The 214 Radical System is a system of writing Chinese characters, with 214 unique radicals, which contribute to the meaning of written Chinese.
Contents
Origin
This system was developed in the creation of a dictionary, the Zihui. It was also an improvement on a system which previously had had over 500 radicals.
Usage
The 214 Radical System is also a way of listing Chinese ideograms in a dictionary. It is the most widespread method for listing these entries. Since Chinese does not have an alphabet, a standard way to create some kind of standard order for words had to be devised.
References
214 Radical System Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA