Why does the Chinese language have so many characters?
Chinese may have many characters, but many are not in use such as some 甲骨文 and such. Many (pretty much all) Chinese characters are from drawings, with the exception of new ones such as 'biang' . Your average Chinese adult that graduated college only needs to know around ~3000 and experts know ~5000 or ~7000 if you are really good. Some characters become redundant as they can be formed by others.