Morphological evolution of Chinese characters

Morphological evolution of Chinese characters

With the evolution of Chinese characters, we know the origin and structure of Chinese characters. If the evolution of Chinese characters has a history of more than three thousand years, how much do you know about the evolution of Chinese characters? Let's have a look.

The evolution of Chinese characters 1 the evolution of Chinese characters can be roughly divided into the following stages:

First, Oracle Bone Inscriptions.

According to archaeological findings, Oracle Bone Inscriptions was the first Chinese character to be systematized and spread to this day. What is "Oracle Bone Inscriptions"? Oracle Bone Inscriptions refers to the characters carved on tortoise shells and animal bones in Shang Dynasty. Oracle Bone Inscriptions was discovered in 1899 Xiaotun Village, Anyang County, Henan Province. In fact, someone must have seen these deep-rooted bones before, and the locals called them "keels", but no one knew what they were at that time.

In Shang Dynasty, Xiaotun Village in Anyang County was the capital of Yin Dynasty. The slave Yin Dynasty worshipped gods very much and asked everything. For example, we should ask questions such as offering sacrifices to pray for the New Year, striving for peace, farming and hunting, weather phenomena and so on. We can know from the Oracle bone inscriptions that the contents of Oracle bone inscriptions are mainly recorded by the royal family in Yin Dynasty on tortoise shells and animal bones for divination, so people usually call them "Oracle Bone Inscriptions".

The characters used in Oracle bone inscriptions in Oracle Bone Inscriptions are very limited, and some characters are not used in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, so they have not been seen in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. However, we can't say that the characters that have not been seen in Oracle Bone Inscriptions did not exist at that time. For example, the word "min" appeared many times on bronzes in the early years of the Zhou Dynasty, all of which meant stabbing an eye with an awl. At that time, "people" represented slaves in ancient times, but Oracle Bone Inscriptions has not found the word "people" so far.

As the earliest written language in China, Oracle Bone Inscriptions has the characteristics of unfixed form and inconsistent writing procedures. In addition, because the handwriting is carved on the bone block with the original sharp weapon, the strokes are thin and shallow, mostly Fang Bi, and there are fewer round pens.

Second, Jin Wen.

Bronze inscriptions refer to characters cast or carved on bronze wares. The ancients called bronzes "auspicious gold", so later they called the words on bronzes "bronze inscriptions", with Zhong and Ding as typical examples, so bronze inscriptions were also called "bronze inscriptions". "Jinwen" existed at the end of Yin Dynasty, but after all, it was too few. Therefore, the inscriptions on bronze in the Zhou Dynasty mainly refer to inscriptions on bronze. The social culture of Zhou Dynasty was much more prosperous than that of Yin and Shang Dynasties.

People in the Zhou Dynasty didn't believe in ghosts and gods like the Yin people, so with the development of the times, Oracle Bone Inscriptions gave way to the bronze inscription. In the Zhou Dynasty, bronze ware was mainly a symbol of the power of the royal princes, and the people were never allowed to cast or use it. The content of the bronze inscription mainly records who this bronze ware belongs to, and some records the merits, sacrifices and rewards from whom. Great changes have taken place in the form of inscriptions on bronze.

Bronze inscriptions, developed from Oracle Bone Inscriptions, are simpler than Oracle Bone Inscriptions's strokes and structures. It is characterized by thick and natural lines, neat glyphs, irregular fonts and various ways of writing a word. Especially during the Warring States Period, many decorative elements similar to birds and insects appeared in the writings of southern countries such as Wu Yuechu, which was called "Bird and Insect Book" by later generations.

Third, seal script.

The name "seal script" has always been controversial. Some scholars have verified that "seal calligrapher, rafter, official", music school and ancient official personnel are collectively called. In other words, the so-called "seal script" is actually "official script".

There was no paper in the Qin dynasty, and the recorded and read words were written on bamboo slips. According to the records in Historical Records, Qin Shihuang personally read 1.20 Jin of official books written on bamboo slips one day. These official books were "seal scripts", but there was no such title at that time. It was not until the official script appeared in the Han Dynasty that the previous official script was called "seal script", so "seal script" was relative. Seal script can be divided into "big seal script" and "small seal script".

1, big seal script. According to historical records, Zhou Xuanwang Taishicheng wrote 15 pieces of Da Zhuan. In this way, Da Zhuan was used in the Zhou Dynasty. The original seal script was "Shi Guwen". In the early Tang Dynasty, ten drum-shaped stone piers were discovered in Baoji, Shaanxi. They are engraved with characters, which are called "Shi Guwen". Their contents are recorded by rhyme, which is different from the ancient prose in Yin and Zhou Dynasties. The characteristics of big seal script are that the lines are relatively complete, uniform and soft; The structure is relatively neat, which lays the foundation of square Chinese characters; But the strokes are complicated and writing is not convenient enough.

2. Xiao Yan. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, different languages were used in different countries, resulting in different voices and different languages. With the unification of the six countries by Qin Shihuang, in order to meet the needs of the establishment and development of political power, Qin Shihuang ordered "the same characters with the same characters", abolished the characters that were incompatible with the Qin seal script in other six countries, that is, the "ancient prose" called by the Han and Wei people, and promoted the Qin script, but it was not copied from the past, but a "provincial reform" based on the Qin script.

In order to show the difference between the old and new seal scripts, later generations called the new seal script "Xiao Zhuan" and the old seal script "Da Zhuan". The upper limit of characters in the Qin Dynasty is the Spring and Autumn Period, which ends with bamboo slips in the Qin Dynasty, with a history of more than 600 years. There are three main ways for the evolution of Da Zhuan to Xiao Zhuan: 1, deformation; 2. Pseudo-morphology; 3. Figure 6 is omitted. Among the above three changes, the change of existence is the main way, which conforms to the development needs of social and political life and the development law of Chinese characters from complexity to simplicity.

Now some calligraphers attribute the inscriptions on bronze in the Western Zhou Dynasty and the writing style in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period to the seal script system, which is very broad. If we take the characters of Yin and Shang as the starting point and classify the characters of Shang, Zhou, Spring and Autumn and Warring States as seal script fonts, it can be called the seal script era in the history of calligraphy for more than 1000 years.

Fourth, official script.

At the end of the Warring States period, official script was written in Xiao Zhuan, but the so-called unpretentious folk word "Cao Zhuan" was popular among the people. This font is characterized by straight strokes, simplified strokes and convenient writing.

According to ancient documents, official script was created by a prison official named Cheng Miao in Qin Dynasty, so it was called "official script of Qin Dynasty", which was also a popular font in Qin Dynasty. Because "Qin Li" is the earliest official script seen now, also called "Guli".

There are traces of seal script in ancient Li, which was still used in the early Western Han Dynasty. It was only during the period of Emperor Wudi of the Western Han Dynasty that the ancient official script evolved into a kind of official script form of "silkworm head and goose tail", that is, it refers to the official script of the Han Dynasty in a narrow sense and a broad sense.

Lishu began in Qin Dynasty and flourished in Han Dynasty, so it is also called "Han Li". It was not completed until the Eastern Han Dynasty more than 200 years later, and the pictographic appearance disappeared, making the characters completely lose the color of pictures and become a purely symbolic application tool. We can call the 400 years from the Western Han Dynasty to the Western Jin Dynasty the official script era in the history of calligraphy.

Five, cursive script.

Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi Xu said: "There are cursive scripts in Han Xing." This statement is correct. Cursive script is a font parallel to Han Li. In order to improve the writing efficiency, people absorbed some simplified writing methods of Cao Zhuan in the Warring States period, and constantly "simplified by deleting the complex, simplified by losing the simplified", and absorbed new cursive writing methods. It can be said that cursive writing is Han Li's scribbling method, which is quick and quick, with continuous strokes. After the formation of cursive script, it experienced two important development periods: the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty.

The cursive script in the Eastern Han Dynasty is word by word, and the coherent brushwork takes one word as the starting and ending unit. In the Western Jin Dynasty, Wei Guan absorbed the cursive techniques of his fathers, Wei Kai and Zhang Qi, and formed a style of "letting go and flowing", which was called "manuscript" book. His cursive script is also word for word, but his pen tends to "quote vertically", so that the last stroke of the upper word meets the first stroke of the lower word. Wang Xizhi of the Eastern Jin Dynasty developed the "vertical posture" brushwork, and the strokes between words were connected, forming a simple and beautiful modern cursive style.

Six, regular script

Regular script is a popular font to replace official script, which evolved from official script. The strokes are straight, the structure is square and the writing is convenient. Regular script gradually replaced official script in the Eastern Jin Dynasty and became a regular script.

The evolution of Chinese characters has a long history. Chinese characters have evolved and changed several times. Since its birth, Chinese characters have become what they are now after continuous improvement by predecessors.

First of all, let's remember a formula: one gold is small, and Li Kai is careless.

Namely, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, seal script, official script, regular script, cursive script and running script.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions is a character carved on the bones of tortoise shells in the Yin and Shang Dynasties, with fine strokes and different sizes. This is the earliest writing ever found in China.

During the Western Zhou Dynasty, with the development of economy, bronzes appeared. Bronze inscriptions mainly refer to the characters cast or engraved on bronzes in the Western Zhou Dynasty, with full and thick strokes.

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, languages of different countries were not unified. After Qin unified the six countries, the national standard font was implemented, which was symmetrical and integrated, and was later called Xiao Zhuan. Later it developed into an official script. It started at the end of Qin Dynasty and matured in Han Dynasty.

Regular script flourished in the late Han dynasty and prevailed in Wei and Jin dynasties, and has been widely used so far. The font is square, easy to write but slow.

By the end of the Han Dynasty and the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, cursive script was gradually popular, with sticky strokes and changeable fonts, which were difficult to identify.

Running script was first produced in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. Because the strokes are continuous and easy to write and recognize, they are popular and have been used ever since.

Evolution of Chinese Character Form 3 The evolution process of Chinese characters is: Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscription, seal script, official script, cursive script, regular script and running script. Oracle Bone Inscriptions is the earliest mosquito with relatively complete system in ancient Chinese characters discovered in China. Oracle Bone Inscriptions mainly refers to the Oracle Bone Inscriptions of Yin Ruins, also known as "Yin Ruins Characters" and "Yin Qi", written on the bones of tortoise shells and beasts in Shang Dynasty.

Characteristics of each stage of Chinese character evolution

Oracle Bone Inscriptions: Oracle Bone Inscriptions is both pictographic and phonetic. Most of Oracle Bone Inscriptions's characters conform to the principles of pictographic characters and knowing characters, with pictophonetic characters accounting for only 20%.

Inscriptions on bronzes of Shang and Zhou Dynasties, also known as Zhong Dingwen. Bronze inscriptions have thick and wide strokes and round and muddy stippling. Jinwen is more standardized than Oracle Bone Inscriptions.

Official script: it is a relatively simple font popular among the people.

Regular script: Late Han Dynasty. Official script evolved into regular script. The font has not changed, so writing is easier.

Cursive script: Cursive script is characterized by many strokes, simple structure and thick font.

Running script: Running script is between regular script and cursive script, which is a flowing font, simpler than regular script and easier to identify than cursive script.