ve been wondering about the Chinese and how they can have a Chinese keyboard and if it exists, and/or if they have one already. They have over 100,000 characters. How do they type? Also, I know a little Chinese, and know that they their intonations are really important.
Here is my little one-minute learning session on basic Chinese greetings that may be helpful to you.
I learned Arabic at University and used Yamli sometimes when I wanted to type in Arabic with an American keyboard. It was pretty accurate.
I just had this idea that the Chinese, or any Asian culture, could use symbols like they do in Español and French. For example, intéressante, which has a mark up symbol in French, and in the word Español there’s a curvature symbol.
For the Chinese language, they could use all sorts of different symbols that would mean whatever their intonation is. They could use a keyboard with the appropriate symbols they choose and then they could easily, through artificial intelligence, create that Chinese character.
With this method, it seems they would have an easy keyboard to use.
The Chinese could have their own computer keyboard, or they could use an American standard keyboard.
The symbology they use could be like: / , \ , | >, < , ^ , ~ , ! , * , etc.
I asked on Google AI “do the Chinese have a keyboard for computers”:
“Pinyin: The most popular method is Pinyin, where you type the phonetic spelling of a word in Roman letters (e.g., “jintianshixingqiyi”) and the system converts it to the corresponding Chinese characters (今天星期一).”
However, my question is what about: ji’nti!ansh/ixingqui\yia~
Would that be helpful, with more intonationality present in the symbols?
Are there any Chinese, or Asian technologists, linguists, persons out there who would know?
Should this be a new invention, or does something like this already exist?
Thank you for any insights, questions, and feedback!
Written by
Ashley Heacock, Researcher, Writer, Mentor, Guide
MIT Sloan School of Management, MBA
Harvard Kennedy School of Government, MPA
The George Washington University, BA Economics, BA International Affairs
Contact for healing sessions: ashleyheacock@gmail.com
Website: awakeningconsciousness.community
