What is the origin of Chinese characters in China? . . . . Urgent! ! ! ! ! !

About a century ago, there was an important archaeological discovery in Anyang, China, which was the discovery of Yin Ruins and Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Since then, China's research on the history of Yin and Shang Dynasties has entered a new era. According to the ancient philologists in China, Oracle Bone Inscriptions is "the earliest and most complete writing that can be seen at present" in China. It is complicated, with more than 3,000 words found, including nouns, pronouns, verbs, auxiliary verbs, adjectives, etc., and it can also form a narrative of more than 170 words. Therefore, scholars affirm that Oracle Bone Inscriptions is by no means the primary stage of Chinese characters, and it must have developed for a long time before it.

So, when did Chinese characters originate? On this issue, there is great controversy in academic circles. Guo Moruo and Yu Zeng, historians and ancient philologists of the older generation in China, believed that the generation of Chinese characters can be traced back to the Yangshao culture in Banpo 6000 years ago. Guo Moruo thinks that twenty or thirty kinds of inscriptions on the edge of Banpo pottery bowl "should be the primitive stage of Chinese characters". Yu also believes that "these are some simple words produced in the origin stage of words." However, in recent years, according to some scholars' re-research, it is considered that the Banpo symbols in the late Dawenkou culture and the carved symbols on pottery figurines "probably have nothing to do with the formation of Chinese characters", and the formation process of Chinese characters in China is "in the middle of the third millennium BC". A eclectic view holds that Chinese characters "germinated among the people" in the late primitive society 6000 years ago, and "formed a relatively complete writing system" in the middle and late Xia Dynasty 4000 years ago.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions's discovery

How was Oracle Bone Inscriptions discovered? When did you find it? According to Wang Xiang, the earliest scholar who collected Oracle bones, Oracle Bone Inscriptions's discovery was in the late winter of 1898, and its value was only known in the autumn of 1899. The first person who knew Oracle Bone Inscriptions was recognized as the famous epigraphist Wang in the late Qing Dynasty. Wang was proficient in epigraphy and was an official in Beijing from 65438 to 0899. By chance, he learned that a batch of Shang bronzes had been unearthed in Xiaotun Village, Anyang, Henan Province, and went to Anyang himself. But when he arrived, the bronzes had been transported away by the merchants, and only a large number of tortoise shells and cow bones were left in the excavation, and they were preparing to make fertile fields and medicinal materials. Among them, there are some big tortoise shells with the ancient Chinese characters of "orderly order, no printing and no brushing", which are Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Later, Wang * * * collected more than 0/000 pieces of Oracle bones/KLOC-and was praised as "the first person to study Oracle bones".

What kind of writing is Oracle Bone Inscriptions? Hu Houxuan, a famous Oracle bone scientist in China, thinks: "The so-called Oracle Bone Inscriptions is Oracle Bone Inscriptions and a few notes written by Yin Wang when he divined with tortoise shells and animal bones in the second half of Shang Dynasty". Yin people are superstitious about ghosts and gods, so they should ask "God" no matter sacrifice, war, fishing and hunting, going in and out, wind and rain, age, illness and childbirth. The method of divination is to drill two holes in the back of Oracle bones with sharp tools, and then burn them to produce vertical and horizontal cracks, which is called divination. Then the fortune teller judged good or ill luck according to divination, carved the contents on the Oracle bones, and became Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Oracle Bone Inscriptions recorded a large number of historical facts in the late Shang Dynasty, which is of great historical value.

Later, more and more people collected and studied Oracle Bone Inscriptions, including Wang Xiang, Liu E, Luo Zhenyu, Wang Guowei and others who made contributions to the study of Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Liu E collected more than 5,000 pieces of Oracle Bone Inscriptions and compiled a book called "The Iron Cloud Hides the Tortoise". Luo Zhenyu bought more Oracle bones, totaling more than 30,000 pieces, and compiled books such as Shuzheng in Yin Ruins. Luo Zhenyu and Wang Guowei's research on the location of Yin ruins has pointed out a reliable basic direction for future generations to study the history of Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Yin Shang. They determined that Oracle Bone Inscriptions was unearthed in Xiaotun, Wuli, northwest of Anyang, Henan Province, which was called "Yin Ruins" in Historical Records of Xiang Yu, and was the site of Guo Du in the late Shang Dynasty.

During the period from 1928 to 1937 and 10, the then Institute of History and Linguistics of Academia Sinica conducted 15 excavations before and after the Yin Ruins, and * * * obtained more than 24,000 pieces of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, which were compiled into A Series of Yin Ruins and B Series. After the founding of New China, the excavation of Yin Ruins continued, and more than 5,000 pieces of Oracle bones were obtained 12 times. So far, China has collected more than 90,000 pieces of Oracle bones, which are distributed in 39 cities in 24 provinces and cities. Scholars study Oracle Bone Inscriptions from the Marxist point of view, which makes the study of Oracle Bone Inscriptions enter a new stage of development. At present, China's large-scale comprehensive collection of Oracle Bone Inscriptions has been published by Zhonghua Book Company. This masterpiece was originally edited by Guo Moruo and 1979 by Hu Houxuan. More than 40,000 valuable Oracle bones were selected for research and analysis. This is a great event in the history of Oracle Bone Inscriptions studies.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions has now become an international knowledge. Japan, Britain, the United States, France and Canada all have a group of Oracle experts who have published monographs on Oracle bones and the history of Yin and Shang Dynasties.

The evolution of Chinese characters

The development of Chinese characters from Oracle Bone Inscriptions to today has a history of more than 3,000 years. The development of Chinese characters has gone through several stages, such as inscriptions on bronze, big seal script, small seal script, official script, cursive script, regular script and running script. The passage time of these fonts is sometimes not completely divided, but parallel or cross.

Bronze inscriptions, also known as Zhong Dingwen and inscriptions, are written on bronzes. It appeared on bronzes in the late Shang Dynasty and developed in the Western Zhou Dynasty. Generally speaking, the inscriptions on bronzes in the late Shang Dynasty are no more than 50 words, and the characters cast on Mao in the late Western Zhou Dynasty are as long as 497 words. At present, there are more than 10000 pieces of Shang and Zhou bronzes unearthed. According to the statistics of Jin Wen Bian compiled by Rong Geng, an ancient philologist, there are more than 3,000 words, of which more than 2,000 words have been recognized. The shape of bronze inscriptions is very similar to that of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, which is basically a glyph.

By the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, great changes had taken place in China's society, the economy and culture flourished, and the application of characters became more and more extensive. At this time, the characters tend to be simplified, and the various vassal States have formed a situation of "different sounds and different characters" because of disunity. Generally speaking, the State of Qin uses the big seal script, and the six countries use the "ancient prose of the six countries". The ancient prose of the Six Kingdoms is also a kind of "seal script". The meaning of seal script is to lengthen the strokes and become a soft long line. In 22 1 year BC, Qin Shihuang unified China, unified the national writing, currency and weights and measures, and stipulated the national standard font. Qin Shihuang ordered Li Si and others to sort out the characters and change the fonts. Li Si wrote the standard font "Cang Zhuan pian", Zhao Gao wrote "Love Calendar pian" and Hu Wujing wrote "Bo Xue pian" so that the whole country could write in their simplified Chinese characters. This is Xiao Zhuan.

Xiao Zhuan was gradually replaced by a more convenient and simplified official script. It is said that official script was originally used by the lowly people at the lower level. At that time, "official script" meant "apprentice". Originally, the simple official script was written for them. Later, it was widely used among the people and became popular. Even the ruling class had to write in this language, which became the official writing method of the whole country in the Han Dynasty. The Han tablet handed down now is written in this kind of official script.

Official script later evolved into cursive script. This is a fast style of official script, which has developed into an independent font since the Eastern Han Dynasty. At the same time, cursive script appeared in regular script, also known as "official script" or "original script", which matured in the Eastern Han Dynasty and prevailed in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. A font that finally appeared at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty is running script, which basically looks like regular script and can be said to be a tribe of regular script. Regular script, running script and cursive script have been handed down to this day.