Development of Chinese characters

Chinese characters have a history of more than 6000 years, which is the most populous language in the world and one of the oldest characters. It is an ideographic syllable, and there are 4,000 to 8,000 commonly used words in modern times, most of which are pictophonetic characters. The fonts of modern Chinese characters are all evolved from Oracle Bone Inscriptions, inscriptions on bronze, seal script and official script.

In the long-term practice, human beings have not only created splendid history, but also accumulated rich cultural knowledge, and their characters have been preserved to this day. As a tool for recording, preserving and disseminating knowledge, writing has made indelible contributions to the progress of human civilization and the progress and development of society.

From the ancient legend of word-making in Cangjie to the discovery of Chinese characters in Oracle Bone Inscriptions more than 65,438+000 years ago, scholars in China have been working hard to uncover the mystery of the origin of Chinese characters. There are many sayings about the origin of Chinese characters in China ancient literature, such as "story", "knot", "gossip", "picture" and "calligraphy contract". Ancient books also generally recorded the legend of Cang Xie, the historian of the Yellow Emperor who created Chinese characters. Modern scholars believe that systematic writing tools cannot be completely created by one person. If Cang Xie really exists, he should be a text organizer or publisher. ?

The earliest symbols were carved more than 8000 years ago?

In recent decades, archaeological circles in China have published a series of comparative studies. Anyang? Early unearthed materials related to the origin of Chinese characters in Oracle Bone Inscriptions of Yin Ruins. These materials mainly refer to the carved or painted symbols that appeared on pottery in the late primitive society and early historical society, and also include a few symbols engraved on Oracle Bone Inscriptions, jade and stone tools. It can be said that they provide a new basis for explaining the origin of Chinese characters. ?

Wang, a doctoral supervisor of Zhengzhou University, made a systematic investigation and comparison of the carving symbols on pottery pieces unearthed from more than 100 archaeological sites in China, and thought that the earliest carving symbols in China appeared in Jiahu site in Wuyang, Henan Province, with a history of more than 8,000 years. ?

The Chinese character system was formally formed in the Central Plains?

Since modern times, phonetic symbols in the form of Chinese characters and phonetic symbols of many Latin letters have been developed. Phonetic symbols are still a part of teaching in Taiwan Province Province, but at present, Chinese Pinyin is the most widely used in Chinese mainland.

Because Chinese characters are mainly ideographic, the phonetic notation is weak. This feature makes the literature of the last 1000 years, like the western world that uses pinyin, have no big difference in wording, but it also makes it difficult for people to infer the ancient phonology. For example, the pronunciation of "Pang" comes from "Dragon", but today the former is pronounced as "Pang" and the latter as "Dragon" in Beijing dialect. How to explain this difference is a subject of phonology.

[Edit this paragraph] Chinese characters and words

Morpheme is the smallest unit of Chinese ideogram, similar to English words and phrases. Most Chinese characters can form morphemes independently, such as "I", which is similar to that English words consist of a single letter, such as "I". Most words in modern vernacular Chinese are composed of more than two Chinese characters. However, unlike the relationship between "words" and "letters" in English, the meaning of morphemes is often related to the meaning of each Chinese character when it forms morphemes independently, thus simplifying memory to a considerable extent.

Words include morphemes and phrases composed of several morphemes.

The high efficiency of Chinese characters is reflected in hundreds of basic hieroglyphics, which can be synthesized into tens of thousands of Chinese characters, representing all kinds of things in the sky and underground; Thousands of commonly used words can be easily combined into hundreds of thousands of words.

What is the Chinese character with the most strokes in modern Chinese? 沁沁沁 nàng?

It's just a stuffy nose. What do you mean you can't explain it clearly? The word "only" 36? draw

Besides, "Do you like it?" There are 64 paintings, but they are not commonly used. (the sound is zhé, the same as "zhongzhong")

Words with the most strokes:

Leiguwen

Comments: I started to write this word when I heard the thunder, and it is estimated that it will be finished after writing the rain.

Stroke: 128 painting

[Edit this paragraph] The miracle of Chinese characters

Among the characters used in the world today, Chinese characters and Shuishu belong to non-pinyin characters. In human history, the characters earlier than Chinese characters include the script of the nail head in the two rivers valley and the script of the holy book in Egypt, but they have long been extinct, so Chinese characters are the oldest characters at present. There are two types of characters used all over the world, namely, non-pinyin characters (Chinese characters) and Shui script pinyin characters (other characters). Isn't this a strange phenomenon? It is not an exaggeration to say that Chinese characters are China's five great inventions. I also want to say that Chinese characters are a miracle!

Among modern Chinese characters, only Chinese characters were directly created by our ancestors. The legend of Sanskrit letters was created by Brahma, a god, and given to mankind. Other characters were borrowed from other nationalities. Sanskrit letters are used to spell ancient Sanskrit and many modern Indian and Nepalese languages. Latin alphabet, Slavic alphabet and Arabic alphabet are called the three major alphabet systems in the world. English, French, Italian, etc. In Latin letters, it means borrowing Latin letters; Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, etc. With kirill letters (or Slavic letters), converted from Greek letters; Latin letters are also transformed from Greek letters. The ancestors of Aramaic alphabet-Alama alphabet and Greek alphabet-Canaanite alphabet were not directly created by their ancestors, but were transformed from Semitic characters. According to the research of Zhou Youguang, a linguist in Chinese mainland, the earliest letters of human beings are small Semitic letters. But they didn't create this kind of letter directly, but borrowed from Sume's nail script and reformed it. The lettering of the nail head was originally in the shape of a pictographic book, but later it evolved into the shape of the nail head due to the limitation of writing tools-sticks and clay tablets. The script of the nail head was created by Sumerians, the script of the holy book was created by Egyptians, the Chinese character was created by China, and the script of water was created by the minority in China, all of which are not pinyin characters. Now four have only Chinese characters and calligraphy, and the other two have died out.

Another peculiar feature of Chinese is its super-dialect and super-language. Linguists divide China dialect into eight major dialect areas. Some people say that without Chinese characters, China would have split into dozens of countries. The differences between Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian in Europe are much smaller than those in Chinese dialects, but they are never willing to admit that their languages are different dialects of "Romans" because they are all independent countries.

In addition, Chinese characters can transcend national boundaries. Historically, Vietnam, South Korea and Japan all used Chinese characters to record languages. Japanese still mix Chinese characters and pseudonyms. The Japanese use Chinese characters, and another great invention is to write Chinese characters and read Japanese. As long as other countries are willing, they can do the same. If this is really done, Chinese characters will become a common international language symbol, just like mathematical symbols, which only express meaning, not sound.

[Edit this paragraph] The development of Chinese characters

1? oracle bone script

Oracle Bone Inscriptions mainly refers to Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin Ruins, which was written by the royal family on tortoise shells and animal bones in the late Shang Dynasty in China (14 ~ 1 1 century). It is the earliest and most complete ancient Chinese character discovered by China.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions is an ancient script in China, regarded as an early form of modern Chinese characters, sometimes regarded as a script of Chinese characters, and also the oldest mature script in China. Oracle Bone Inscriptions is also called Wen Qi, tortoise shell or tortoise shell animal bone. Oracle Bone Inscriptions is a very important ancient writing material. Most Oracle Bone Inscriptions were found in Yin Ruins. Yin Ruins is a famous site of Yin Shang Dynasty, located in Xiaotun Village, Huayuanzhuang and Houjiazhuang in the northwest of Anyang City, Henan Province. It was once the capital of the central dynasty in the late Shang Dynasty, so it was called Yin Ruins. These Oracle Bone Inscriptions are basically the divination records of Shang rulers. Shang rulers are superstitious about whether there will be disasters, whether it will rain, whether there will be a good harvest of crops, whether there will be a victory in the war, what to sacrifice to ghosts and gods, and divination based on fertility, disease, dreaming and other things to understand the will of ghosts and gods and the quality of things. The materials used for divination are mainly tortoise's bellybutton, carapace and cattle's scapula. Small pits are usually dug or drilled on the back of Oracle bones for divination. This kind of pit is called "drilling" by experts in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Heating these pits during divination leads to cracks on the surface of Oracle bones. This kind of crack is called "omen" The word "Bu" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions is like a symbol. People engaged in divination judge good or bad according to the various shapes of divination. According to Oracle Bone Inscriptions in the Shang Dynasty, Chinese characters at that time had developed into a complete Chinese writing system. In the discovered Oracle Bone Inscriptions of Yin Ruins, the number of words has reached about 4000. There are a lot of signifiers, pictographs, knowing characters, and many pictographs. These words are very different in appearance from the words we use now. But from the point of word formation, they are basically the same.

At present, there are about 6.5438+0.5 million pieces of Oracle bones with more than 4,500 words. These Oracle Bone Inscriptions records are extremely rich in content, involving many aspects of social life in Shang Dynasty, including not only politics, military affairs, culture and social customs, but also astronomy, calendars, medicine and other science and technology. Judging from about 1500 characters identified in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the methods of "pictographic, comprehending, pictophonetic, referring to things, transferring notes and borrowing words" have been developed, which shows the unique charm of China characters. Documents based on tortoise shells and animal bones in Shang Dynasty and early Western Zhou Dynasty in China (about 16 BC-0/0 BC). This is the earliest known form of Chinese literature. Carved in a,? The words on the bones were once called Wen Qi and Wen Qi. Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Kikkoman and Yin Ruins are now commonly known as Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Because of superstition, Shang and Zhou emperors used tortoise shells (tortoise shells are common) or animal bones for everything. Do divination (usually on the shoulder blades of cattle), and then put divination related things (such as divination time, diviner, question content, divination results, verification, etc. )? Carved on the Oracle Bone Inscriptions and preserved as archives by royal historians? (See the bone or tortoise shell in the file). In addition to Oracle inscriptions, there are some unforgettable inscriptions in Oracle Bone Inscriptions's offerings. Oracle Bone Inscriptions's contributions involved astronomy, calendar, meteorology, geography, country, lineage, family, figures, officials, conquest, prisons and so on. Agriculture? Animal husbandry, hunting, transportation, religion, sacrifice, disease, fertility, disaster, etc. , is an extremely precious first-hand information to study the social history, culture, language and writing in ancient China, especially in Shang Dynasty. ?

2? Ancient bronze inscriptions

Bronze inscriptions refer to characters cast on bronze wares of Yin and Zhou Dynasties, also known as Zhong Dingwen. Shang and Zhou Dynasties were the bronze age, with the tripod as the representative ritual vessel and the bell as the representative musical instrument. "Zhong Ding" was synonymous with bronze ware. Therefore, Zhong Dingwen or inscriptions on bronze refers to inscriptions cast or carved on bronzes. ?

Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. China entered the Bronze Age in the Xia Dynasty, and the smelting of copper and the manufacture of bronzes were very developed. Because copper was also called gold a week ago, the inscriptions on bronzes were called "bronze inscriptions" or "auspicious words"; This bronze ware was called "Zhong Dingwen" in the past because it had the largest number of characters on Zhong Ding. ?

The application time of bronze inscriptions is about 1200 years, from the early Shang Dynasty to the Qin Dynasty's destruction of the Six Kingdoms. According to Rong Geng's Jin Wen Bian, there are 3,722 inscriptions, of which 2,420 can be identified. ?

There are different words in the inscriptions on bronzes. The content of memory is also very different. Its main content is mostly to praise the achievements of ancestors and princes, but also to record major historical events. For example, the famous Mao has 497 words, covering a wide range, reflecting the social life at that time.

3 major seal scripts

Representing the present Shi Guwen, it was named after a book written by Tai Shihuan of Zhou Xuanwang. On the basis of the original text, he transformed it and got his name because it was engraved on the stone drum. It is the earliest stone carving text that has been circulated so far, and it is the ancestor of stone carving.

It began in the late Western Zhou Dynasty and traveled in Qin during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. The fonts are similar to those of Qin Zhuan, but the configurations of glyphs overlap.

4 biographies

Xiao Zhuan is also called "Qin Zhuan". During the Qin Dynasty, Li Si was ordered to unify the characters, which was called Xiao Zhuan. It was in the Qin dynasty. The shape is long, even and neat, and it evolved from Da Zhuan. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Xu Shen said, "Qin Shihuang is the first emperor in the world, ... but he is not in harmony with Qin Wen." Li Si wrote Cang Xie, CZ ordered Zhao Gao to write, loved the calendar, and Grandmaster Hu Wujing wrote erudition: "They all took the stone script seal script, or saved a lot of changes, so-called small seal script." Jin Cun (Langyatai Stone Carving), The residual stone in Taishan Stone Carving is the representative work of Xiao Zhuan.

It is said that the seal script carved by Qin Quan was written by Li Si. After Qin Shihuang unified China, he implemented the policy of "writing in the same language and cars on the same track". The policy of unified measurement has been taken care of by Prime Minister Reese. On the basis of the original seal script used by Qin, it was simplified, and the variant characters of other six countries were cancelled, creating a unified Chinese character writing form. It was popular in China until the end of the Western Han Dynasty, and was gradually replaced by official script. But because of its beautiful font, it has always been favored by calligraphers. Because of its complex strokes and simple form, it is possible to add twists and turns and seal cutting at will, especially the official seal that needs anti-counterfeiting. Seal script was always used until the collapse of feudal dynasty and the emergence of modern new anti-counterfeiting technology. All the words in Kangxi Dictionary are also marked with seal script writing.

5? official script

Official script is basically evolved from seal script, mainly changing the round strokes of seal script into square folds, which makes writing faster, and it is difficult to draw round strokes when writing with pigments on wooden slips.

Official script is also called "official character" and "ancient book". It is a font produced on the basis of seal script to meet the needs of convenient writing. The seal script is simplified, and the uniform circle lines of the seal script are changed into straight strokes, which is convenient for writing. Official script can be divided into "Qin Li" (also called "Guli") and "Han Li" (also called "Golden Calendar"). The appearance of official script is a great change in ancient writing and calligraphy.

Official script is a common solemn font in Chinese characters, with a slightly flat writing effect, long horizontal drawing and short straight drawing, and pays attention to "swallow tail of silkworm head" and "twists and turns". It originated in the Qin Dynasty and reached its peak in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Calligraphy is known as "Han Li Tang Kai". It is also said that official script originated in the Warring States period.

Official script is relative to seal script, and its name originated from the Eastern Han Dynasty. The appearance of official script is another great change of China's writing, which makes China's? Calligraphy art has entered a new realm, which is a turning point in the development history of Chinese characters and lays the foundation for regular script. Official script is flat, neat and exquisite. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, stippling such as skimming was beautified as upward provocation, with different degrees of severity and artistic beauty of calligraphy. Styles also tend to be diversified, which is of great artistic appreciation value.

According to legend, Li Shu was compiled in prison by Cheng Miao, who was not in the Qin Dynasty. It was simplified, and the complexity was removed, and the glyph became round and square. Change the song into a straight song. Changing "Lian Bi" into "broken pen" and changing lines into strokes makes writing more convenient. "Li people" are not prisoners, but "petty officials", that is, people in charge? Small official, so in ancient times, official script was called "Zuo Shu"? . Lishu prevailed in Han Dynasty and became the main style of calligraphy. As a start-up Qin Li, it has left many meanings of seals, and then it has been continuously developed and processed. It broke the writing tradition since the Zhou and Qin Dynasties and gradually laid the foundation for regular script. Under the unification of Confucianism, the official script of the Han Dynasty gradually developed into the dominant script, and at the same time cursive script and regular script were derived. Books and running scripts lay the artistic foundation?

6? regular script

Regular script is also called official script, or real book. Its characteristics are: square shape, straight strokes, can be used as a model, hence the name. Began in the Eastern Han Dynasty. There are many famous regular script writers, such as Ou Ti (Ou Yangxun), Yu Ti (Yu Shinan), Yan Ti (Yan Zhenqing), Liu Ti (Liu Gongquan) and Zhao Ti (attached).

In the early days, there were few official handwriting, the structure was slightly wider, the horizontal painting was long and the vertical painting was short. In Wei Jinzhong handed down from ancient times, such as Zhong You's "Declaration Form" (left), "List of Recommended Seasons", Wang Xizhi's "Le Yi Lun" and "Huang Ting Jing" can all be regarded as representative works. Look at its characteristics, as Weng Fanggang said: "Change the wave painting of official script, pick it up, and still keep the vertical of official script."

After the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the north and the south were divided, and calligraphy was also divided into two factions. The calligraphy style of the Northern School has inherited the legacy of Han Li. Its brushwork is simple and rigorous, but its style is simple and rigorous, so it is called "Weibei". Southern calligraphy is more sparse and beautiful than letters. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, because of regional differences, personal habits and book styles were very different. The books in the North are strong and the books in the South are rich, each of which is wonderful and inseparable, while Bao and Kang Youwei highly admire the books of the two dynasties, especially the epitaphs of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Kang cited ten beauties to emphasize the advantages of Weibei.

Regular script in the Tang Dynasty, like the prosperity of the national situation in the Tang Dynasty, is really unprecedented. Calligraphy style is mature, and calligraphers come forth in large numbers. In terms of regular script, Yu Shinan, Ou Yangxun, Chu Suiliang in the early Tang Dynasty, Yan Zhenqing in the middle Tang Dynasty and Liu Gongquan in the late Tang Dynasty all valued their regular script works and regarded them as models of calligraphy.

A seven-line script

A font between regular script and cursive script, which can be said to be cursive or cursive. It is to make up for the shortcomings of slow writing in regular script and illegible cursive script. The brushwork is not as sloppy as cursive script, and it is not required to be as correct as regular script. There are more methods of mold opening than cursive writing, which is called "mold opening". Cursive calligraphy is more than modular method, which is called "cursive calligraphy". Running script was produced in the late Eastern Han Dynasty.

8 cursive script

Cursive script: a style of Chinese characters. Formed in the Han Dynasty, it evolved on the basis of official script for the convenience of writing. There are Cao Zhang, Cao Jin and Crazy Grass. There are rules to follow in the changes of strokes, such as the urgent chapter of the Three Kingdoms Wu in Songjiang Edition. Today's grass is eclectic and fluent, and its representative works include Wang Xizhi's "The First Moon" and Jin Dynasty's "Getting Time". Mad grass appeared in the Tang Dynasty, represented by Zhang Xu and Huai Su, and its brushwork was wild and uninhibited, which became an artistic creation completely divorced from practicality. From then on, cursive script was only the works of calligraphers imitating Cao Zhang, Cao Jin and Kuangcao. Masterpieces such as Zhang Xu's Abdominal Pain Post and Huai Su's Autobiography Post. Cursive script is a font produced for the convenience of writing. It began in the early Han Dynasty. At that time, it was "Cao Li", that is, scribbled official script, which gradually developed into a kind of "Cao Zhang" with artistic value. At the end of the Han Dynasty, Zhang Zhi changed "Cao Zhang" to "modern grass", and the character style was formed in one fell swoop. In the Tang Dynasty, Zhang Xu and Huai Su developed into "weeds", with continuous strokes and changeable glyphs.

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.