What is the evolution process of China fonts?

(A) the evolution of China fonts

Chinese characters came into being at the end of primitive society and have a history of five or six thousand years. It has a history of more than 3,000 years since the relatively mature Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Since the emergence of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the development of Chinese character fonts has gone through two stages: ancient Chinese characters and modern Chinese characters. The stage of ancient Chinese characters can be divided into four stages: Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Jinwen, Dazhuan and Xiaozhuan. Today's writing stage can be divided into official script, cursive script and regular script.

1, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, was a popular character in the Yin and Shang Dynasties more than 3,000 years ago. Oracle Bone Inscriptions mainly recorded the divination activities of the royal nobles in Shang Dynasty. Because it is carved on the bones of tortoise shells, people call it Oracle Bone Inscriptions. The main characteristics of Oracle Bone Inscriptions are: the picture features are obvious, because it is carved on the tortoise shell bone with a knife, so the strokes are thin and the fonts are different sizes.

Attached drawings:

2. Jinwen Jinwen, also known as Zhong Dingwen, was cast on bronzes-Zhong Ding, articles for daily use, weapons, etc. In the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period. In ancient times, bronze was called gold, so later generations called the words on the bronze inscriptions bronze inscriptions. Bronze inscriptions mainly record the sacrifices of rulers, the enfeoffment and conquest of princes and the achievements of masters. The main features of inscriptions on bronze inscriptions are: thick strokes, neat structural lines, obviously reduced picture features and strengthened text symbols.

Attached drawings:

3. Da Zhuan Da Zhuan is a popular Chinese font in Qin State during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. The font of Da Zhuan was directly developed from the inscriptions on bronze in the Western Zhou Dynasty. Its shape and structural features are roughly the same as those of the inscriptions on bronze, with slight changes and standardization, from which we can clearly see the traces of the development of China's fonts. The main features of seal script are: the font is neat and symmetrical, the strokes are uniform in thickness and tend to be straight, which is a big step forward compared with bronze inscriptions.

Attached drawings:

4. Xiao Zhuan Xiao Zhuan is the national standard font after Qin unified the six countries. After Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, he implemented the policy of "using the same language but not the same name", taking the seal script popular in Qin Dynasty as the basis for sorting out Chinese characters, removing the strokes and structure of seal script, making it simpler and more standardized, thus unifying the original complex Chinese font, and having a unified standard, this unified font is seal script. Xiao Zhuan is the product of the first standardization of Chinese characters in the history of China, and it plays a very important role in the history of Chinese characters. The popularity of Xiao Zhuan ended the chaotic situation of various forms and writing methods of Chinese characters since Oracle Bone Inscriptions for more than 1000 years. The main features of Xiao Zhuan are simple and standardized strokes and structure, and highly unified fonts and glyphs.

Attached drawings:

5. Lishu Lishu is a font that appeared in the Warring States Period. It was formed in the Qin Dynasty and widely circulated among the people. In order to save time and speed, some lower-level clerks in Qin Dynasty did not write Chinese characters completely according to the strokes and structure of Xiao Zhuan when copying things, thus gradually forming new fonts. Because this font is mostly used by junior officials and disciples, it is called official script. In the Qin Dynasty, official script only played an auxiliary role in Xiao Zhuan, and Xiao Zhuan was still used in formal occasions. In the Han Dynasty, Lishu finally developed into a brand-new Chinese font, replacing Xiaozhuan as a universal font. The main characteristics of official script are: completely breaking the structure of seal script, forming basic strokes such as point, horizontal, vertical, left and right, and paying attention to picking waves; Symmetrical structure, angular, square, neat and beautiful; The sense of picture disappears completely, and the font is completely symbolized. Therefore, official script is a turning point in the development history of Chinese characters and a watershed of ancient and modern characters.

Attached drawings:

6. Cursive cursive script is a font formed on the basis of official script in order to improve the writing speed in Han Dynasty. It is said that cursive script is named after drafting, and "cursive script" means "scribble" and "scribble". Cursive script is mainly used for daily writing, and official script is still used in formal occasions, such as official documents and notices. There are three kinds of cursive scripts: Cao Zhang, Jincao and Kuangcao. Cao Zhang was formed in the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Its characteristics are: the strokes are connected, but the characters are independent and easy to identify. This grass was produced in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. Its characteristic is that strokes are connected, words are connected, and the writing is very sloppy. Sometimes a word only keeps a little outline, and many different radicals, such as bamboo prefix, heart prefix and four-point prefix, are written in one shape, which is difficult to identify. Wild grass was produced in the Tang Dynasty and developed on the basis of modern grass. Its characteristics are: calligraphers write freely, add and subtract strokes at will, and the words are like dragons and phoenixes dancing, which is difficult for ordinary people to recognize. Because cursive script is really hard to identify, it gradually loses the use value of words, and now it can only exist as a unique calligraphy art of Chinese characters.

Attached drawings:

7. Regular script Regular script, also known as official script and original script, is a standard font that appeared in the Eastern Han Dynasty, matured and prevailed in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and has been used to this day. "Kai" means model, which means that regular script can be used as a writing model. Regular script inherits the structural characteristics of official script and absorbs the advantages of simple cursive strokes. The main characteristics of regular script are: canceling the wave-picking method of official script, the strokes are straight, the font is square, the structure is compact, and the strokes of characters are greatly reduced.

Attached drawings:

8. Running script came into being later than regular script, and it is a font between cursive script and regular script. Running script is more flexible and fluent than regular script, and easier to identify than cursive script. Therefore, it is widely used and has high use value. Running script has now become a font-handwriting, as important as regular script. People generally use running script in their daily writing.

Attached drawings:

(B) Simplification of Chinese character structure

After the development of Chinese characters to regular script, the font is basically stable. The most important change of Chinese characters is the simplification of strokes. There are six ways to simplify Chinese characters: 1, cursive script. That is, cursive script is written in regular script to form simplified Chinese characters. For example: Longlong specialty-special door-door horse-horse exchange-time-time.

2. Replace radicals. That is to say, radicals with many strokes and complicated structure are replaced by radicals with few strokes and simple structure. For example:

Deng-Deng Pu-Pu Jie-Jie Yong-Liao Yong-Wan.

3. Keep this role. In other words, a part of the original sentence was retained and the rest was deleted. For example:

Open-open-rich-rich service-positive service-positive voice-voice doctor-doctor

4. Homophonic substitution. That is, traditional Chinese characters are replaced by homophones with simple strokes. For example:

Only-only a few times-out of the valley-behind the valley-catch up with talents.

5. Create new words. That is, create another word with simple structure or find a variant from ancient literature to replace the original word. For example:

Pen-pen-body dust-dust furnace-furnace cluster-cluster head-head

6. adopt ancient style. That is to say, some words add ideographic radicals because of the differentiation of their meanings, or in order to highlight their meanings, but in modern times they are removed. For example:

Cloud-cloud electricity-electricity-gas production-mining-self.

Compared with traditional Chinese characters, simplified Chinese characters are Chinese characters with few strokes and simple structure. Most simplified Chinese characters have the same pronunciation and meaning as traditional Chinese characters. However, there are also a few simplified words that do not completely correspond to traditional Chinese characters in meaning and usage, especially simplified words replaced by homophones, which often represent several different words. If you need to use traditional Chinese characters in some special occasions, be careful not to simplify the corresponding relationship mechanically to avoid mistakes. For example, the original meaning of "Hou" refers to the king, queen and empress dowager. Later, people used it to replace the homophone traditional Chinese character "Hou". Therefore, if traditional Chinese characters must be used, only the words "before and after" and "backward" can be used in traditional Chinese characters, while the words "queen", "queen" and "mother" cannot be used in traditional Chinese characters.