Information about Chinese characters

Editing the Development of Chinese Characters

1 Oracle Bone Script

Oracle Bone Script mainly refers to the Yinxu Oracle Bone Script, which was a script engraved (or written) on tortoise shells and animal bones used by the royal family for divination and record-keeping during the later part of the Shang Dynasty in China (14th to 11th centuries before the Shang Dynasty). It is the earliest and more complete system of ancient writing found in China.

Oracle script is an ancient Chinese script that is considered to be an early form of modern Chinese characters, and is sometimes considered to be one of the calligraphic styles of Chinese characters, as well as one of the most ancient and mature scripts existing in China. Oracle bone script is also known as qiwen, tortoise shell script or tortoise shell and animal bone script. Oracle bone inscriptions are a very important source of ancient Chinese characters. Most of the oracle bone inscriptions were found in Yinxu. Yinxu is a famous site of the Yin and Shang Dynasties, in Xiaotun Village, Huayuanzhuang and Houjiazhuang, northwest of Anyang City, Henan Province. It was once the site of the capital city of the central dynasty in the late Yin and Shang dynasties, hence the name Yinxu. These oracle bones are basically divination records of the rulers of the Shang dynasty. The rulers of the Shang Dynasty were very superstitious, for example, whether there would be a disaster within ten days, whether it would rain, whether there would be a good crop, whether there would be a victory in war, which sacrifices should be made to which ghosts and gods, and even fertility, diseases, dreams and other things were all subject to divination to understand the will of the ghosts and gods and the good and bad fortune of things. The materials used for divination were mainly the belly and back armor of the tortoise and the scapula of the ox. Usually, some small pits were dug or drilled on the back of the bones to be used for divination, which is called "drill chisel" by oracle boneologists. When divination on these small pits on the heating is the surface of the bone to produce cracks. This kind of crack is called "sign". The oracle bone character for divination, "Bu", looks like a sign. Those who engaged in divination judged good or bad fortune according to the various shapes of the omen. From the oracle bones of the Yin and Shang Dynasties, it seems that the Chinese characters at that time had already developed into a complete and Chinese writing system. In the discovered oracle bones of Yinxu, the number of single characters has reached about 4000. Among them, there are a large number of referential characters, pictograms and ideograms, as well as a large number of morphosyntactic characters. There is a huge difference in appearance between these characters and the ones we use now. But from the point of view of the method of constructing characters, the two are basically the same.

There are about 150,000 oracle bones and more than 4,500 single characters found. The content of these oracle bones is extremely rich, involving many aspects of social life in the Shang Dynasty, including not only political, military, cultural, social customs, and involves astronomy, calendar, medicine and other science and technology. From the oracle bone inscriptions have been recognized about 1500 single words, it has already had "pictograms, will be, form and sound, refers to the matter, turn note, false borrowing" of the word-making method, showing the unique charm of the Chinese characters. Chinese documents from the Shang Dynasty and the early Western Zhou Dynasty (about 16th to 10th centuries B.C.) were written on tortoise shells and animal bones. It is the earliest known form of Chinese literature. Carved on the armor, bone writing was earlier known as qiwen, oracle bone inscriptions, divination, tortoise version of the text, the Yinxu text, etc., is now commonly known as oracle bone writing. Shang and Zhou emperors due to superstition, all things have to use the tortoise shell (to the tortoise abdominal armor is common) or animal bone (to the cattle shoulder blade is common) for divination, and then the divination of the relevant things (such as the time of divination, the diviner, the contents of the occupation of the question, depending on the results of the omen, the verification of the situation, etc.) engraved in the oracle bone, and as an archive of the royal historians by the preservation of the archives (see the file of the oracle bone). In addition to divination inscriptions, there are also a small number of record inscriptions in the oracle bone inscriptions. The content of the oracle bone dedication involves astronomy, calendar, meteorology, geography, square country, lineage, family, characters, officials, conquests, prison, agriculture, animal husbandry, hunting, transportation, religion, rituals, disease, fertility, disaster, etc., is the study of ancient China, especially the Shang Dynasty social history, culture, language and writing of the extremely valuable first-hand information.

2 Jinwen

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

The so-called bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. China has entered the Bronze Age in the Xia Dynasty, the smelting of copper and the manufacture of bronze is very developed. Because before the Zhou copper is also called gold, so the inscription on the bronze is called "Jinwen" or "Jijin text"; and because of this type of bronze to the most number of words on the bell, so in the past it was also called "Zhong Dingwen "

Jinwen or Jijinwen.

The age of the application of the golden script, from the early Shang Dynasty, down to the Qin Dynasty, about 1200 years. The number of characters in Jinwen, according to Ronggeng "Jinwen编", *** counted 3,722, of which 2,420 characters can be recognized.

Bronze inscriptions, the number of words varies. The contents are also very different. Most of its main content is to celebrate the achievements of ancestors and princes, but also record major historical events. For example, the famous Mao Gong Ding has 497 words, which is a very broad record, reflecting the social life at that time.

3 The Big Seal Script

The Big Seal Script is represented by the existing Shi Guwen, which was written by Shi Zhou at the time of the Zhou Dynasty. He reformed the original script, which was named after the stone drums on which it was engraved. It is the earliest stone-engraved script that has been handed down to the present day, and is the ancestor of stone engraving.

It started in the late Western Zhou Dynasty and was popularized in Qin during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. The font is similar to the Qin seal script, but the shape of the characters overlap.

4 Small Seal Character

Also called "Qin Seal Character". It was popularized in the Qin Dynasty. The shape is long, rounded and neat, derived from the Big Seal Script. Xu Shen of the Eastern Han Dynasty, "Shuo Wen Jie Zi" (Explaining Words and Characters), says: "When Qin Shi Huangdi first took over the world, ...... struck down those who did not fit in with the Qin script. (Li) Si made "Cangjie chapter", in the car of the order of Zhao Gao made (love calendar chapter), the Imperial Historian Hu Shaojing made "erudition chapter", all take the seal script of the pre-Han period, or quite save change, the so-called small seal script also."

5 The official script

The official script is basically evolved from the seal script, mainly changing the rounded strokes of the seal script to square folds, writing faster, and it is difficult to draw rounded strokes on wooden slips writing with lacquer.

The Chinese character script is also known as "隶字", "古书", and "隸書". It is based on the seal script, in order to adapt to the need to write conveniently produced font. It was simplified from the Small Seal Script, and the rounded lines of the Small Seal Script were transformed into straight and square strokes, making it easier to write. There are two types of scripts: Qin Li (also known as "ancient Li") and Han Li (also known as "modern Li"), and the emergence of Li Script is a major change in ancient writing and calligraphy. The emergence of the official script is a major change in ancient writing and calligraphy.

The official script is a common and dignified script in Chinese characters, with a slightly broader and flatter writing effect, long horizontal strokes and short straight strokes, and "silkworm head and swallow tail" and "one wave and three twists". It originated in the Qin Dynasty and reached its peak in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and is known in the calligraphy circles as "Han Scribe and Tang Regular Script". There are also claims that the official script originated in the Warring States period.

The official script is relative to the seal script, and the name of the official script originated in the Eastern Han Dynasty. The emergence of the official script was another major reform of the Chinese script, which brought the art of Chinese calligraphy into a new realm, and was a turning point in the history of the evolution of Chinese characters, laying the foundation for the Regular Script. The form of the official script is flat, neat and delicate. By the time of the Eastern Han Dynasty, points such as the apostrophe and the downward stroke were embellished to be upwardly picked up, with variations of lightness and heaviness, and with the beauty of calligraphic art. The style also tends to diversify, highly appreciated value of art.

The script is said to have been organized by Cheng Miao in prison in the Qin Dynasty, and it was simplified, and the character shape was changed from round to square, and the strokes were changed from curved to straight. Change the "even pen" for "broken pen", from the line to the stroke, more convenient to write." Clerks" were not prisoners, but rather "xuxing", i.e., small officials in charge of the paperwork, which is why in ancient times, the official script was called "zoshu" (佐書). The official script became prevalent during the Han Dynasty and became the main calligraphic style. The Qin Clerical Script, which was the first to be created, retained many of the meanings of the seal scripts, which were later developed and refined. It broke with the writing traditions since the Zhou and Qin Dynasties and gradually laid the foundation for the Regular Script. Under the unification of the idea of "dismissing all schools and revering only the Confucians", the official script of the Han Dynasty was gradually developed and finalized, and became the dominant calligraphic style, and at the same time, it gave rise to the Cursive Script, Regular Script, and Running Script, laying the foundation for the art.

6 Kai Shu

Kai Shu, also known as Zhengshu, or true book. It is characterized by a square form, straight strokes, and can be used as a model, hence the name. It began in the Eastern Han Dynasty. There are many famous writers of regular script, such as "Ou Style" (Ouyang Xun), "Yu Style" (Yu Shinan), "Yan Style" (Yan Zhenqing), "Liu Style " (Liu Gongquan), "Zhao style" (Zhao Yu attached) and so on.

The early "Regular Script", which still has very few scribes left, is slightly wider, with long horizontal strokes and short straight strokes, and is represented in the Wei and Jin posters that have survived, such as Zhong Yao's Declaration Table (left), Recommendation of Jizhi Table, and Wang Xizhi's Leyi Lun and Huangting Jing. As Weng Fangzang said, "The wave painting of the clerical script is changed to point and peck, and the horizontal and straight of the ancient clerical script is still preserved.

After the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the North and South were divided, and calligraphy was also divided into two schools. North school of calligraphy, with the remains of the Han Clerical type, the calligraphy of ancient and strong, and the style of simple and square, long in the list of books, which is said to be the Wei Bei. The southern school of calligraphy, more sparse and elegant, long in shakuji. North and South Dynasties, because of regional differences, personal habits, book style is very different. North book is strong, south book is not, each to achieve its wonderful, no distinction between up and down, and bao shichen and kang youwei, but highly respected two dynasty book, especially the northern wei monumental. Kang cited ten beauty, to emphasize the merits of the Wei monument.

The Tang Dynasty Regular Script, like the Tang Dynasty, the country's flourishing situation, so-called unprecedented. In the Regular Script, Yu Shinan, Ouyang Xun, Chu Suiliang in the early Tang Dynasty, Yan Zhenqing in the Middle Tang Dynasty, and Liu Gongquan in the Late Tang Dynasty, all of their Regular Script works were valued by the later generations as models of character practice.

7 Cursive Script

Cursive Script: a calligraphic style of Chinese characters. Formed in the Han Dynasty, it evolved on the basis of the official script for ease of writing. There are chapters of grass, grass, wild grass. Zhang cao brush strokes save change have chapter and verse to follow, representative works such as the Three Kingdoms Wu Huangxiang "rush to chapter" of the Songjiang this. The present cursive is not bound by the rules and regulations, the strokes are fluent, representative works such as the Jin Dynasty Wang Xizhi, "the first month", "to show" and other posts. Wild grass appeared in the tang dynasty, to zhang xu, huaisu as a representative of the wild and unrestrained, become completely detached from the practical art creation, from then on the cursive is just a calligrapher copying the chapter of grass, this grass, wild grass calligraphy works. Representative works such as zhang xu "belly pain" post, waisu "self narrative post". Cursive script for writing convenient and produce a font. Began in the early Han Dynasty. At that time, the common is "cursive scribe", that is, scribble scribe, and later gradually developed, forming a kind of artistic value of "Zhang Cao". At the end of the Han Dynasty, Zhang Zhi changed "zhang cao" into "jin cao", and the momentum of the word was made in one stroke. Tang Dynasty Zhang Xu, Huaisu and developed into a continuous back and forth, the word changes in a variety of "wild grass".

8 Running Script

A type of font between regular script and cursive script, which can be said to be the regular script of cursive or cursive script of regular script. It was created to compensate for the slow writing speed of regular script and the difficulty of recognizing cursive script. The strokes are not as scribbly as those of cursive, nor do they require the regular script to be as upright. The Regular Script is more than the Cursive Script is called "Xing Kai". Those with more cursive than regular strokes are called "Running Cursive". Running script was created around the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty.