Seek the origin, historical position and evolution of Chinese characters

Archaeological and documentary records show that at least four or five thousand years ago, Chinese characters, a written language in China, were born and became more and more mature. According to the existing ancient documents and confirmed archaeological discoveries, the history of the origin of Chinese characters is at least four or five thousand years, and the history of the origin of Chinese characters is the beginning of ancient civilization in China, so we usually say that the Chinese nation has a civilization history of five thousand years.

Since its appearance, China's characters have gone through a long development process. After the invention of printing, early picture characters, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, ancient prose, seal script, official script, regular script, running script and cursive script gradually derived various printing fonts to meet the printing requirements. Among them, Oracle Bone Inscriptions is regarded as the earliest stereotyped writing in China.

oracle bone script

/kloc-In the late 20th century, in Anyang, Henan Province, farmers occasionally found fragments of Oracle Bone Inscriptions while plowing their fields, and they sold these Oracle Bone Inscriptions as keels to pharmacies. 1899, Liu E, an ancient philologist, found this Oracle Bone Inscriptions engraved with ancient Chinese characters in Chinese medicine taken by others, and began to collect and study it.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions was written or engraved on tortoise shells and animal bones in the late Shang Dynasty, most of which were "Oracle Bone Inscriptions" and a few were "notes". Because at that time, people used the wrinkles on the scalded Oracle Bone Inscriptions to judge the quality of things. After divination, the time, name, questions, divination results and subsequent verification were engraved on it, forming a Oracle Bone Inscriptions with obvious characteristics.

The words on Oracle Bone Inscriptions's tablet were carved with a knife and written in calligraphy. Some inscriptions on the knife-carved Oracle bones are filled with cinnabar, and the font is different from today, which is difficult to identify. Oracle Bone Inscriptions, which has been discovered, has four or five thousand words. Through the analysis and judgment of linguists and archaeologists, nearly two thousand can be identified. Most of these Oracle characters are hieroglyphics evolved from pictures. Many characters have complex strokes, similar to pictures, and there are many variants. This shows that China's writing was not unified in the Yin and Shang Dynasties.

On the other hand, tangible words have appeared in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, which shows that the use of words has a long history.

Ancient bronze inscriptions

The calligraphy style of Chinese characters that appeared after Oracle Bone Inscriptions was inscriptions on bronze. Because this kind of writing was cast on various bronzes, it got its name, also known as Zhong Dingwen or bronze inscription. Up to now, the earliest bronzes with inscriptions are all in the middle of Shang Dynasty. The inscriptions are very simple and the writing is similar to that of Oracle Bone Inscriptions. The most representative is the bronze inscription of the Western Zhou Dynasty. Bronze inscriptions are also found on various Yi vessels, musical instruments, weapons, weights and measures, coins, bronze mirrors and metal seals. Among them, the number of articles uploaded by Easy Ship is the largest. The words on various utensils are longer and more complete than those on Oracle Bone Inscriptions, and there are hundreds of words. For example, in the early Western Zhou Dynasty, Great Yu Ding contained 29 1 characters.

Big seal and small seal

Seal script is divided into big seal script and small seal script, which is an important stage in the development history of Chinese characters. Compared with Da Zhuan, Xiao Zhuan's style is simplified, but the number of words is increasing, which is the requirement of the times. The transformation from ancient Chinese characters to Da Zhuan and Da Zhuan to Xiao Zhuan is of epoch-making significance and occupies an important position in the history of China characters.

official script

Lishu was written by Cheng Miao in Qin Dynasty. Cheng Miao, a prison officer in Qin county, was put into Yunyang prison for offending Qin Shihuang. He spent ten years in prison, thought hard, gained and lost Xiao Zhuan, and wrote 3,000-word official script, making him the first emperor in the world. The first emperor adopted it and worshipped it as a suggestion. At that time, with the development of society, there were many government affairs and complicated documents, so it was inconvenient to record business orders with Xiao Zhuan. There is an urgent need for a simpler and more standardized character than Xiao Zhuan to facilitate writing and carving. At that time, the society urgently needed to simplify seal script, so a new font-official script, which was much more standardized than seal script, appeared.

regular script

Regular script, also known as real script, official script and modern official script. Regular script is "regular script", which is also legal, formal and modular. The cursive name is scrawled and rough, while the regular script name is the opposite. Although there are also cursive writers in seal script and official script, in this sense, neat script can also be called "regular script", but the regular script here refers to the self-contained and now common "regular script", such as Ou Yangxun, Liu Gongquan and other inscriptions and postscript. There are different opinions about the founder of regular script. Because hundreds of years of writing in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties is a period when the official script is mixed with the meaning of regular script. The more consistent view was created by Wang Cizhong of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Among the existing physical objects, only Zhong You's A Watch with Jack in Wei Dynasty can be called the ancestor of regular script. Zhong You is the first regular script writer in the history of China. Today's regular script, with dignified strokes, evolved from the founder of ancient Chinese characters, the beauty of eight points and the simplicity of Zhang Cao (note: Zhang Cao refers to "the kind used in the articles of association", which is a font that simplifies eight points and is easy to write). Since Zhong You wrote "regular script" in the Three Kingdoms period, this font has been used to this day and is regarded as a standard font, which is loved by the world.

Semi-cursive/running/calligraphy (China's calligraphy)

Running script is a kind of writing form between regular script and cursive script, which was created by Liu Desheng in Yingchuan in the later Han Dynasty, that is, the variant of regular script is simple and popular, so it is called "running script". Since the Jin Dynasty, the running script has been the most useful and widely used, and almost all common characters have been used.

cursive script

Cursive script, also known as broken grass and modern grass, is composed of seal script, eight points and Cao Zhang, and follows a variety of ancient characters. The cursive script originated in Cao Zhang, and Cao Zhang has a strong taste of official script, so it is named because it is mostly used for memorials. Cao Zhang has further developed into a "modern grass", also known as a "book". Nowadays, most cursive characters are cursive or cursive tend to be simplified. The development of Chinese characters to cursive script is almost perfect. After the Tang Dynasty, Zhang Xuzhi's Crazy Grass appeared a new style, but because it was written by others, it could only be appreciated as a work of art, and it lost its function as a written record and information dissemination. Because of this, cursive script is difficult to develop further. The development of Chinese characters can only find a new way and evolve along the newly opened direction-printing.

hieroglyph

Ideographic characters originated from painting and are easy to identify and distinguish. Such as "people, eyes, mountains, fire, wood, fish" and so on. "Yuan" means the beginning or the first. "Dan" is a hieroglyph, which means that the sun rises from the horizon. The pictograph "Dan" appeared on bronzes in China during the Yin and Shang Dynasties. The earliest Chinese characters are picturesque, such as the word "moon", which is like a curved crescent moon; For example, the word "mountain" is more like a slant mountain with three peaks.

Associative compound

A knowing character is a Chinese character composed of two or more Chinese characters, and its meaning is often the combination of the meanings of several Chinese characters it contains. For example, "Ming" is composed of the words "sun and moon", because "sun and moon" are all shiny things, so "Ming" means "bright and bright"; The same is true of "tipping" that everyone has learned. Isn't the "small" above and the "big" below a "tip"? The most interesting word is "tears", which is composed of "water" and "eyes". The word "water" in "eye" is tears.

phonogram

A word composed of pictophonetic characters and homophonic characters is called pictophonetic characters. Due to the changes of sounds and glyphs in ancient and modern times, the phonetic function of pictophonetic characters is very limited today, but we should make rational use of this limited function. Because Chinese characters are ideographic characters, glyphs cannot directly represent pronunciation. Besides relying on pinyin letters to express pronunciation, the phonetic side can also help provide phonetic information.

I. Evolution process

Oracle Bone Inscriptions: Yin Shang.

Jinwen: Western Zhou Dynasty

Seal character

Da Zhuan: Qin State in the Warring States Period

Xiao zhuan: the standard font of Qin dynasty

official script

Qin Li (Gu Li): The daily font of Qin Dynasty.

Han Li (Jinli): Han Dynasty

Regular script: It sprouted in the Western Han Dynasty, matured at the end of Han Dynasty, prevailed in Wei and Jin Dynasties, and is still in use today.

cursive script

Cao Zhang: Emperor Zhang of the Eastern Han Dynasty

Jincao: Late Eastern Han Dynasty

Weeds: Tang Dynasty

Running script: Late Eastern Han Dynasty

Second, the evolution trend

The general trend of the evolution of Chinese characters is simplification, which is mainly manifested in:

1. The picture description recording mode has been changed to symbol recording mode.

2. It reduces the number of homographs and simplifies the writing and structure of characters.

3, fat pen to thin pen, arc to straight line.

Third, the reasons for the evolution

1, the internal reason: the writer's simple demand and aesthetic requirements for Chinese characters.

2. External reasons: changes in writing tools, writing methods and writing materials.

1. The influence of Chinese characters on Japanese characters

Although the Japanese nation has an ancient culture, it is quite late to create its own characters. For a long time, its people have used Chinese characters as a carrier to spread their thoughts and express their feelings, which is called "real name". At the beginning of the fifth century, there appeared a kind of phonetic alphabet borrowed from Chinese characters in Japan, which was called "pseudonym". In the 8th century, Japanese pronunciation marked with Chinese characters was relatively fixed, and its symbol was the compilation of Ye Wan Collection, so it was called "Ye Wan's pen name". It is the basis of pure Japanese phonetic writing.

The final creation of Japanese characters was completed by Kibi No Asomi Makibi and master Kong Hai. Both of them lived in the Tang Dynasty in China for a long time and had a deep study of Chinese characters. The former creates Japanese "katakana" according to the radicals of standard pinyin Chinese characters, while the latter creates Japanese "hiragana" by using Chinese characters. Although pseudonyms have been popular in Japan since the tenth century, the use of Chinese characters has not been abolished. Today, Japanese characters, which have occupied an important position in the world, still retain more than 1000 simplified characters.

2. The influence of Chinese characters on Korean characters

Korean characters are called proverbs. Its creation and application is an important achievement of ancient Korean culture. In fact, South Korea in the Middle Ages, like Japan, did not have its own characters, but used Chinese characters. Silla changed slightly after reunification. At that time, Xue Cong once created "official reading", that is, using Chinese characters to represent Korean auxiliary words and verbs to assist reading chinese books. Finally, because of different languages, it cannot be popularized.

In the early years of the Li Dynasty, Sejong set up a proverb bureau in the palace to make Zheng Linzhi, Cheng Sanwen and others formulate proverbs. According to China's phonology, they studied Korean phonetics, created 1 1 vowels and 17 consonants, and published and used "Training People in Andrew" in A.D. 1443. North Korea has its own writing since then.

3. The influence of Chinese characters on Vietnamese characters

10 century ago, Viet Nam was once a county in China. Officials from Qin, Han, Sui and Tang Dou ruled here, so they were deeply influenced by China culture. After Vietnam's independence, Chinese characters have been used as a tool for upper-class communication, school education and literary works. It was not until the13rd century that Vietnam had its own word "South". Zinan is a new word based on Chinese characters, which expresses Vietnamese pronunciation by pictophonetic characters, loanwords and literacy. By the 15th century, southern characters had spread all over the country, completely replacing Chinese characters.

In a word, Chinese characters are rich in vocabulary and profound. It is the carrier of Chinese civilization for thousands of years, and it is also the witness of Chinese culture with a long history. We can see that the Chinese nation not only created a long and splendid civilization with its diligence and wisdom, but also promoted the development of world civilization and made great contributions to the development of world history.