Historical materials of Chinese characters

Morphological evolution of Chinese characters

In terms of systematic Chinese characters, the evolution of Chinese characters has a history of more than 3,000 years. This evolution can be roughly divided into seven stages.

(1) Oracle Bone Inscriptions. The earliest systematic Chinese character material we can see today is Oracle Bone Inscriptions. The so-called "Oracle Bone Inscriptions" refers to the characters carved on tortoise shells and animal bones in Shang Dynasty.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions was discovered in 1899 (25th year of Guangxu reign of Qing Dynasty), Xiaotun Village, Wuli Road, northwest of Anyang County, Henan Province. According to archaeological evidence, Xiaotun Village is the capital of the Yin Dynasty. After 80 years of continuous excavation, about167,000 written Oracle bones have been obtained. In the long-term research of archaeologists, a lot of research results have been accumulated. According to incomplete statistics, there are about 2,000 articles published in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Most words I don't know are names, place names and names.

The Yin Dynasty in the slave age worshipped God very much, and always asked fortune tellers about everything. For example, ask about hunting, offering sacrifices to pray for the New Year, fighting and conquering, and stormy weather. From the Oracle bone inscriptions found, we can know that Oracle bone inscriptions are mainly recorded by the royal family of Yin Dynasty on tortoise shells and animal bones used in Oracle bones, so people usually call them "Oracle Bone Inscriptions". Comrade Guo Moruo's Selected Works of Yin Qi and Oracle Bone Inscriptions Collection are monographs on Oracle Bone Inscriptions.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions's written language is very limited, and some words can be said to have existed in Oracle Bone Inscriptions's time. But because it is not used in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, it has not come out so far. For example, the word "min" appeared many times on bronzes in the early Zhou Dynasty, all of which meant stabbing an eye with an awl, so "min" represented the word "min" on ancient slave bronzes: ■ (Yu Ding) ■ (Ding Ke )■ (Qin Gonggui). But the word "min" is not found in Oracle Bone Inscriptions.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions has three main characteristics:

(1) The figure is not fixed, there are many strokes, and the writing is positive and negative.

"Stop": ■, ■, ■ (that is, hieroglyphics of feet)

"Prison": ■, ■, ■ (where cattle and sheep are kept)

"Car": ■, ■, ■ (which is a hieroglyph of chariots)

(2) The programming is not uniform. From left to right, from right to left, so it is quite difficult to read.

(3) Because the characters are carved on tortoise shells and animal bones with steel knives and stone knives, and the strokes are thin and hard, Fang Bi is often used instead of a round pen.

In addition, according to archaeological analysis, besides Oracle Bone Inscriptions, there must be bamboo slips and silk books in Shang Dynasty. Because there is already the word "book" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, much like the bamboo slips ■ (book) compiled by Wei Oracle Bone Inscriptions, and there is also the word "book", much like the appearance of holding "book" in both hands, so future generations call the important works "classic" Oracle Bone Inscriptions ■ (book). So why haven't you seen the bamboo slips of the Yin Dynasty so far? This is because bamboo and wood have been buried underground for more than 3000 years, and they are likely to rot long ago.

② inscriptions on bronze. Bronze inscriptions refer to words cast on bronze wares. The ancients called copper "auspicious gold", so they called the words on bronzes "bronze inscriptions". Among the bronzes, Zhong and Ding are the most famous, so the bronze inscriptions are also called "Zhong Dingwen". In addition, there are also names such as "bronze inscription", "auspicious bronze inscription" and "knowledge of the style of Yi wares".

The culture of Zhou Dynasty was much more prosperous than that of Yin Dynasty, and ancient books and cultural relics were extremely rich. Zhou people didn't believe in ghosts and gods like Yin people, so Oracle Bone Inscriptions gave way to bronze inscriptions.

Of course, there were inscriptions on bronze at the end of Yin Dynasty, but after all, there were few, so inscriptions on bronze mainly refer to inscriptions on bronze in Zhou Dynasty. In the Zhou Dynasty, there were not only many inscriptions, but also many characters. For example, there is the word 187 in "paranormal" when the second emperor of the Western Zhou Dynasty became king. The Great Yu Ding was written by Kang Wangzhao, the third emperor of the Western Zhou Dynasty, with 29 1 characters. The twelfth emperor of the Western Zhou Dynasty announced the 499 words of Mao. There is no such glory in the Yin Dynasty now.

In the Western Zhou Dynasty, bronzes were mainly royal vessels, and princes and ministers were not allowed to have the right to cast such vessels. However, in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the governors unified the political affairs, and bronzes could be cast at will, but the royal vessels were almost extinct. From the form of the characters, there is also great development. Especially in the Warring States period, many decorative elements similar to birds and insects were added to the characters of southern countries such as Wu, Yue and Chu, which were called "bird and insect books" and "wonderful biographies". For example, the words "Chu" and "Wang" are Miao Zhuan ■ (Chu) and■ (Wang).

From the content point of view, the words on the bronze ware mainly record who owns it, and some record the exploits, sacrifices and rewards from the king.

Physically, bronze inscriptions developed from Oracle Bone Inscriptions. It is simpler than Oracle Bone Inscriptions in strokes and structure, and has three main features:

(1) There are many curved pens, thick and natural lines and neat glyphs.

(2) Generally, inscriptions on bronze inscriptions are first engraved on molds, and they can be modified if they are not well engraved, so the glyphs look rich and simple, but they tend to be smooth and beautiful at weekends.

(3) The font is not fixed, and there are often many ways to write a word. For example, the word "shoot" looks like a bow and arrow, and there are various ways to write "shoot" with one hand behind the third way: ■■■■■■ There are various ways to write "bug" with two eyes above the third way: ■■■

In addition, silk books were unearthed in Changsha before liberation, which were tombs of Chu State. What makes people angry is that this national treasure was sold to Americans by the scum of the Chinese nation in 1946 and then hidden in the library of Yale University in the United States. As for simplified books, seals, Wen Tao, currency texts, weapons carvings, etc. After liberation, it was found many times in Changsha, Xinyang and other places, but most of them were hastily written, far less neat than Zhong Dingwen.

(3) seal script. The name "seal script" has always been controversial. Comrade Guo Moruo said: "The signer is also embarrassed; The deaf are also officials. " I, a member of the Conservatory of Music and an ancient government agency. In other words, the so-called "seal script" is actually a "manuscript", which is also an "official book".

In the Qin Shihuang era, there were many official affairs and numerous official books. There is such a record in Historical Records of Qin Shihuang: "Everything in the world, big or small, depends on the world, and books are measured by stones." The "stone" (Dandan) is 120 Jin, which shows that Qin Shihuang personally has to read the official documents written by 120 Jin bamboo slips one day. These "official books" are "seal scripts". However, there was no such name at that time, and it was not until the appearance of "official script" in Han Dynasty that the "document" previously applied to official letters was called "seal script". So "seal script" is for "official script". Seal script can be divided into "big seal script" and "small seal script":

(1) Dazhuan-Xu Shen said: "Emperor Taishishua (Yinzhou) of Wang Xuan wrote fifteen Dazhuan, which is different from ancient Chinese." (Shuo Wen Jie Zi Xu) Ban Gu also said, "Zhou Xuanwang wrote fifteen big seals. Six people died in Jianwu. " These statements are more reliable, because Wang Xuan was the chief commander of ZTE in the Zhou Dynasty. In his forty-six years in office, he achieved the goal of "repairing internal affairs and excluding foreign countries". So there was a good condition to sort out and unify the words at that time.

The original seal script was "Shi Guwen". In the early Tang Dynasty, ten drum-shaped stones were found in Chencang (now Baoji, Shaanxi), which were inscribed with characters, and people called them "Shi Guwen". Its content is to record hunting, and it is written in verse. It is different from the ancient prose of Yin and Zhou Dynasties in terms of its shape, but it is very close to Biography. For example, the words "Shi", "Shu" and "Wu" are written, just like Xiao Zhuan.

Features of big seal script: 1. Linearization has reached the level of perfection, and the lines are even and gentle. 2. The structure is relatively neat, which lays the foundation for the square characters. There are almost no variant characters on the same object. 4. The strokes are complicated and writing is not convenient enough.

Shuo Wen Jie Zi has collected 223 "seal characters" according to the nine existing seal characters, which is also an important material for us to study the seal characters now.

(2) Biography-During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there were great differences in the languages of different countries, which was related to the fact that "the governors were in charge of politics and did not unify with the monarch", resulting in a situation of "different words and different characters". Xu Shen said: "At the beginning of Qin Shihuang's rule, Prime Minister Li Si also agreed, but he disagreed with Qin Wen. Our company wrote Cang Xie, CZ ordered Zhao Gao to write Love Calendar, and a surname ordered Hu to write Bo Xue, all of which were based on history, or were well preserved. The so-called small seal is also. " (Shuo Wen Jie Zi Xu) This passage means that after Qin unified China, it also unified the writing. Small seal script evolved from big seal script. These views are very reasonable. But it can never be said that Li Si wrote Biography alone, and he probably presided over the unification of the characters. There are three main ways to change a big seal into a small seal:

(1) deformation:

(bark) (willow)

Big seal script: ■■

Small seal script: ■■

(2) Pseudo-transformation:

(Then) (Easy)

Big seal script: ■■

Small seal script: ■■

(3) province change:

(car) (worship)

Big seal script: ■■

Small seal script: ■■

Among the above three changes, the main way is to remain and change, which conforms to the development law of Chinese characters from complexity to simplicity.

Shuowen Jiezi is a typical seal script with regular lines and beautiful writing style. For example, Taishan stone carving, Langxietai stone carving, Fufu stone carving, Fengshan stone carving and so on. It is said that they were all written by Li Si.

(4) Official script. In the early years of Qin Dynasty, official books were all written in Xiao Zhuan, but the so-called Cao Zhuan was popular among the people. The characteristics of this cursive seal script are: the strokes tend to be straight, the strokes tend to be simple and the writing is convenient. At that time, Qin Shihuang was the first word to encourage people to write official script-"Cao Zhuan".

To be sure, official script evolved from grass seal script. However, Wei Heng in the Jin Dynasty said that the official script was written by Cheng Miao, a descendant of Xia Dynasty, and Li Daoyuan also affirmed that the official script was written by Cheng Miao in the Notes on Water Classics. In fact, these are all legends, incredible. Cheng Miao was probably awarded by Qin Shihuang when he first submitted a paper with Cao.

Secondly, simplification of Chinese characters is an inevitable trend of Chinese character development.

Simplified Chinese characters refer to Chinese characters with complex structure and many strokes. Later, when people used it, they were transformed and simplified, resulting in Chinese characters with simple strokes and simple structure, which are simplified traditional Chinese characters, rather than traditional Chinese characters and simple stroke structure. Traditional Chinese characters are those Chinese characters whose stroke structure is complex, which are replaced by simplified characters and are no longer used in general occasions. For example, "evidence, fear, building, depression, turtle, stove and extermination" are simplified characters, while the corresponding "evidence, fear, building, depression, turtle, stove and extermination" are traditional characters. These traditional Chinese characters have been replaced by simplified Chinese characters in our daily writing today, which is the object of modern Chinese character standardization.

Relatively speaking, simplified characters and traditional characters are a set of concepts that treat each other. Without one side, there is no other side. Without traditional Chinese characters, there is no simplified Chinese characters, and without simplified Chinese characters, there is no traditional Chinese characters. So simplified characters are not necessarily Chinese characters with simple structure. Some Chinese characters are so simple from the beginning to the present, and there is no corresponding traditional Chinese characters. It can't be called simplified words, such as "person, one, two, ten, up, down, denier, hand, inch, work and style". Chinese characters with complex stroke structure are not necessarily traditional Chinese characters. The connotation of traditional Chinese characters refers not to Chinese characters with complicated stroke structure, but to those Chinese characters with complicated stroke structure, which have been replaced by simplified characters and stopped using, such as "e, e, e, e, e, e, e, e, e, e, e, e, e, e, e, e, e, e, e, e.

Simplified Chinese characters and Chinese characters go hand in hand, which is the historical product of the development of Chinese characters and the inevitable result of the contradictory movement of things. Some of the simplified characters we use today appeared in the Oracle Bone Inscriptions era. According to statistics, 30% of simplified characters originated from the pre-Qin and Han dynasties. By the time 1956 "Simplified Chinese Characters Scheme" was published, most simplified Chinese characters had existed before the founding of New China. "Chinese characters have never stopped developing and evolving since their birth, including the birth and death of characters, the adjustment of the scope of use, the changes of glyphs and their structures, the simplification and complexity of strokes, and so on. The changes in the use of Chinese characters and the movement to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new are to adapt to the social life in different periods; The evolution of glyphs and the simplicity of strokes are closely related to the writing conditions, which is the embodiment of the principle of striving for economy and labor saving in the use of language and characters. " It can be said that as long as there are Chinese characters, as long as they are still in use, Chinese characters will develop and be simplified, and new simplified characters will continue to emerge.

Ancient Chinese characters belong to ideographic characters, and the tendency of phonetic notation and ideographic structure makes the strokes and structure of Chinese characters increasingly complex, or because a word has changed from single meaning to polysemy, therefore, in order to distinguish and distinguish the meaning in the glyph, components are often added to the original Chinese characters. For example, the word "cloud" was originally an ideographic character of cloud, and later it was also used to express words (such as people echoing clouds). In order to distinguish the meaning of words, people add the radical "rain" to the original word, forming an pictographic word "cloud" to express the meaning of clouds, and the original word "cloud" to express the meaning of words, such as "ancient cloud". Another example is "Yi", which means that water is on the vessel, indicating that it overflows and knows the word. After that, it means "more", such as "keep improving, be strong when you are old", so the original meaning is expressed by another "overflow", so the structure of Chinese characters is complicated. Some words are getting more and more complicated and the structure is getting more and more difficult.

As the saying goes, when the structure of Chinese characters reaches its peak, its inconvenient disadvantages are fully exposed, so people begin to simplify Chinese characters and save strokes in the process of using Chinese characters, forming a large number of simplified characters. In fact, the simplification of Chinese characters is always accompanied by the development of Chinese characters, from complex to simple, which is also the same law and the inevitable trend of the development of Chinese characters in the world. This development trend is unstoppable and does not depend on personal will. The development and change of Chinese characters in every stage is accompanied by the simplification of stroke structure, from bronze inscriptions to big seal, from big seal to small seal, from small seal to official script, and then from official script to cursive script and regular script. Most of the simplified characters we use today have a very long history, such as "clouds, mines, electricity, noodles and groups", which have a history of thousands of years. Even a book that regulates Xiao Zhuan, such as Shuo Wen Jie Zi, still contains some popular simplified characters, such as the word "Li", which is 65438+. Many cultural relics unearthed today, such as Juyan Han bamboo slips, Dunhuang Han bamboo slips, Dunhuang Bianwen anthology, etc. There are many simplified characters. Since the Song and Yuan Dynasties, simplified characters can be seen everywhere in various manuscripts. Although they are not recognized by the government and cannot be registered in Yatang, they are very popular among the people, in sharp contrast to official documents. The People's Government of New China has collected and sorted out these simplified characters which are popular among the people, and announced the simplified character scheme, which helps the simplified characters which have always been unpretentious to replace the corresponding traditional characters, and conforms to the general trend of Chinese character development. This scientific and realistic attitude towards the development and processing of Chinese characters won the hearts of the people, so it was welcomed by the general public.