Chinese culture has a long history, how did the fascinating culture of Chinese characters develop?

Chinese characters are one of the oldest scripts in the world, with a history of at least 4,000 years. Over the course of thousands of years, Chinese characters have evolved into the "seven styles of Chinese characters", namely: oracle bone script, jinwen (gold script), seal script, clerical script, cursive script, regular script and running script.

1. Oracle Bone Script

Oracle Bone Script mainly refers to the Yinxu Oracle Bone Script, which was written on tortoise shells and animal bones by the royal family in the late Shang Dynasty (14th to 11th centuries before the Shang Dynasty) for the purpose of divination and record-keeping.

2. Jinwen

Jinwen refers to the text cast and engraved on Yin and Zhou bronzes, also called Zhongdingwen. The Shang and Zhou dynasties were the era of bronze, and the bronze ritual vessels were represented by tripods, and the musical instruments were represented by bells, and "Zhong Ding" was the synonym of bronze. Therefore, Zhong Dingwen or Jinwen refers to the inscriptions cast or engraved on the bronzes.

3. Seal Script

The Big Seal Script started in the late Western Zhou Dynasty and was popularized in Qin during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. The script is similar to the Qin Seal Script, but the shape of the characters overlap. It is represented by the Stone Drum Script that exists today.

Small Seal Script is also called "Qin Seal Script". Li Si was ordered to standardize the script during the Qin Dynasty, and this script was called the Small Seal Script. It was popularized during the Qin Dynasty. It is long and rounded, and is derived from the Big Seal Script.

4. Clerical Script

Clerical Script is basically an evolution of Seal Script, mainly changing the rounded strokes of Seal Script to square folds, which makes writing faster, and makes it difficult to draw rounded strokes on wooden slips with lacquer writing.　

5, Regular Script

Regular Script, also known as Zhengshu, or True Script, began in the Eastern Han Dynasty. It is characterized by a square shape and straight strokes, which can be used as a model, hence its name.

6, Cursive

Cursive Script was formed in the Han Dynasty, is for the convenience of writing in the official script on the basis of the evolution of out. There are chapters of grass, grass, wild grass. Cursive writing for the convenience of writing a font. Began in the early Han Dynasty.

7, running script was produced around the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, is between the Regular Script, Cursive Script between a typeface, can be said to be the Regular Script of the grass or Cursive Script of the Regular Script. It is to make up for the slow writing speed of Regular Script and the difficulty of recognizing Cursive Script. The strokes are not as scribbly as in cursive, nor do they require the regular script to be as upright.

In the broader sense, Chinese characters refer to characters ranging from oracle bone inscriptions, the Great Seal Script, the Golden Script, the Preliminary Seal Script, the Small Seal Script, to the Clerical Script, Cursive Script, Regular Script, and Running Script, and in the narrower sense, they refer to Chinese characters written with the Regular Script as the standard, which is the modern Chinese character that is in common use today. Chinese characters were invented and improved by Han Chinese ancestors in ancient times, and the exact history of Chinese characters can be traced back to the oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty around 1300 BC, the seal scripts of the Prehistoric Period, and the Jinwen scripts. It was then developed into the Small Seal Script of the Qin Dynasty, the Official Script of the Han Dynasty, and the Regular Script of the Tang Dynasty, which became the standard handwriting font used today, the Regular Script.