Acronym

====Chinese====
In English language discussions of languages with [[syllabary|syllabic]] or [[logographic]] writing systems (such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), "acronyms" describe the short forms that take selected characters from a multi-character word.

For example, in Chinese, 'university' ({{lang|zh-hant|大學}}/{{lang|zh-hans|大学}}, {{literally|great learning}}) is usually abbreviated simply as {{lang|zh|大}} ('great') when used with the name of the institute. So '[[Peking University]]' ({{lang|zh-hans|北京大学}}) is commonly shortened to {{lang|zh|北大}} ({{abbr|lit.|literally}} 'north-great') by also only taking the first character of ''Peking'', the "northern capital" ({{zh|c=北京|p=Beijing|labels=no}}). In some cases, however, other characters than the first can be selected. For example, the local short form of '[[Hong Kong University]]' ({{lang|zh-hant|香港大學}}) uses {{lang|zh-Latn|Kong}} ({{lang|zh-hant|港大}}) rather than {{lang|zh-Latn|Hong}}.

There are also cases where some longer phrases are abbreviated drastically, especially in Chinese politics, where proper nouns were initially translated from Soviet Leninist terms. For instance, the full name of China's highest ruling council, the [[Politburo Standing Committee]] (PSC), is 'Standing Committee of the Central Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China' ({{lang|zh|中国共产党中央政治局常务委员会}}). The term then reduced the 'Communist Party of China' part of its name through acronyms, then the 'Standing Committee' part, again through acronyms, to create {{lang|zh|中共中央政治局常委}}. Alternatively, it omitted the 'Communist Party' part altogether, creating 'Politburo Standing Committee' ({{lang|zh|政治局常委会}}), and eventually just 'Standing Committee' ({{lang|zh|常委会}}). The PSC's members full designations are 'Member of the Standing Committee of the Central Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China' ({{lang|zh|中国共产党中央政治局常务委员会委员}}); this was eventually drastically reduced to simply {{lang|zh-Latn|Changwei}} ({{lang|zh|常委}}), with the term {{lang|zh-Latn|Ruchang}} ({{lang|zh|入常}}) used increasingly for officials destined for a future seat on the PSC. In another example, the word {{lang|zh|全国人民代表大会}} ('[[National People's Congress]]') can be broken into four parts: {{lang|zh|全国}} = 'the whole nation', {{lang|zh|人民}} = 'people', {{lang|zh|代表}} = 'representatives', {{lang|zh|大会}} = 'conference'. Yet, in its short form {{lang|zh|人大}} (literally 'man/people big'), only the first characters from the second and the fourth parts are selected; the first part ({{lang|zh|全国}}) and the third part ({{lang|zh|代表}}) are simply dropped.

Many proper nouns become shorter and shorter over time. For example, the [[CCTV New Year's Gala]], whose full name is literally read as 'China Central Television Spring Festival Joint Celebration Evening Gala' ({{lang|zh|中国中央电视台春节联欢晚会}}) was first shortened to 'Spring Festival Joint Celebration Evening Gala' ({{lang|zh|春节联欢晚会}}), but eventually referred to as simply {{lang|zh-Latn|Chunwan}} ({{lang|zh|春晚}}). In the same vein, CCTV or {{lang|zh-Latn|Zhongguo Zhongyang Dianshi Tai}} ({{lang|zh|中国中央电视台}}) was reduced to {{lang|zh-Latn|Yangshi}} ({{lang|zh|央视}}) in the mid-2000s.