Handwritten newspaper (big picture) roaming the kingdom of Chinese characters in grade five

The origin of Chinese characters:

From the ancient legend of Cangjie's word-making to the discovery of Oracle Bone Inscriptions more than 1 years ago, China scholars have been working hard to uncover the mystery of the origin of Chinese characters.

There are various sayings about the origin of Chinese characters in China ancient literature, such as "knot rope", "gossip", "picture" and "calligraphy contract", etc., and ancient books also generally record the legend of the Yellow Emperor historian Cang Jie who created Chinese characters. Modern scholars believe that systematic writing tools can't be completely created by one person. If Cang Xie really exists, he should be a text organizer or publisher.

The earliest symbols were carved more than 8, years ago

In recent decades, the archaeological community in China has published a series of unearthed materials related to the origin of Chinese characters earlier than Oracle Bone Inscriptions in 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 small number of symbols engraved on Oracle bones, jade articles, stone tools and so on. It can be said that they provide a new basis for explaining the origin of Chinese characters.

Through systematic investigation and comparison of the carved symbols on pottery pieces unearthed in more than 1 sites of 19 archaeological cultures all over China, Wang Yunzhi, doctoral supervisor of Zhengzhou University, believes that the earliest carved symbols in China appeared in Jiahu site in Wuyang, Henan Province, with a history of more than 8, years.

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

However, the situation is not so simple. Except for the existing small-scale materials of Zhengzhou Shangcheng Site and Xiaoshuangqiao Site (which have found more than 1 cases of Zhu Shutao's writings in the early Shang Dynasty in recent years), other symbols before the Shang Dynasty are scattered and lack of links, and most of them are out of line with the Shang Dynasty's writings. There are also some symbols with heavy regional colors and complex backgrounds.

The Chinese character system was formally formed in the Central Plains

Wang Yunzhi 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, which does not depend on any foreign language. However, its origin is not single. After multiple and long-term running-in, probably at the beginning of the Xia Dynasty, our ancestors creatively invented a writing symbol system for recording languages on the basis of extensively absorbing and using early symbols. At that time, the Chinese character system matured rapidly.

It is reported that, according to the unearthed written materials of archaeological excavations, China had a formal written language at least during the Yuxia period. For example, in recent years, archaeologists have found the word "Wen" with a brush and Zhu Shu on a flat pottery pot unearthed from the Taosi site in Xiangfen, Shanxi. These symbols belong to the basic configuration in the early writing system, but unfortunately such unearthed writing information is still rare.

The characters first matured in the Shang Dynasty

As far as the information of Yin and Shang characters is concerned, there are many types of characters carriers. At that time, in addition to writing on the simplified books with a brush, other main means were carved on tortoise shells and animal bones, pottery, jade and Tao Zhu on bronzes. The written materials of Shang Dynasty, with Oracle bones and bronze ritual vessels used in Yin Ruins as the main carriers, are the earliest mature written materials discovered in China so far.