What is the oldest writing used in the world?

The development history of China characters

Characters are graphic symbols for human beings to convey feelings, express ideas and record language. The oldest scripts in the world include cuneiform scripts of Sumerians and Babylonians, sacred books of Egyptians and Mayan scripts of Central America, which have contributed to the historical achievements of ancient civilizations. Now cuneiform, sacred script and Mayan script have disappeared and are no longer used, and the existing scripts in this area are not related to these ancient scripts, so China script should be regarded as the oldest existing script. The main development history of China characters includes Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, seal script, official script, cursive script, running script and regular script.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions was discovered in the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty more than 100 years ago. King Guo Zijian was seriously ill, and he sought medical advice everywhere. He came across a tortoise shell engraved with medicinal materials, and thought it was a valuable antique, so he sent people here to look for it. It turned out that these tortoise shells were picked up by farmers in Anyang, Henan Province and sold to Chinese medicine shops. Later, after research, it was found that the lines on the tortoise shell should be ancient characters. This discovery caused a sensation in the academic and cultural circles. Since then, Oracle Bone Inscriptions has been influenced by many things. Oracle Bone Inscriptions is the earliest China script we have found so far. It was carved on tortoise shells or animal bones in Shang Dynasty. These words are mainly used to predict good luck or bad luck. In the process of divination, the tortoise shell was burned first, and cracks appeared on the tortoise shell. People in Shang Dynasty predicted good or bad luck according to cracks, and recorded divination and results on tortoise shells. These words carved on tortoise shells or animal bones are called "Oracle Bone Inscriptions". For example:

Mouth rice turtle rain ear

. inscriptions on ancient bronze objects

The custom of casting inscriptions on bronzes became popular in the late Shang Dynasty and reached its peak in the Zhou Dynasty. The pre-Qin dynasty called copper gold, so later generations called the words on ancient bronzes bronze inscriptions. Because Zhong and Ding played an important role in various bronze inscriptions in the Zhou Dynasty, they were also called "Zhong Dingwen". The application of bronze inscriptions lasted for more than 1200 years from the early Shang Dynasty to the Qin Dynasty's destruction of the Six Kingdoms. Like modern cast iron products, bronzes are usually cast in clay models, which are called "Fan Tao". Bronze inscriptions are pre-carved and then cast on the Fan Tao, and a few are directly carved after bronze casting. Because Fan Tao is soft, it is easier to carve than tortoise shells and animal bones, and the early bronze inscriptions are stronger than Oracle Bone Inscriptions's pictures, which are closer to the original characters. For example:

Mouth rice turtle rain ear

lesser/small seal character

"Turn" is originally a combination of small turn and big turn. Because it is customary to call Wen Zhuan Da Zhuan, later generations often call him "Wen Zhuan". Xiao Zhuan, also known as Qin Zhuan, is a font that was omitted from Da Zhuan. It originated in the Qin State at the end of the Warring States Period and prevailed in the Qin Dynasty and the early Western Han Dynasty. During the Warring States period, countries were separated, and their characters were not uniform and their fonts were quite complicated. So Qin Shihuang unified the world characters with Qin characters, abolished various forms different from Qin characters in six countries, omitted and deleted the original characters of Qin, and absorbed some simplified and popular fonts from folk characters and standardized them, forming a new font-Xiao Zhuan.

China characters developed to the stage of Xiao Zhuan, and gradually began to finalize the outline, strokes and structure. The pictographic meaning is weakened, which makes the characters more symbolic and reduces the confusion and difficulty of writing and human reading. This is also the product of the first large-scale use of administrative means to standardize writing in the history of China. The Qin Dynasty unified the national characters with the sorted seal script, which not only basically eliminated the phenomenon of different lines of characters in different places, but also greatly changed the situation of different fonts in ancient Chinese, and played an important role in the development history of China characters. In addition to Xiao Zhuan, it also includes Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Jinwen, collectively referred to as Chinese characters; The development of ancient philology had a great influence on the study of ancient history, philosophy, economy, law, culture, science and technology in China. For example:

Mouth rice turtle rain ear

official script

Although the seal script is a relatively neat rectangle and its structure is composed of even and round lines, it is quite inconvenient to write and the font is more complicated. Due to various shortcomings, a new type of font appeared quickly among the people, which used square folds to write the dignified, neat, round and curved lines of Xiao Zhuan. It is said that this font was very popular among lower-level officials, craftsmen and slaves at that time, so it was called "official script". In the Han Dynasty, official script replaced Xiao Zhuan as the main font, and the development history of China characters broke away from the ancient writing stage and entered the official script stage. After the Han Dynasty, Xiao Zhuan became an ancient font mainly used for carving seals and bronze inscriptions. The formation of official script changed the characters following the shape of objects into simplified Chinese characters composed of straight strokes, which greatly improved the writing speed. China script changed from seal script to official script, which is called "official script change". The official script reform is an important turning point in the development of China characters, ending the stage of ancient Chinese characters and making China characters enter a more stereotyped stage. After the official script was changed to official script, the characters are close to the existing characters and easier to identify than the ancient characters.

cursive script

Cursive script is a scribbled and fast font. Cursive script is a simple font used to assist official script, which is mainly used for drafting manuscripts and communication. During the formation of cursive script, government assistants and historians often need to use drafting documents, which affects the circulation of cursive script. After entering the Eastern Han Dynasty, after the processing of literati and calligraphers, cursive script has a more regular and rigorous shape, which can be used in some official occasions, called "Cao Zhang", which has a little taste of official script and retains the strokes and brushwork of official script. Because cursive script is too simple and easy to be confused with each other, it cannot replace official script as the main font. After the appearance of regular script, cursive script developed further on the basis of regular script. Not only strokes can be linked, but also strokes can be linked up and down. Some features of Lishu strokes have also disappeared, forming another cursive script called "Today Grass".

semi-cursive/running script/hand (in Chinese calligraphy)

Running script is a font between regular script and cursive script, which is neither neat nor bold. If regular script is like a person sitting and cursive running, then running script is a person walking, because running script is more casual and faster than regular script, and unlike cursive script, it is the most popular among people. Running script probably began to be popular among the people from the Wei and Jin Dynasties. Wang Xizhi, a great calligrapher in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, is known as the "sage of calligraphy" and has created a large number of running script works, which have long been loved by people. Running script has no strict writing rules. If it is written regularly and close to regular script, it is called true line or regular script. A little indulgence, cursive script is called cursive script, which is faster than regular script and not as difficult to distinguish people as cursive script, so it has high practical value.

regular script

From the perspective of font structure, regular script is similar to official script, but it changes the writing method of official script strokes, from flat official script to basic square regular script, which is called "square character". Regular script is also called official script and original script, which shows that regular script is a regular script for people to learn and use. The earliest regular script writer was Zhong You in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. In his handed down works, the brushwork of official script is still reserved. Regular script experienced many changes in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and was basically finalized after Sui and Tang Dynasties. After the script is finalized, it is quite exquisite and rigorous in strokes and structure, such as the works of Ou Yangxun, a famous calligrapher in the Tang Dynasty.

After China characters entered the regular script stage, the font continued to be simplified, but the font changed little. Printing, as one of the four great inventions in China, uses regular script as the main font for printing books. In the Song Dynasty, the regular script was refined to make it more regular and beautiful, and it was called "Song Style". Later, it was called "Song Style Imitation". The fonts used in books and newspapers we read today are generally variations of this style.