How many early forms of Chinese writing are there? What are the characteristics of each?

Oracle Bone ScriptOracle Bone Script (甲骨文), mainly referred to as Yinxu Oracle Bone Script (殷墟甲骨文), is a script carved (or written) on tortoise shell and animal bones by the royal family in the late Shang Dynasty of China (14th to 11th centuries before the Shang Dynasty) for the purpose of divination and record-keeping. It is the earliest of the ancient scripts found in China, with a relatively complete system.　Oracle bone 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 the oldest surviving mature Chinese script. 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 or not in war, which sacrifices should be made to which ghosts and gods, and even fertility, diseases, dreams and so on, all of which had to be divined in order to find out the will of the ghosts and gods and the good or 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. People 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 in terms 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 contents recorded in these oracle bones are extremely rich, involving many aspects of social life in the Shang Dynasty, including not only politics, military, culture and social customs, but also science and technology, such as astronomy, calendars and medicine. From the oracle bone inscriptions have been recognized about 1500 single words, it already has the "pictogram, will be, form and sound, refers to things, turn note, false borrowing" method of character creation, 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 contents of the oracle bone inscriptions involve astronomy, calendar, meteorology, geography, square countries, lineage, family, characters, officials, conquests, punishment and prison, agriculture, animal husbandry, hunting, transportation, religion, sacrifices, diseases, births, disasters, etc., which are extremely precious first-hand information for the study of ancient China, especially the Shang Dynasty, in terms of social history, culture and language and writing.　　Jinwen Jinwen refers to the characters cast and engraved on Yin and Zhou bronzes, also called 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 bronzes.　The so-called 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 bronze wares were very advanced. Because before the Zhou copper is also called gold, so the inscription on the bronze is called "Jinwen" or "Jijinwen"; and because of this type of bronze to the most number of words on the bell tripod, so in the past, also called "Zhong Dingwen "The Jinwen script was used since the time of the Jin Dynasty.　The age of the application of the golden script, from the early Shang Dynasty, down to the Qin Dynasty, about 1,200 years. The number of words in Jinwen, according to Ronggeng "Jinwen编", *** counts 3,722, of which 2,420 words can be recognized.　Inscriptions on bronze vessels vary in the number of characters. The contents of the inscriptions are also very different. Most of its main content is to celebrate the achievements of ancestors and princes and lords, but also record major historical events. For example, the famous Mao Gong Ding has 497 characters, which is a very broad record, reflecting the social life at that time.　　The Big Seal Script, represented by the existing Shi Gu Wen, is named after Shi Zhou, who wrote it during the reign of King Xuan of Zhou. He reformed the script on the basis of the original text, which was named after the stone drums on which it was engraved. It is the earliest stone-carved text that has been handed down to the present day, and is the ancestor of stone carvings.　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 script is similar to the Qin Seal Script, but the glyphs overlap.　　Small Seal ScriptThe Small Seal Script is also called "Qin Seal Script". It is also known as "Qin Seal Script". The script was standardized by Li Si during the Qin Dynasty, and this script is known as the Small Seal Script. It was popularized during the Qin Dynasty. It is long and rounded, and is derived from the Big Seal Script. Xu Shen of the Eastern Han Dynasty, in his Shuo Wen Jie Zi (Explaining the Characters in Chinese), said, "When Qin Shi Huangdi first took over the whole world, ...... struck down those who did not fit in with the Qin script." Li Si wrote "Cangjie", Zhao Gao wrote "Ai Calendar", and Hu Shujing wrote "Bo Xue": "All of them were taken from the seal script of the pre-Han period, or quite modified, the so-called Small Seal Script." Nowadays, the remaining stones of Luangya Terrace and Taishan Mountain are the representative works of the Small Seal Script.　After the unification of China by Emperor Qin Shihuang, who implemented the policy of "writing in the same language and on the same track" and unified weights and measures, Li Si, the prime minister of Qin, was responsible for simplifying the seal script based on the seal script used in Qin and eliminating the variant characters used in the other six countries, and creating a unified form of writing the Chinese characters. It was popular in China until the end of the Western Han Dynasty, when it was gradually replaced by the official script. However, it was always favored by calligraphers because of its beautiful script. And because of its complex strokes, strange and ancient forms, and the ability to add twists and turns at will, seal engraving, especially official seals that need to prevent counterfeiting, has always used seal script until the overthrow of the feudal dynasty, and the emergence of new anti-counterfeiting technology in modern times. The Kangxi Dictionary also has notes on all characters written in small seal script.　　Clerical Script is basically an evolution of the Seal Script, mainly changing the rounded strokes of the Seal Script to square folds, which are faster to write, and it is difficult to draw rounded strokes when writing with lacquer on wooden slips.　Clerical Script is also called "Clerical Characters" and "Ancient Script". It is a script based on the Seal Script, which was developed to meet the need for ease of writing. It was simplified from the Small Seal Script, and the rounded lines of the Small Seal Script were turned 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 appearance of the official script is a major change in ancient writing and calligraphy.　LiShu is a dignified script commonly found in Chinese characters, with a slightly wider and flatter writing effect, long horizontal strokes and short straight strokes, and emphasizing "silkworm head, 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 calligraphic circles as "Han Scribe and Tang Regular Script". It is also said that the official script originated in the Warring States period.　The name "Official Script" originated in the Eastern Han Dynasty, as opposed to the Seal Script. 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 be diversified, and has great value for art appreciation.　Clerical Script is said to have been organized by Cheng Miao in prison in the Qin Dynasty, and it was simplified by removing the complexity, changing the shape of the characters from round to square, and the strokes 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 documents, so in ancient times, the official script was called "zoshu". The official script flourished 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 ideological unification of "Dismissing the Hundred Schools and Exclusively Respecting the Confucians", the Official Script of the Han Dynasty was gradually developed and finalized, and became the dominant calligraphic style, while at the same time giving rise to the Cursive Script, Regular Script, and the Running Script styles, which laid the foundation of the art.　　Regular Script Regular Script is also known as Zhengshu, or True Script. It is characterized by its square shape and straight strokes, and can be used as a model, hence its name. It began in the Eastern Han Dynasty. There are many famous writers of the Regular Script, such as "Ou Style" (Tang Ouyang Xun), "Yu Style" (Tang Yu Shinan), "Yan Style" (Tang Yan Zhenqing), " Liu Style" (Tang - Liu Gongquan), "Zhao Style" (Song and Yuan - Zhao Mengfu) and so on.　The early "Regular Script", which still retained very few clerical strokes, was slightly wider, with long horizontal strokes and short straight strokes, and is represented in the Wei and Jin posters that have come down to us, such as Zhong Cao's "Declaration Table" (left), "Recommendation of Jizhi Table", and Wang Xizhi's "Discourse on Leyi", and "The Yellow Court Sutra". As Weng Fangzang said, "the wave painting of the official script is changed, with the addition of dots, pecks and picks, while the horizontal and straight lines of the ancient official script are still preserved".　After the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the north and south were divided, and calligraphy was also divided into two schools. The Northern School of Calligraphy, with the legacy of the Han Clerical Script, has an ancient and strong style, and a simple and square style, long in the list of books, which is the so-called 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.　Tang Dynasty Regular Script, as the Tang Dynasty, the country's flourishing situation, so-called unprecedented. Calligraphy matured, the calligraphers, in the Regular Script, Yu Shinan, Ouyang Xun, Chu Suiliang in the early Tang Dynasty, Yan Zhenqing in the Middle Tang Dynasty, Liu Gongquan in the Late Tang Dynasty, whose works in Regular Script are valued by the later generations, as a model for character study.　　Running Script is a type of script between Regular Script and Cursive Script, and can be said to be the grassification of Regular Script or the regularization of Cursive 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.　　Cursive Script: A style of writing for Chinese characters. Formed in the Han Dynasty, it evolved from the official script for ease of writing. It is divided into Zhang Cao, Jin Cao, and Bao Cao. Chapter cursive strokes to save changes in the chapter law can be followed, representative works such as the Three Kingdoms Wu Huangxiang "rush to the 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 script is just a calligrapher copying the chapter grass, 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 the "wild grass".