[bjornsteffanson]

Far less serious (and not polysyllabic), but still linguistically interesting: the Chinese character for _biáng_, one of the most complex in modern usage. There are 15 variants of the character consisting of between 56 and 70 strokes, which can be recalled with various mnemonics. It is not yet included in standard Unicode, but scheduled for inclusion in March 2020.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biangbiang_noodles

[roenxi]

Wikipedia claims that the Chinese character with the most strokes translates to the English word 'verbose' [0, 1].

Whoever came up with that one must have been a wicked deadpan humourist. I live with regret that I will never appreciate good Chinese (written) poetry.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters#Rare_and_co... [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%AA%9A%A5

[mdturnerphys]

Also from Language Log: "Writing Chinese characters as a form of punishment" https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=21965

[why-oh-why]

How do these complex characters come about? Surely they could express the same meaning with a couple of smaller characters?

I feel that this is comparable to writing "Jentacular" instead of "pertaining to breakfast." It's a single word instead of 3, but who understands that (let alone write it, in Biangbiang's case)?