The origin of Chinese characters

Chinese characters are the characters that record Chinese. It has a history of more than 6,000 years. It is the most populous language in the world and one of the oldest scripts. It is an ideographic syllable, and there are 4,000 to 8,000 commonly used words in modern times, most of which are pictophonetic characters. The fonts of modern Chinese characters are all evolved from Oracle Bone Inscriptions, inscriptions on bronze, seal script and official script.

In the long-term practice, human beings have not only created splendid history, but also accumulated rich cultural knowledge, and their characters have been preserved to this day. As a tool for recording, preserving and disseminating knowledge, writing has made indelible contributions to the progress of human civilization and the progress and development of society.

English: Chinese characters

origin

From the ancient legend of word-making in Cangjie to the discovery of Chinese characters in Oracle Bone Inscriptions more than 65,438+000 years ago, scholars in China have been working hard to uncover the mystery of the origin of Chinese characters. 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.

The earliest carved symbols were more than 8000 years ago.

In recent decades, Chinese archaeologists have published a series of unearthed materials about the origin of Chinese characters earlier than Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Anyang Yin Ruins. These materials mainly refer to the carved or painted symbols that appeared on pottery in the late primitive society and early historical society, and also include a few symbols engraved on Oracle Bone Inscriptions, jade and stone tools. It can be said that they provide a new basis for explaining the origin of Chinese characters.

Wang, a doctoral supervisor of Zhengzhou University, made a systematic investigation and comparison of the carving symbols on pottery pieces unearthed from more than 100 archaeological sites in China, and thought that the earliest carving symbols in China appeared in Jiahu site in Wuyang, Henan Province, with a history of more than 8,000 years.

As a professional worker, he tried to comprehensively sort out these original materials by comprehensively using scientific methods such as archaeology, ancient Chinese character configuration, comparative philology, scientific archaeology and high-tech means, so as to compare some clues about the occurrence and development of Chinese characters before Shang Dynasty.

However, the situation is not so simple. In addition to the existing small-scale data of Zhengzhou Shangcheng site and Xiaoshuangqiao site (in recent years, more than 10 cases of Zhu Shutao's early characters of Shang Dynasty have been found), other symbols before Shang Dynasty are scattered and lack of contact with each other, and most of them are out of touch with Shang Dynasty characters. There are also some symbols with heavy regional colors and complex backgrounds.

The 500 most commonly used Chinese characters

One is that when we want people, we can't be a great country. We can use them when we are born and when we go out. We can work in pairs. We can also work together every year. We can study law after hard work. People have to go through 13 years of equal education, and the electricity is as high as water, which increases the reality of small things. We should make full use of it. We should open it up. It is also because of other reasons that social justice is the same as the previous four days. However, this change in mass and gas direction has not been solved. For people who have no military ties, building a moon is the most important thing. They want to make a phone call and ask questions directly. The five fruit images of the party exhibition have been put in place, and the total defective products have been set up and managed. The long-term demand for capital and low-grade roads has been compared with the understanding of mountain systems. On the root of her hand, she means to forcibly release the ninth district to the west, fight well first, and then go back to the government. That is to say, the North will accept the right to license, change to the United States, and then adopt a more simple style. It is really necessary to achieve every goal. It is difficult to get close to the mine. Just like a history of the Millennium Committee of Qinghai Province.

The Chinese character system was formally formed in the Central Plains.

Wang believes that the formal formation of the Chinese character system should be in the Central Plains. Chinese characters are a writing system of independent origin, independent of any foreign language. However, its origin is not single. After many times and long-term running-in, probably in the early summer, our ancestors creatively invented the writing symbol system of recording language on the basis of extensively absorbing and using early symbols. At that time, the Chinese character system matured rapidly.

According to reports, according to the written materials unearthed from archaeological excavations, China had a formal written language at least in the Xia Dynasty. For example, in recent years, archaeologists found the word "Wen" for writing brush and bamboo calligraphy on a flat pottery jar unearthed from Taosi site in Xiangfen, Shanxi. These symbols belong to the basic configuration in the early writing system, but unfortunately such unearthed writing materials are still rare.

Characters first matured in Shang Dynasty.

As far as the written materials of Yin Shang Dynasty are known and seen at present, there are many kinds of written carriers. At that time, in addition to writing on simplified Chinese characters with a brush, other main writing methods were carved on tortoise shells and animal bones, and pottery, jade and Tao Zhu were carved on bronzes. Oracle Bone Inscriptions and bronze ritual vessels used in Yin Ruins are the earliest mature written materials found in China.

The Shang dynasty characters reflected in Yin Ruins are not only reflected in the large number of characters and rich materials, but also in the way of creating characters that has formed its own characteristics and laws. The structural characteristics of basic characters in Shang Dynasty can be divided into four categories: based on the physical characteristics of human body and a certain part of human body; Based on labor creation and labor object; Taking the images of animals and livestock as the basis of word formation; Taking natural images as the basis of word formation. Judging from the cultural connotation of the configuration, the objects selected by these early mature hieroglyphs are quite close to the social life of our ancestors and have strong realistic characteristics. At the same time, the content described by these hieroglyphs involves all levels of people and nature, so it also has the characteristics of extensive sources of configuration.

1. Oracle Bone Inscriptions

Oracle Bone Inscriptions was the written language of the Yin and Shang Dynasties, which was only used by a few divination historians. Mainly carved on the tortoise shell bone with a knife. Because the tortoise shell bone is hard, the strokes are mainly straight and rarely round. Because carving with a sharp knife

[Oracle Bone Inscriptions]

oracle bone script

Carved, so the lines are thin and even. Oracle Bone Inscriptions is the earliest Chinese character, which has the characteristics of early Chinese characters: strong imagery, no stereotyped writing, different sizes and great randomness.

Guess what the six ancient characters in the picture below are:

Answer:

Zhenxiyu

(knowledge) (pictograph) (pictograph)

Today's disease

(Know) (Pictograph) (Know)

2. Jinwen

Bronze inscriptions, also known as Zhong Dingwen, prevailed in the Western Zhou Dynasty. This is a kind of writing carved on bronze wares. The shape and structure of bronze inscriptions are similar to those of Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Because the inscriptions on bronzes are carved on a mold and then cast, it is easier to write. Therefore, its strokes are characterized by rounded shape and uniform size. Compared with Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the pictograph is lower, and the stereotyped characters are improved, but there are more variants.

3. seal script

There are two kinds of seal script: big seal script and small seal script. Dazhuan is a kind of writing in Zhou Xuanwang in the late Western Zhou Dynasty, also known as Wen Shu. During the Warring States Period, Shi Guwen and Zhou Xuanwang used a literacy textbook, Literacy Articles. The physical features are generally consistent with the inscriptions on bronze, with the characteristics of many strokes. Xiao Zhuan is a unified font issued when the same writing policy was implemented in Qin Dynasty. Li Si and others revised the font after finishing the text. Because it is a unified font issued by the government, after finishing and simplifying, the variant characters are greatly reduced, and the font is rectangular, which lays the foundation for the "square characters" of Chinese characters. Xiao Zhuan's strokes are more symmetrical and neat, the lines are even in thickness, more rounded, more symbolic, and the meaning of the picture disappears greatly. Because Xiao Zhuan is simplified on the basis of Da Zhuan, it is generally said that Xiao Zhuan is a simplification of Da Zhuan.

Xiao Zhuan calligraphy: The pine beside the wild crane's nest is the oldest, and the rain, rivers and mountains are dry. In the palm of the giant's hand, thousands of feet has broken the shore.

4. Official script

Lishu originated in the Qin Dynasty and prevailed in the Han Dynasty. The parallel of official script and seal script in Qin dynasty is a convenient font for official document copying by official script. Small seal script is difficult to write and can't meet the needs of official documents in Qin dynasty, so it is often used in more formal occasions. In order to write conveniently and quickly, Li Shu changed the circle of Xiao Zhuan into a straight stroke with square folds. Change the vertical cohesion structure style of Biography to horizontal extension; At this time, the official script has become a Chinese character symbol that is no longer pictographic. Official script has greatly changed the font of Chinese characters, so "official script change" has become the boundary between ancient and modern Chinese characters. The Chinese characters before Xiao Zhuan are ancient Chinese characters. Their similarity is characterized by strong pictograph and poor rigidity. Chinese characters are composed of lines, without any word-formation element-strokes. The Chinese characters after Lishu are modern Chinese characters. Nowadays, Chinese characters are characterized by strong symbols and stereotypes, and the characters are composed of a limited number of strokes. The official script of Han Dynasty replaced Xiao Zhuan as a formal writing form, also known as "Han Li". Han Li's writing styles are diverse. First, Fang Bi is the main one, such as Zhang Qianbei; One is mainly round pens, such as Cao Quanbei.

The miracle of Chinese characters

Among the characters used in today's world, Chinese characters and Shuishu belong to non-pinyin characters. In human history, the characters earlier than Chinese characters include the script of the nail head in the two rivers valley and the script of the holy book in Egypt, but they have long been extinct, so Chinese characters are the oldest characters at present. There are two types of characters used all over the world, namely, non-pinyin characters (Chinese characters) and Shui script pinyin characters (other characters). Isn't this a strange phenomenon? It is not an exaggeration to say that Chinese characters are China's five great inventions. I also want to say that Chinese characters are a miracle!

Among modern Chinese characters, only Chinese characters were directly created by our ancestors. The legend of Sanskrit letters was created by Brahma, a god, and given to mankind. Other characters were borrowed from other nationalities. Sanskrit letters are used to spell ancient Sanskrit and many modern Indian and Nepalese languages. Latin alphabet, Slavic alphabet and Arabic alphabet are called the three major alphabet systems in the world. English, French, Italian, etc. In Latin letters, it means borrowing Latin letters; Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, etc. With kirill letters (or Slavic letters), converted from Greek letters; Latin letters are also transformed from Greek letters. The ancestors of Aramaic alphabet-Alama alphabet and Greek alphabet-Canaanite alphabet were not directly created by their ancestors, but were transformed from Semitic characters. According to the research of Zhou Youguang, a linguist in Chinese mainland, the earliest letters of human beings are small Semitic letters. But they didn't create this kind of letter directly, but borrowed from Sume's nail script and reformed it. The lettering of the nail head was originally in the shape of a pictographic book, but later it evolved into the shape of the nail head due to the limitation of writing tools-sticks and clay tablets. The script of the nail head was created by Sumerians, the script of the holy book was created by Egyptians, the Chinese character was created by China, and the script of water was created by the minority in China, all of which are not pinyin characters. Now four have only Chinese characters and calligraphy, and the other two have died out.

Another peculiar feature of Chinese is its super-dialect and super-language. Linguists divide China dialect into eight major dialect areas. Some people say that without Chinese characters, China would have split into dozens of countries. The differences between Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian in Europe are much smaller than those in Chinese dialects, but they are never willing to admit that their languages are different dialects of "Romans" because they are all independent countries.

In addition, Chinese characters can transcend national boundaries. Historically, Vietnam, South Korea and Japan all used Chinese characters to record languages. Japanese still mix Chinese characters and pseudonyms. The Japanese use Chinese characters, and another important invention is to write Chinese characters and read Japanese. As long as other countries are willing, they can do the same. If this is really done, Chinese characters will become a common international language symbol, just like mathematical symbols, which only express meaning, not sound.

Development of Chinese characters

1 Oracle Bone Inscriptions

Oracle Bone Inscriptions mainly refers to Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin Ruins, which was written by the royal family on tortoise shells and animal bones in the late Shang Dynasty in China (14 ~ 1 1 century). It is the earliest and most complete ancient Chinese character discovered by China.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions is an ancient script in China, regarded as an early form of modern Chinese characters, sometimes regarded as a script of Chinese characters, and also the oldest mature script in China. Oracle Bone Inscriptions is also called Wen Qi, tortoise shell or tortoise shell animal bone. Oracle Bone Inscriptions is a very important ancient writing material. Most Oracle Bone Inscriptions were found in Yin Ruins. Yin Ruins is a famous site of Yin Shang Dynasty, located in Xiaotun Village, Huayuanzhuang and Houjiazhuang in the northwest of Anyang City, Henan Province. It was once the capital of the central dynasty in the late Shang Dynasty, so it was called Yin Ruins. These Oracle Bone Inscriptions are basically the divination records of Shang rulers. Shang rulers are superstitious about whether there will be disasters, whether it will rain, whether there will be a good harvest of crops, whether there will be a victory in the war, what to sacrifice to ghosts and gods, and divination based on fertility, disease, dreaming and other things to understand the will of ghosts and gods and the quality of things. The materials used for divination are mainly tortoise's bellybutton, carapace and cattle's scapula. Small pits are usually dug or drilled on the back of Oracle bones for divination. This kind of pit is called "drilling" by experts in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Heating these pits during divination leads to cracks on the surface of Oracle bones. This kind of crack is called "omen" The word "Bu" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions is like a symbol. People engaged in divination judge good or bad according to the various shapes of divination. According to Oracle Bone Inscriptions in the Shang Dynasty, Chinese characters at that time had developed into a complete Chinese writing system. In the discovered Oracle Bone Inscriptions of Yin Ruins, the number of words has reached about 4000. There are a lot of signifiers, pictographs, knowing characters, and many pictographs. These words are very different in appearance from the words we use now. But from the point of word formation, they are basically the same.

At present, there are about 6.5438+0.5 million pieces of Oracle bones with more than 4,500 words. These Oracle Bone Inscriptions records are extremely rich in content, involving many aspects of social life in Shang Dynasty, including not only politics, military affairs, culture and social customs, but also astronomy, calendars, medicine and other science and technology. Judging from about 1500 characters identified in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the methods of "pictographic, comprehending, pictophonetic, referring to things, transferring notes and borrowing words" have been developed, which shows the unique charm of China characters. Documents based on tortoise shells and animal bones in Shang Dynasty and early Western Zhou Dynasty in China (about 16 BC-0/0 BC). This is the earliest known form of Chinese literature. The characters carved on Oracle bones were previously called Wen Qi, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Turtle Edition, Yin Ruins, etc. Now they are usually called Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Due to superstition, Shang and Zhou emperors used tortoise shells (common in tortoise shells) or animal bones (common in cattle scapula) for divination, and then carved divination related matters (such as divination time, diviner, divination content, divination result, verification, etc. ) in the Oracle Bone Inscriptions, and preserved by the royal historian as archival materials (see Oracle Bone Inscriptions archives). In addition to Oracle inscriptions, there are some unforgettable inscriptions in Oracle Bone Inscriptions's offerings. Oracle Bone Inscriptions's contribution covers astronomy, calendar, meteorology, geography, country, lineage, family, figures, officials, conquest, prison, agriculture, animal husbandry, hunting, transportation, religion, sacrifice, disease, birth and disaster. It is extremely precious first-hand information to study the social history, culture and language of ancient China, especially the Shang Dynasty.

2 bronze inscriptions

Bronze inscriptions refer to characters cast on bronze wares of Yin and Zhou Dynasties, also known as Zhong Dingwen. Shang and Zhou Dynasties were the bronze age, with the tripod as the representative ritual vessel and the bell as the representative musical instrument. "Zhong Ding" was synonymous with bronze ware. Therefore, Zhong Dingwen or inscriptions on bronze refers to inscriptions cast or carved on bronzes.

Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. China entered the Bronze Age in the Xia Dynasty, and the smelting of copper and the manufacture of bronzes were very developed. Because copper was also called gold a week ago, the inscriptions on bronzes were called "bronze inscriptions" or "auspicious words"; This bronze ware was called "Zhong Dingwen" in the past because it had the largest number of characters on Zhong Ding.

The application time of bronze inscriptions is about 1200 years, from the early Shang Dynasty to the Qin Dynasty's destruction of the Six Kingdoms. According to Rong Geng's Jin Wen Bian, there are 3,722 inscriptions, of which 2,420 can be identified.

There are different words in the inscriptions on bronzes. The content of memory is also very different. Its main content is mostly to praise the achievements of ancestors and princes, but also to record major historical events. For example, the famous Mao has 497 words, covering a wide range, reflecting the social life at that time.

3 major seal scripts

The current representative figures are named after a book handed down by Taishi in the Zhou Dynasty. On the basis of the original text, he transformed it and got his name because it was engraved on the stone drum. It is the earliest stone carving text that has been circulated so far, and it is the ancestor of stone carving.

It began in the late Western Zhou Dynasty and traveled in Qin during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. The fonts are similar to those of Qin Zhuan, but the configurations of glyphs overlap.

4 biographies

Also known as "Qin Zhuan". It was in the Qin dynasty. The shape is long, even and neat, and it evolved from Da Zhuan. Xu Shen's Record of Explaining Words in the Eastern Han Dynasty said: "Qin Shihuang was the first emperor in the world, ... but he was not in harmony with Qin Wen. (Li) The company wrote Cang Xie, the CRRC office ordered Zhao Gao to write Love Calendar, and the Taishi ordered Hu Wujing to write Bo Xue, all of which were based on history as a big seal, or quite preserved, so-called small seal. "

5 official script

Official script is basically evolved from seal script, mainly changing the round strokes of seal script into square folds, which makes writing faster, and it is difficult to draw round strokes when writing with pigments on wooden slips.

Official script is also called "official character" and "ancient book". It is a font produced on the basis of seal script to meet the needs of convenient writing. The seal script is simplified, and the uniform circle lines of the seal script are changed into straight strokes, which is convenient for writing. Official script can be divided into "Qin Li" (also called "Guli") and "Han Li" (also called "Golden Calendar"). The appearance of official script is a great change in ancient writing and calligraphy.

Official script is a common solemn font in Chinese characters, with a slightly flat writing effect, long horizontal drawing and short straight drawing, and pays attention to "swallow tail of silkworm head" and "twists and turns". It originated in the Qin Dynasty and reached its peak in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Calligraphy is known as "Han Li Tang Kai". It is also said that official script originated in the Warring States period.

Official script is relative to seal script, and its name originated from the Eastern Han Dynasty. The appearance of official script is another great change of China characters, which brings China's calligraphy art into a new realm, is a turning point in the development history of Chinese characters, and lays the foundation for regular script. Official script is flat, neat and exquisite. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, stippling such as skimming was beautified as upward provocation, with different degrees of severity and artistic beauty of calligraphy. Styles also tend to be diversified, which is of great artistic appreciation value.

According to legend, the official script was compiled by Cheng Miao who was not in the prison of Qin Dynasty. By eliminating complexity and simplifying, the font becomes round and square, and the strokes become straight. Changing "Lian Bi" into "broken pen" and changing lines into strokes makes writing more convenient. "Li Ben" is not a prisoner, but a petty official, that is, a small official in charge of documents, so in ancient times, official script was called "Zuo Shu". Lishu prevailed in Han Dynasty and became the main style of calligraphy. As a start-up Qin Li, seal script has many meanings, and it has been continuously developed and processed. It broke the writing tradition since the Zhou and Qin Dynasties and gradually laid the foundation for regular script. Under the unification of the thought of "ousting a hundred schools of thought and respecting Confucianism alone", the official script of the Han Dynasty gradually developed into the dominant script, and at the same time, cursive script, regular script and running script were derived, laying the foundation for art.

6 regular script

Regular script is also called official script, or real book. Its characteristics are: square shape, straight strokes, can be used as a model, hence the name. Began in the Eastern Han Dynasty. There are many famous regular script writers, such as Ou Ti (Ou Yangxun), Yu Ti (Yu Shinan), Yan Ti (Yan Zhenqing), Liu Ti (Liu Gongquan) and Zhao Ti (attached).

In the early days, there were few official handwriting, the structure was slightly wider, the horizontal painting was long and the vertical painting was short. In Wei Jinzhong handed down from ancient times, such as Zhong You's "Declaration Form" (left), "List of Recommended Seasons", Wang Xizhi's "Le Yi Lun" and "Huang Ting Jing" can all be regarded as representative works. Look at its characteristics, as Weng Fanggang said: "Change the wave painting of official script, pick it up, and still keep the vertical of official script."

After the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the north and the south were divided, and calligraphy was also divided into two factions. The calligraphy style of the Northern School has inherited the legacy of Han Li. Its brushwork is simple and rigorous, but its style is simple and rigorous, so it is called "Weibei". Southern calligraphy is more sparse and beautiful than letters. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, because of regional differences, personal habits and book styles were very different. The books in the North are strong and the books in the South are rich, each of which is wonderful and inseparable, while Bao and Kang Youwei highly admire the books of the two dynasties, especially the epitaphs of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Kang cited ten beauties to emphasize the advantages of Weibei.

Regular script in the Tang Dynasty, like the prosperity of the national situation in the Tang Dynasty, is really unprecedented. Calligraphy style is mature, and calligraphers come forth in large numbers. In terms of regular script, Yu Shinan, Ou Yangxun, Chu Suiliang in the early Tang Dynasty, Yan Zhenqing in the middle Tang Dynasty and Liu Gongquan in the late Tang Dynasty all regarded his regular script works as models of calligraphy.

7 cursive script

Cursive script: a style of Chinese characters. Formed in the Han Dynasty, it evolved on the basis of official script for the convenience of writing. There are Cao Zhang, Cao Jin and Crazy Grass. There are rules to follow in the changes of strokes, such as the urgent chapter of the Three Kingdoms Wu in Songjiang Edition. Today's grass is eclectic and fluent, and its representative works include Wang Xizhi's "The First Moon" and Jin Dynasty's "Getting Time". Mad grass appeared in the Tang Dynasty, represented by Zhang Xu and Huai Su, and its brushwork was wild and uninhibited, which became an artistic creation completely divorced from practicality. From then on, cursive script was only the works of calligraphers imitating Cao Zhang, Cao Jin and Kuangcao. Masterpieces such as Zhang Xu's Abdominal Pain Post and Huai Su's Autobiography Post. Cursive script is a font produced for the convenience of writing. It began in the early Han Dynasty. At that time, it was "Cao Li", that is, scribbled official script, which gradually developed into a kind of "Cao Zhang" with artistic value. At the end of the Han Dynasty, Zhang Zhi changed "Cao Zhang" to "modern grass", and the character style was formed in one fell swoop. In the Tang Dynasty, Zhang Xu and Huai Su developed into "weeds", with continuous strokes and changeable glyphs.

Eight lines of writing

A font between regular script and cursive script, which can be said to be cursive or cursive. It is to make up for the shortcomings of slow writing in regular script and illegible cursive script. The brushwork is not as sloppy as cursive script, and it is not required to be as correct as regular script. There are more methods of mold opening than cursive writing, which is called "mold opening". Cursive calligraphy is more than modular method, which is called "cursive calligraphy". Running script was produced in the late Eastern Han Dynasty.

Advantages and disadvantages of Chinese characters and the direction of Chinese character reform

Preface to Zhang Xiaochun's Middle School Students' Philology

Chinese characters are the most widely used characters in the world. According to statistics, the number of people who use Chinese characters and Chinese has reached more than 65.438+0.2 billion.

Chinese characters are the oldest characters still in use. The earliest Chinese characters that can be seen and read now are Oracle Bone Inscriptions more than 3,000 years ago. This is a fairly mature system of Chinese characters.

There is no writing in the world that has gone through many vicissitudes like Chinese characters and is still young. The sacred script of ancient Egypt 5000 years ago is one of the earliest scripts of human beings. But then it disappeared, and the recorded ancient Egyptian language.

Culture has also been buried deep. Sumerian cuneiform also has a history of 5000 years. But after 330 AD, it also died out. The famous figures who declined in history are Maya and Polomi.

Wen and so on. Chinese characters not only have a long history, but also have a growing influence. Why? There are some reasons:

1. The pronunciation of Chinese characters is the most beautiful.

Chinese characters have one character and one sound, and each sound is divided into four sounds. Therefore, it is the most beautiful language in the world because of its loud and clear reading, euphemism and beautiful rhythm. Poems written in this language

Literature, especially poetry, has a sonorous and sharp hearing and a cadence aesthetic feeling. China's poems pay attention to the level and level, so the poems can be particularly neat, the rhythm is particularly distinct, and they are particularly catchy to read.

Because Chinese characters are pronounced loudly and have no light consonants, the advantages of Chinese characters in "man-machine dialogue" are obvious. Some people predict that 2 1 century will be "the century of Chinese characters".

Chinese characters are the most beautiful.

How beautiful is it? It has become an art-calligraphy art, and the calligraphy art of Chinese characters can't be compared with any other words. The following ancient calligraphy works have become priceless.

.

3. Chinese characters are best recognized.

Let's do a test first: Look at the following two arrangements, which one can know the numbers faster?

① ●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

② ●●●●

●●●●

●●●●

●●●●

The second one, of course. Because the human eye's field of vision is always a surface, not a line. Therefore, the former is linear and difficult to identify; The latter is arranged in a square, which is clear at a glance. The former is equivalent to pinyin.

Text-linear text; The latter is equivalent to Chinese characters-square characters. It can be concluded that the reading efficiency of Chinese characters is higher than that of pinyin characters.

4. Chinese characters have the best meaning (relevance).

Please compare the following Chinese and English words:

Chinese words and English words

ox

Bull bull

Cow cow

Calf calf

milk

Although the meanings of these six English words are all related to cows, writing and reading are "irrelevant". If you want to know them, you have to learn them one by one and remember them one by one. This is irregular.

. As for Chinese characters, as long as you know the word "cow", you will know that all words with "cow" are related to cows. Because Chinese characters have strong word-formation ability, I know a certain number of Chinese characters and can recognize them.

I have learned countless words, even if new words are produced, they are based on old words, and their meanings are easy to understand.

The disadvantage is that in mathematical physics and other scientific disciplines, the expression is very weak and complicated, such as operation, and only Arabic numerals and symbols can be used.

Only symbols can be used in mechanical building drawings.

More than 70 years ago, Mr. Lu Xun said: square Chinese characters are "a nodule on the working people in China" and "a sharp weapon of ignorance policy" ("Essay on Jiejieting/About New Words-Answer")

Ask "). Therefore, "China was equal to no words until the proposal of Latinization appeared and the key to solving the problem was grasped." "If you don't want everyone to make sacrifices for old words, you must do so.

Sacrifice old words. "(cut street pavilion essays/China language new life).

The weakness in China's modern history has created people's lack of confidence in their own traditions (including culture), and even Lu Xun and Hu Shizhi can't avoid customs.

So according to the advantages and disadvantages, I think Chinese characters will branch.

1. Based on ancient Chinese, simplify the writing of some words appropriately and restore some simplified and bad traditional writing methods (such as Chinese, love and east) appropriately.

The words that appear in the future are pictophonetic characters.

Used for expression, especially in literature. This is the theme.

2. Branches are symbols that absorb numbers and letters, so as to facilitate the development of science subjects, make the operation expression concise and clear, and avoid the lack of expression of Chinese characters in this respect. Of course, these are not Chinese characters in the traditional sense, but they are very necessary as an aid.

Origin theory of Chinese characters

With language, human beings can accumulate knowledge and form culture. With words, you can record languages and exchange information. Language distinguishes people from animals, and writing distinguishes the primitive stage of human society from the civilized stage. Writing breaks the limitation of language in time and space, spreads language to distant places and expands the communicative function of language.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions is the earliest extant Chinese character, which originated in Shang Dynasty and has a history of about 3,400 years. It is already a relatively strict system of writing. Judging from its advanced smelting technology and artistic ornamentation on bronzes, pottery and jade, the Yin ruins culture in Xiaotun is a highly developed civilization. We can speculate that the era when Oracle Bone Inscriptions was born will not be at the crossroads when the Chinese nation moved from ignorance to civilization.

Before Chinese characters enter Oracle Bone Inscriptions, there must be a long journey. However, walking back along Oracle Bone Inscriptions, we can see the literature records about the origin of Chinese characters, which originated from Zhou and Qin ancient books, and most of them are legends and some are myths. Although myths and legends have their historical background and roots, they are the reflection of some historical realities. However, these legends are not the detailed and realistic historical features of the origin of Chinese characters, and they can only infer the situation before and after the origin of Chinese characters and the approximate time of their origin. Cultural relics and documents that can prove the historical characteristics of Chinese characters are not systematic and sufficient. Therefore, the origin of Chinese characters can only be based on incoherent historical evidence and speculation according to the logic of development, so as to establish a scientific hypothesis.

There are many theories about the origin of Chinese characters, and scholars of all ages have expressed their opinions, including

1, Chinese characters originated from knots. It is believed that Chinese characters were created under the inspiration of ancient knots.

2. Chinese characters begin with gossip. It is believed that characters are produced by hexagrams of Yi Gua, such as dry hexagrams representing heaven, Kun Gua representing earth, Kan Gua representing water, and leaving hexagrams representing fire.

3. Cang Xie regarded the tortoise as a book, and thought that Cang Xie was inspired by Gui Ling to create characters.

Chinese characters and pictures are homologous. Think that the names of calligraphy and painting are different. In the early days of writing, books were also painted, and paintings were also books.

5. Chinese characters come from pictures. It is considered that it is not a source, the picture comes first, the word comes last, and the word is produced on the basis of the picture.

6. Chinese characters originated from the social practice of our ancestors. It is believed that the generation of words comes directly from the original method of taking notes.

7. China figures in the West.