The origin and origin of Chinese characters

After a long time, China's writing has evolved into what we are familiar with now. What about the origin and evolution of China characters? The following is the origin and source of Chinese characters I compiled for you, for reference only, and I hope it will help you.

The origin and origin of Chinese characters 1 Chinese characters have a long history and are one of the oldest characters in the world. The oldest and most complete Chinese character we can see now is Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin Ruins, which was used by Shang people more than 3,000 years ago. Chinese characters should be produced much earlier than Oracle Bone Inscriptions. There were many theories about the generation of Chinese characters in the past.

Regarding the origin of Chinese characters, the most popular saying is that Cangjie created Chinese characters. In ancient times, before the invention of writing, knotted ropes were used for recording. One day, Cang Xie invited his subordinates to the market to exchange one horse for two cars, but his subordinates didn't know whether to exchange one horse for two cars or one car for two horses. As a result, many mistakes appeared, which made Cang Xie a headache. Cang Xie wrote many things that the Yellow Emperor asked him to do with knots, but he became more and more confused. Therefore, Cang Xie began to study how to turn pictures into words.

The creation of characters is attributed to Cang Xie. It is said that Cang Xie is a historian of the Yellow Emperor. He has four eyes, bright eyes and a strange face. He can look up at the sky, overlook the geography, distinguish the traces of birds and animals, and see things that people can't see. Legend has it that such an extraordinary person created words, which shows the great influence of words on human beings. Of course, Cang Xie's characterization is just a legend. Chinese characters are not the invention of individuals, but the product of social development to a certain stage and the crystallization of collective wisdom. If there is a Cang Xie in history, he may also be a collector or organizer of words.

Knot notes. It is the earliest saying that Chinese characters originated. The Book of Changes says: "In ancient times, knots ruled, and later sages changed it to calligraphy", which means that there were no words in ancient times, and people used knots to help them remember. It was not until later generations that sages replaced knotted knots with words. Knotting rope is a record that primitive people used a rope to record time, number of people, men and women, the position and different shapes of knots and express different meanings. There is a record in Chinese ancient books that "tie a rope, make an appointment with its major events, tie a big knot with it, and make a summary of its rope" Not only in China, but also in ancient Egypt, Persia, Africa, and Australia, the aborigines used tying ropes to take notes. Knot is a way to help remember and transmit information, which has been widely used. However, tying a rope is to record things with physical objects, which cannot be directly developed into words. It can be regarded as an exploration before the invention of words.

Gossip. In the preface of Kong Anguo's History Book (which is a fake, but very ancient), he said: "The ancients loved the king of Xi family in the world and began to draw gossip and make a book contract instead of tying the rope, so they were born out of literary books." "Yi Gan Wei's Letters" holds that: Gangua is Tian Zi's ancient prose; Kungua, ancient Chinese characters; Deviating from divination, the ancient Chinese character of fire in China; Kangua, an ancient water character in China; Sea melon, ancient prose with wind characters; China ancient divination and thunder writing; Gengua, ancient mountain words; Dugua, Zezi's ancient prose.

At present, it is generally believed that the origin of Chinese characters comes from pictures. Lu Xun said in Talking about Foreign Languages: "He painted a cow for a reason, for the sake of bison, or for hunting bison, and forbidding bison." He also said, "Some have carved some pictures on the hilt, and some have painted some pictures on the portal. As a result, there are more and more words, and historians can perfunctory notes as soon as they collect them. " Here, the origin of Chinese characters is vividly described. In other words, pictures are used to remember things and express meaning. They are directly related to the development of writing, but they do not mean writing. Only when the lines of the picture tend to be simple and consistent can the sound be read out and express a certain meaning, and it will become the original text.

Regarding the origin of Chinese characters, there are many sayings in China ancient literature, such as "knot rope theory", "gossip theory", "picture theory" and "calligraphy contract theory". Ancient books also generally recorded the legend of Cang Xie, the historian of the Yellow Emperor who created Chinese characters. Modern scholars believe that systematic writing tools cannot be completely created by one person. If Cang Xie really exists, he should be a text organizer or publisher.

None of these legends are reliable. Writing is gradually enriched and developed by working people according to the needs of real life through long-term social practice.

Chinese characters have changed for more than 6,000 years, and the evolution process is as follows: Oracle Bone Inscriptions → bronze inscription → seal script → official script → regular script → running script. The evolution of Chinese characters can be simply summarized into five stages: sound, shape, image, number and reason. After gradual evolution, hieroglyphics changed the shape of the original text into a later square font, reduced some strokes and increased some strokes, and changed from an irregular font to a regular font.

Related knowledge: several views on the origin of Chinese characters

About14th century BC, "Oracle Bone Inscriptions" in the late Shang Dynasty was regarded as the first form of "Chinese characters". Until today, various fonts have been born, such as comprehensive art, whole block, floating clouds and variant characters, which are the concrete manifestations of cultural prosperity and the inevitable result of the development of Chinese characters. Of all the countries in the world, only our China culture has been passed down without interruption, and only our "Chinese character" is the only writing form in the world that has evolved without interruption in ancient times.

There are many theories about the origin of Chinese characters, including knot theory, gossip theory, Hutuluo theory, Cangjie word theory, picture theory and so on.

1, the knot indicates:

"The History of the Northern Wei Dynasty" said: The ancestors of the Northern Wei Dynasty "hunted for a career, and simplicity was a custom, and simplicity was a change; Not for words, but for woodcarving ",which records tribes in primitive society or some ethnic minorities in China. Before the appearance of writing, they recorded wars, hunting, alliances, elections, celebrations, marriages, births, diseases, disasters and other large and small events by knotting notes.

2, gossip said:

Kong Anguo's Preface to Shangshu (a fake, but very old) said: "The ancients began to draw gossip and make books to replace the politics of tying ropes, so literary books came into being."

3, "River Map Luo Shu" said:

Book of Changes: "Rivers draw, Luo writes, and saints write." "Picture" and "book" are from Heluo, how mysterious! Mysticism is the main feature of this theory. In vain, it can be understood as books, but in fact, it can be understood as the Book of Changes and history books.

4, Cang Xie said:

"Cang Xie's Theory of Word Creation" was popular in the Warring States Period. "Lv Chunqiu JUNSHOU" said: "Cang Xie is a book and Hou Ji is a crop." Xunzi and Han Feizi also recorded it. Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi Xu: "Cang Xie's first book, Gai Yi is like pictograph."

Who the hell is Cang Xie? Legend has it that he is a historian of the Yellow Emperor, who was the leader of the tribal alliance in ancient Central Plains. With the society entering the stage of large-scale tribal alliances, the external affairs between alliances are becoming more and more frequent, and it is urgent to establish a set of communication symbols enjoyed by all alliances, so the work of collecting and sorting out * * * was handed over to historian Cang Xie.

5. The picture says:

Modern scholars believe that Chinese characters really originated from the original picture. The figures depicted on some unearthed cultural relics are probably related to words.

Painted pottery pots of Yangshao culture unearthed from Anbanpo site in Xi 'an and fish-shaped patterns on bronzes in the late Shang Dynasty are vivid. Comparing them with some "fish" in ancient Chinese characters, the similarity is enough to make people believe that Chinese characters evolved from the original picture.

There are various legends about the origin of Chinese characters, but most people say that Chinese characters were created by Cang Xie. But no matter who created it, the early Chinese characters are very vivid. Therefore, I think that knowing the origin of Chinese characters can help us understand the structure of Chinese characters and reduce the occurrence of typos. Although some Chinese characters have lost their original forms, traces of the origin of Chinese characters can always be found by tracing back to the source.

I first learned the origin of the "moon": the most obvious things in the sky are the sun and the moon. The ancients noticed it a long time ago, so they wanted to write about the moon. The sun is round, and its shape will not change. The ancients used "⊙" to represent the moon, and so did "⊙". Is it hard to say? Fortunately, the shape of the moon will change, such as new moon, full moon, half moon and so on. Since it is not suitable for the shape of the full moon, use the shape of the new moon as the word "moon". Isn't the moon in the Oracle Bone Inscriptions like a crescent moon? For example, in China's traditional calendar, the moon's cycle is called a month, so the words related to the month include "cycle" and "hope".

Knowing the origin of the "moon" is very interesting, which makes me realize the infinite charm of Chinese characters more deeply. Besides the word "moon", I also learned "boat", "day", "book" and "sheep". The reason is that I firmly remember the strokes of these words, and like a first-grade child looking at pictures, I have increased my knowledge and felt fun.

This activity made me feel the wisdom of the ancients and I admired it very much.

The Origin and Origin of Chinese Characters 3 Chinese characters in China have a history of 5000 years, but the early characters are no longer visible. The earliest writing today is Oracle Bone Inscriptions (Wen Jia for short) unearthed from Yin Ruins in Shang Dynasty.

The so-called Oracle Bone Inscriptions, is carved or written on tortoise shells and ox bones.

These characters have a history of more than three thousand years.

In addition, many bronzes from Shang and Zhou Dynasties were unearthed underground, on which many inscriptions were cast, and they were called Zhong Dingwen.

These two kinds of characters are also called "ancient prose" because they are the earliest characters that can be seen now.

Zhou Xuanwang Taishi Shuan once wrote Wen Zhuan (also known as Da Zhuan), and some forms of Wen Zhuan can also be seen in the interpretation of the text.

After Qin Shihuang unified the whole country, Lisi played the same script, so Xiao Zhuan became popular. The book Shuo Wen Jie Zi is based on explaining Xiao Zhuan.

After the Han Dynasty, writing became easier and easier, and official script became the common writing in the Han Dynasty.

After Wei and Jin Dynasties, the font was changed to regular script, which was convenient to write and remained quite stable after transmission, and it has been used ever since.

At the same time, for the convenience of writing, running script and cursive script also appeared, which are variants of regular script.

"Huainanzi Ben Jing Xun" said: "In the past, Cang Xie wrote a book, and it rained at night and ghosts cried." The general idea is that when Cangjie used to make characters, millet began to fall in the sky and the ghosts cried and screamed at night.

There are also records about Cangjie's word-making in ancient books such as Xunzi and Hanfeizi.

In the Qin and Han dynasties, this legend spread more widely and had a deeper influence.

Historians in the past have verified whether Cang Xie is a real person. If so, in which era, it is difficult to draw a conclusion due to the lack of conclusive historical data.

Some people speculate that Cang Xie is a historian of the Yellow Emperor.

"Xun Zi Jie Gai" said: "Therefore, there are many good readers, and Cang Xie is also a solo biography." Some people explain that the "one" here is the right way, that is, the Dharma.

Xunzi believed that Cang Xie was an expert in arranging words by touching their laws, because he was focused on using them.

Therefore, it is generally believed that he played a unique role in the transition of Chinese characters from original characters to more standardized characters.

It can be inferred that such people will definitely exist in the later period of the origin of Chinese characters.

But the saying that "Cangjie creates characters" is just a legend.

Because writing is definitely not created by Cang Xie alone, but by observing natural things in the process of collective production and labor, and according to the ideological content to be expressed when social culture develops to a certain stage.

Chinese characters are a huge and rich system, and it is impossible to create success without a long time.