A little knowledge about the history of Chinese characters

1. A little knowledge about Chinese characters

Knowledge about Chinese characters

A piece of history

Chinese characters in Oracle Bone Inscriptions are one of the three oldest Chinese character systems in the world. Among them, the sacred script of ancient Egypt and the cuneiform script of Sumerians in the two river basins have been lost, and only China's Chinese characters are still in use today.

According to legend, Chinese characters originated from the creation of characters in Cangjie. Cang Xie, a historian of the Yellow Emperor, created Chinese characters according to the shapes of the sun and the moon and the footprints of birds and animals. When he created characters, the world was shocked-"When it rains, ghosts cry at night". From a historical point of view, the complicated Chinese character system can't be invented by one person. More likely, Cang Xie has made outstanding contributions to the collection, arrangement and unification of Chinese characters. Therefore, Xunzi Jiemu records that "there are many good books, but one is Cang Xie's solo biography".

Some people think that the Eight Diagrams in Zhouyi have a great influence on the formation of Chinese characters, but there are few supporters.

2. Original script

Before the invention of writing, oral knowledge had obvious shortcomings in dissemination and accumulation. Primitive people used knotting, carving and drawing to assist in taking notes, and later simplified and replaced pictures with characteristic graphics. When the graphic symbols are simplified to a certain extent and form a specific corresponding relationship with the language, the original text is formed.

1994, a large number of pottery were unearthed at the Daxi cultural site in Yangjiawan, Hubei Province. Among the symbols of 170, some features are quite similar to those of Oracle Bone Inscriptions. This discovery infers the formation process of the original Chinese characters to 6000 years ago. In addition, pictographic symbols on pottery unearthed in Dawenkou, Shandong Province, geometric symbols on painted pottery in Banpo, Xi, etc. , may be in the process of forming the original text (or before) at different stages of performance.

However, after the Shang Dynasty, are Chinese characters and these geometric symbols in the same strain? This issue is still controversial. Many scholars have suggested that these symbols are not necessarily the precursors of Chinese characters, or even the writing symbols.

From hieroglyphics to ideographs

Stone Carving on Mount Tai is said to have been written by Li Si. From Oracle Bone Inscriptions to Xiao Zhuan, Chinese characters have experienced the development process from pictograph to ideograph, and the glyphs have gradually separated from the concrete images of things. Chinese characters in this period are called ancient Chinese characters.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang and Zhou Dynasties was a relatively complete writing system. Among the more than 4,500 Oracle characters found, nearly 2,000 can be recognized at present. At the same time when Oracle Bone Inscriptions appeared, the words cast on bronze ware were called inscriptions on bronze or Zhong Dingwen. Pan and Mao in the Western Zhou Dynasty have high historical and artistic value.

After Qin Shihuang unified China, Lisi standardized and sorted out the big seal script and the ancient prose of six countries, formulated the small seal script as the standard writing font of the Qin Dynasty, and unified the characters of China. The seal script is rectangular, and the strokes are round and smooth.

Small seal script solved the problem of a large number of variant characters between languages of various countries, and the history of "the same book" began. The unification of written language has effectively promoted the spread of inter-ethnic culture and played an important role in the identification of the Chinese nation and the unification of China, which is rare in the history of written language in the world.

The development of Chinese characters has undergone many different evolutions. In the early Chinese character system, the number of words was insufficient, and a large number of things were represented by interchangeable words, which made the expression of words vague. In order to improve the clarity of expression, Chinese characters have gone through a stage of gradual complexity and a large number of words. But there are so many things that it is impossible to express them in one Chinese character. The excessive increase in the number of Chinese characters has also made it difficult to learn Chinese characters. Chinese has gradually evolved from ideographic words to ideographic words.

Four word-making and composition

After Qin Shihuang unified Chinese characters, the number of Chinese characters also increased, and many new words appeared constantly:

Emperor Wendi of the Sui Dynasty was originally a vassal, but because the word "Sui" meant instability, the word "Sui" was removed and created as the national title.

In the Tang Dynasty, Wu Zetian created the word "Qi" (the same as "Zhao") as her name according to the meaning of "the sun and the moon are in the sky".

In the Five Dynasties, the word "Chen" was created in its name, taking the meaning of "flying dragon in the sky".

In modern times, due to the influx of western knowledge, many words have also been created. For example, when beer was introduced into China, how to express it in Chinese characters was a problem. At first, it was translated into skin wine, but later it was inappropriate. About 19 10, the word "beer" was created-translated as "beer". In order to express English units, some disyllabic words have been created, such as Li (nautical mile), Kui (gallon), Kui (kilowatt) and Chi (ruler). However, these disyllabic words have been eliminated in the Notice on the Unified Use of Chinese Characters in the Names of Some Units of Measurement issued by the China Character Reform Commission and the National Bureau of Standards and Metrology on June 20th 1977, and are no longer used in Chinese mainland, but they can still be seen in Taiwan Province Province and other places.

At present, due to the informationization and standardization of Chinese characters, Chinese characters no longer add new words at will. The only exceptions are various elements in the periodic table, such as helium, chlorine, radon, germanium, chromium and uranium. This word-making method is still used to name new elements. Word-formation rules of chemical elements can be found in Elements.

Liu Shu analyzed the composition of Chinese characters. Zhou Li mentioned Liu Shu, but did not specify the specific content. In Shuo Wen Jie Zi, Xu Shen in the Eastern Han Dynasty elaborated in detail the rules of Chinese character construction of Liushu: pictographic, referential, comprehending, pictophonetic, transliteration and borrowing. Among them, pictographic characters, fingering, knowing characters and pictophonetic characters are the principles of word formation, which is the "word formation method"; Annotation and borrowing are the rules of using words, and they are "methods of using words". However, it should be noted that the "six books" are the sorting and classification of Chinese characters, not the rules of word formation.

2. Know little about Chinese characters.

1. Chinese characters have been used for the longest time so far, and they are also the only characters in various ghost writing systems in ancient times. Chinese characters have always been the main official language in China.

All East Asian countries have created their own Chinese characters to some extent. In the non-Chinese character system, the Japanese themselves simplified Chinese characters and formulated new Japanese fonts; Vietnam, North Korea, Mongolia and other countries that used Chinese characters in history have now abandoned Chinese characters.

2. Description: Mr. Guo Moruo, on the basis of a comparative study of Banpo pottery symbols in Shang Dynasty and Oracle Bone Inscriptions, thinks that early characters can be divided into two systems: description and drawing. "Description system is the evolution of tying rope and tying wood, rarely. Judging from the descriptive symbols found in Banpo and Jiangzhai, there are some numbers and some words. Many modern scholars believe that it has a fixed sound, form and meaning and should be the source of Chinese characters.

3. Bronze inscriptions refer to words carved on bronzes, also known as Zhong Dingwen, which began in Shang Dynasty. 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. 4. Chinese characters are a combination of form, sound and meaning, and most Chinese characters are composed of form and sound.

Liu Shu is the basic principle of Chinese character formation. Six books are mentioned in the Book of Rites, but the specific contents are not explained.

In Shuo Wen Jie Zi, Xu Shen in the Eastern Han Dynasty expounded the structural principles of "Six Books": pictographic, referential, comprehending, pictophonetic, phonetic and borrowing. Chinese characters are written Chinese characters, and each word represents a syllable.

Now, Mandarin is used as the standard pronunciation in Chinese mainland. The syllables of Putonghua are determined by one initial, one vowel and tone, and there are more than 65,438+0,300 syllables actually used. Because of the huge number of Chinese characters, there are obvious homophones; At the same time, it also exists in the case that the same word has multiple tones, which is called polyphonic words.

This situation is very common in various dialects of Chinese. Reference source: Baidu Encyclopedia-Chinese character Baidu Encyclopedia -0 (Chinese character).

3. About the history and evolution of Chinese characters in China.

The evolution of Chinese characters has a history of more than 3,000 years. This evolution can be roughly divided into seven stages. (1) Oracle Bone Inscriptions. The earliest systematic Chinese character material we can see today is Oracle Bone Inscriptions. The so-called "Oracle Bone Inscriptions" refers to the characters carved on tortoise shells and animal bones in Shang Dynasty. In A.D. 1899 (the 25th year of Guangxu reign), Oracle Bone Inscriptions was discovered in Xiaotun Village, Wuli Road, northwest of Anyang County, Henan Province. According to archaeological evidence, Xiaotun Village was the capital of the Yin Dynasty. After 80 years of continuous excavation, about167,000 writing Oracle bones have been obtained. In the long-term research of archaeologists, many research results have been accumulated. According to incomplete statistics, more than 3,500 Oracle bones have been found. It has published about 2000 words. Most unknown words are names, places and surnames. The Yin Dynasty in the slave age worshipped God very much and always asked divination. For example, when hunting in the wild, offering sacrifices to pray for the New Year, crusade, stormy weather and so on. , divination was asked. It can be seen from the Oracle bone inscriptions that have been found that Oracle bone inscriptions are mainly recorded on tortoise shells and animal bones used by the royal family in Yin Dynasty for divination. Therefore, people usually call it "Oracle Bone Inscriptions". Comrade Guo Moruo's Yin Qi Cui Bian and the Complete Works of Oracle Bone Inscriptions are Oracle Bone Inscriptions's monographs. Oracle Bone Inscriptions's written language is very limited, and some words can be said to have existed in Oracle Bone Inscriptions's time. But it has not been used in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, so it has not come out yet. For example, the word "people" existed in the Zhou Dynasty. They all mean to blind one eye with an awl, so "min" stands for the word "min" on ancient slave bronzes: ■ (Yu Ding) ■ (Ding Ke) ■ (Qin Gonggui). But so far, the word "people" has not been found in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Oracle Bone Inscriptions has three main characteristics. There are opposites to writing. "Stop": ■, ■, ■ (pictographs of feet) "Prison": ■, ■ (places where cattle and sheep are kept) "Car": ■, ■, ■ (pictographs of chariots) (2) The writing procedures are not uniform. From left to right, from right to left, it is also readable. According to archaeological analysis, in Shang Dynasty, besides Oracle Bone Inscriptions, there must be bamboo and silk books. Because the word "book" already exists in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, which is very similar to the bamboo slips "Oracle Bone Inscriptions ■ (book)" compiled by Wei, and the word "Dian" is very similar to the way of holding "book" in both hands, so later generations call the important works "Jing" Oracle Bone Inscriptions ■ (book). This is because bamboo and wood have been buried underground for more than 3,000 years, and they are likely to have decayed long ago. (2) Bronze inscriptions refer to words engraved on bronzes. The ancients called copper "auspicious gold", so the words on bronzes were called "bronze inscriptions". Among the bronzes, Zhongheding is famous, so the bronze inscription is also called "Zhong Dingwen". Ancient books and cultural relics are extremely rich. Zhou people didn't believe in ghosts and gods like Yin people, so Oracle Bone Inscriptions gave way to Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Of course, there were Oracle Bone Inscriptions at the end of Yin Dynasty, but after all, there were few, so the inscriptions on bronze mainly refer to the writings of Zhou Dynasty. There are not only a large number of inscriptions, but also a large number of characters in the Zhou Dynasty. For example, in the Western Zhou Dynasty, when the two emperors became kings, there was 187. The Great Yu Ding was written by Kang Wangzhao, the third emperor of the Western Zhou Dynasty, with 29 1 characters. The twelfth emperor of the Western Zhou Dynasty Xuan Wang's Mao has 499 words. There is no such glory in the Yin Dynasty now. During the Western Zhou Dynasty, bronzes were mainly royal vessels, but for such vessels, governors and ministers were not allowed to have casting rights. However, in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, governors dominated politics, bronzes could be cast at will, and royal vessels almost disappeared. Judging from the shape of words, there are also many. Many decorative elements similar to birds and insects have been added to the characters of southern countries such as Wu, Yue and Chu, which are called "Bird and Insect Book" and "Wonderful Biography". For example, the words "Chu" and "Wang" are Miao Zhuan ■ (Chu) and■ (Wang). From the content point of view, the words on the bronze ware mainly record who owns it, and some record the exploits, sacrifices and benefits. There are three main characteristics: (1) more curved pens, thick and natural lines, and neat fonts. (2) Generally, inscriptions on bronze inscriptions are first engraved on the same mold, and they can be modified if they are not well engraved, so the glyphs are rich and simple, but they tend to be smooth and elegant in the late Zhou Dynasty. (3) the font is not fixed, and there are often many ways to write a word, such as the word "she". Behind the third way of writing, there are various ways of "shooting" with one hand: the word "bug" bends like a bug, and the word "bug" with two eyes on it has various ways of writing: ■■■■. In addition, before liberation, a silk book was unearthed in Changsha, which was a tomb of the State of Chu. Angrily, this national treasure was defeated by the Chinese nation in 1946. As for bamboo slips, seals, Wen Tao, currency characters and weapon inscriptions, they have been found many times in Changsha, Xinyang and other places after liberation, but most of them are hasty and sloppy characters, far less neat than those in Zhong Dingwen. (3) seal script. The name of "seal script" has always been controversial. Comrade Guo Moruo said: "seal is also awkward; Officials are also officials. " In other words, the so-called "seal script" is actually a "rafter", that is, an official book. In the Qin Shihuang era, there were many official affairs and numerous official books. As can be seen in Historical Records of Qin Shihuang, Qin Shihuang personally read 120 Jin of bamboo slips and official documents a day. These official documents are called official scripts. But there was no such name at that time. It was not until the official script appeared in the Han Dynasty that official documents were called official scripts. Therefore, official documents are for official documents. Official scripts can be divided into

4. Information about the history of Chinese characters

Chinese characters have a historical process of development and evolution for thousands of years, which is roughly as follows: before the Shang Dynasty, it was the history of origin, and the Oracle bone inscriptions in the Yin Dynasty were mature.

Since then, a series of changes have taken place, especially in the Han Dynasty, when 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. From regular script to basic stereotypes in Sui and Tang Dynasties, it became "Song Style" artistically in the Song Dynasty. Later, it was imitated by Songti, which is roughly the font we use today.

There are many languages of ethnic minorities, and the types of development are different. In the long years, people of all ethnic groups have created the excellent written culture of the motherland.

Extended data:

Historical characters: 1, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, are the earliest and relatively complete 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.

65438+ was discovered in Yin Ruins in Xiaotun, Anyang, Henan at the end of 2009. It inherited Wen Tao's word-making method and was carved (or written) on tortoise shells and animal bones by the royal family in the late Shang Dynasty (14 ~1century) in China. After the demise of Shang Dynasty and the rise of Zhou Dynasty, Oracle Bone Inscriptions continued to be used for some time.

2. The inscription on the bronze wares of Yin and Zhou Dynasties is also called 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.

Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. China entered the Bronze Age in Xia Dynasty, and the technology of copper smelting and bronze ware manufacturing was 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. 3. After Qin Shihuang unified China (22 1 year ago), Xiao Zhuan implemented the policy of "all books are the same, and all cars are on the same track", and the unified measurement policy was under the responsibility of Prime Minister Li Si. On the basis of the original seal script used by Qin, Xiao Zhuan simplified and cancelled the variant characters of other six countries, creating a unified writing form of Chinese characters.

It was popular in China until the end of the Western Han Dynasty (about 8 AD) 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. Baidu Encyclopedia-History of Chinese Characters in China.

5. Historical materials of Chinese characters

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.

Regarding the origin of Chinese characters, there are many sayings in China ancient literature, such as "knot rope theory", "gossip theory", "picture theory" and "calligraphy contract theory". 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, China's archaeological community has published a series of unearthed materials related to the origin of Chinese characters, which are earlier than Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Anyang 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.

As a professional worker, he tried to comprehensively sort out these original materials by comprehensively using scientific methods such as archaeology, ancient Chinese character configuration, comparative philology, scientific archaeology and high-tech means, so as to compare some clues about the occurrence and development of Chinese characters before Shang Dynasty. However, the situation is not so simple. In addition to the existing small-scale data of Zhengzhou Shangcheng site and Xiaoshuangqiao site (in recent years, more than 10 cases of Zhu Shutao's early characters of Shang Dynasty have been found), other symbols before Shang Dynasty are scattered and lack of contact with each other, and most of them are out of touch with Shang Dynasty characters.

There are also some symbols with heavy regional colors and complex backgrounds. One of the most commonly used 500 Chinese characters is that there is no harmony between people. I want them to use it when they are born, and they can be grouped when they come out. You can also work together every year, and after thirteen periods, you can learn the law. People have to go through the same period of time, and the electricity at home is as high as water, which increases the reality of small things. Both of these systems should make the viewpoint of practice necessary, and good sex should be combined for other reasons. If you are right, you can see clearly the original profit ratio or the direction of quality first. This change only left an unanswered question. The man who loves to build the moon and has no army made it very clear and straightforward. The general defective products have been replaced, and the special parts have been designed and managed. The basic capital of the elderly has been found, and the road level is not as good as the mountain system. Look at her hand, the root of the horn period, the luck of farmers, and the determination of Xi * * * If you do what you have to do, go back first and get the evidence. The south gives you a colorful light door, which means you protect the rule, and the north sets a hundred rules. Seven harbors in the east guide the ambition of the world and strive for the order of economy. The right to receive the certificate, change the beauty, and then adopt a simpler style. It is really necessary to achieve every goal. It is difficult to get close to the mine. Just like a history of the Millennium Committee of Qinghai Province. Houyi's close relatives are quick-acting, and the college's Chajiang-style eye king raises the floor according to the grid, but the special education factory, Beijing, is suitable for the round fire, and the county bureau takes care of Shen Hong. The iron-priced Chinese character system was formally formed in the Central Plains. Wang believes that the formal formation of the Chinese character system should be in the Central Plains.

Chinese characters are a writing system of independent origin, independent of any foreign language. However, its origin is not single. After many times and long-term running-in, probably in the early summer, our ancestors creatively invented the writing symbol system of recording language on the basis of extensively absorbing and using early symbols. At that time, the Chinese character system matured rapidly. According to reports, according to the written materials unearthed from archaeological excavations, China had a formal written language at least in the Xia Dynasty.

For example, in recent years, archaeologists found the word "Wen" for writing brush and bamboo calligraphy on a flat pottery jar unearthed from Taosi site in Xiangfen, Shanxi. These symbols belong to the basic configuration in the early writing system, but unfortunately such unearthed writing materials are still rare.

Characters first matured in Shang Dynasty. As far as the written materials of Yin and Shang dynasties are concerned, there are many kinds of written carriers. At that time, in addition to writing on simplified Chinese characters with a brush, other main writing methods were carved on tortoise shells and animal bones, and pottery, jade and Tao Zhu were carved on bronzes.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions and bronze ritual vessels used in Yin Ruins are the earliest mature written materials found in China. The Shang dynasty characters reflected in Yin Ruins are not only reflected in the large number of characters and rich materials, but also in the way of creating characters that has formed its own characteristics and laws.

The structural characteristics of basic characters in Shang Dynasty can be divided into four categories: based on the physical characteristics of human body and a certain part of human body; Based on labor creation and labor object; Taking the images of animals and livestock as the basis of word formation; Taking natural images as the basis of word formation. Judging from the cultural connotation of the configuration, the objects selected by these early mature hieroglyphs are quite close to the social life of our ancestors and have strong realistic characteristics.

At the same time, the content described by these hieroglyphs involves all levels of people and nature, so it also has the characteristics of extensive sources of configuration. 1. Oracle bone inscriptions, written in Shang Dynasty, are only used by a few Abu historians.

Mainly carved on the tortoise shell bone with a knife. Because the tortoise shell bone is hard, the strokes are mainly straight and rarely round.

Because Oracle Bone Inscriptions was carved with a sharp knife, the lines were thin and even. Oracle Bone Inscriptions is the earliest Chinese character, which has the characteristics of early Chinese characters: strong imagery, no stereotyped writing, different sizes and great randomness.

2. Jinwen Jinwen, also known as Zhong Dingwen, prevailed in the Western Zhou Dynasty. This is a kind of writing carved on bronze wares.

The shape and structure of inscriptions on bronze are similar to those of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, because inscriptions on bronze are carved on the same mold and then cast, making it easier to write.

6. About the history of Chinese characters

It is well documented that China script, Chinese characters, came into being in the late Shang Dynasty, about14th century BC, when a preliminary stereotyped script, namely Oracle Bone Inscriptions, was formed.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions is both a hieroglyph and a phonography. Until now, there are still some pictographs in Chinese characters, which are very vivid. In the late Western Zhou Dynasty, Chinese characters developed into Da Zhuan.

The development of seal script has produced two characteristics: first, the lines with uneven thickness in the early days became uniform and soft, and the lines they drew with utensils were very concise and vivid; Second, standardization, the glyph structure tends to be neat, and gradually deviates from the original shape of the picture, laying the foundation for the square characters. Later, Li Si, the prime minister of Qin Dynasty, simplified Da Zhuan and changed it to Xiao Zhuan.

Small seal script not only simplifies the shape of big seal script, but also achieves the perfection of lineation and standardization, almost completely divorced from pictures and characters, and has become a neat, harmonious and very beautiful square font which is basically rectangular. However, Xiao Zhuan also has its own fundamental shortcoming, that is, its lines are very inconvenient to write with a pen, so almost at the same time, a kind of official script with flat sides was produced.

By the Han Dynasty, the official script had developed to a mature stage, and the readability and writing speed of Chinese characters had been greatly improved. After Li Shu, it evolved into Cao Zhang, and now it is grass. In the Tang dynasty, there was Weeds, which expressed the writer's thoughts and feelings with a pen.

Subsequently, regular script (also known as original script), a combination of official script and cursive script, became popular in the Tang Dynasty. The print we use today evolved from regular script.

Between regular script and cursive script is a running script, which is fluent in writing and flexible in using a pen. It is said that it was invented by Liu Desheng in Han Dynasty, and it is still the font used in our daily writing today. In the Song Dynasty, with the development of printing, block printing was widely used, and Chinese characters were further improved and developed, resulting in a new type of calligraphy-Songti printing font.

After the invention of printing, the carving knife used for lettering had a far-reaching influence on the glyph of Chinese characters, resulting in a kind of printing font with fine horizontal and thick vertical, which is eye-catching and easy to read, and later called Song Style. There are two kinds of fonts for the moment: fat imitation face, Liu style, thin imitation European style and dangerous style.

Among them, the strokes of Yan and Liu are towering, with some characteristics of horizontal, thin and vertical. In the Ming Dynasty, between Qin Long and Wanli, it changed from Song style to Ming style, with fine strokes and square fonts.

It turned out that at that time, a kind of Hongwu style was popular among the people, which was used in official posts, lanterns, notices, private stones, and the main cards of ancestral temples. Later, some book carvers created a non-face and non-European skin silhouette in the process of imitating Hongwu's style.

Especially because the strokes of this font are horizontal and vertical, it is really easy to engrave. It is different from seal script, official script, original script and cursive script, unique, fresh and pleasing to the eye. Therefore, it has been widely used since16th century and has become a very popular main printing font. It's also called Song Style, and it's also called lead font. In Chinese characters, all kinds of fonts formed in different historical periods have their own distinctive artistic characteristics.

For example, seal script is simple and elegant, official script is static and dynamic, rich in decoration, fast in cursive script, compact in structure, neat and beautiful in regular script, easy to read and write, practical, diverse in style and different in personality. The evolution of Chinese characters is from pictographic pictures to linear symbols, strokes adapted to brush writing and printed fonts convenient for carving. Its evolution provides rich inspiration for China's font design.

In character design, if we can give full play to the characteristics and elegant demeanor of various fonts of Chinese characters, we will certainly be able to design exquisite works with ingenious application and unique conception. To learn Chinese characters, the first question is how Chinese characters are made, that is, to solve the origin of Chinese characters.

This problem was difficult to solve before Oracle Bone Inscriptions discovered it. Because the discussion of Chinese character configuration theory must be based on the textual research and explanation of the initial form and meaning of a large number of Chinese characters.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions's discovery, involving Jin Wen, Wen Tao, Shi Guwen and Wen Jian, revealed the original shapes of many Chinese characters, providing rich and authoritative materials for studying the generation of Chinese characters. Therefore, it can be said that with the discovery and research of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the conditions are ripe to solve the important theoretical problem of how Chinese characters come into being.

According to the author's textual research on Oracle Bone Inscriptions, I think every word of Oracle Bone Inscriptions is pictographic and a vivid description of something. A small part of it still retains strong pictographic properties, and most of its descriptions of images have been highly linearized. It can be concluded that every Oracle Bone Inscriptions is a hieroglyph. Except for a few exceptions, such as the mouth added by the words Shang, Zhou, Lu, Jun and Tang, and the dots and stripes in some reference words have no specific image meaning, each stroke and painting in a word represents an image or a part of an image.

The concrete things reflected by Oracle Bone Inscriptions through the image method come from the social life of the ancients, including all aspects of the social life of the ancients, such as economy, religion, politics, military affairs, customs and people's observation and thinking about nature. The social life of the ancients existed first, and then Chinese characters were created on this basis. This is how Oracle Bone Inscriptions came into being.

For example, there is a custom of tying a knot with a rope to make records, and then the text of "Five and Noon" was created accordingly. There is a custom of carving wood into letters, and on this basis, symphonic characters and dual characters have been created.

First there was the custom of taking kidneys from people as slaves, and then there were words such as ministers and officials. Tattooing children first gives them a kind of witchcraft to bless them to grow up, and then they will be just.

First, cut off the cow's ear, kill blood for alliance, and then don't write or make words. First there is the timing, then there are the words Shang and Geng.

First, there is the custom of killing the leader to sacrifice to God, and then the word Meng. 5. In the afternoon, it looks like knots and acrimony, things are carved in letters, ministers and officials look like testicles, people look like needles, unlike them, like bulls' heads, Shang and Geng look like leaky pots carved with arrows, and Meng Xiangzi looks like a water container.

So wait, don't bother to lift it. There is no doubt that Oracle Bone Inscriptions reflected all aspects of ancient social life with concrete images.

It can be concluded that Chinese characters are symbolic records of ancient social activities, which are humanistic, and each Chinese character is a pocket version of ancient social genre painting. Chinese characters contain rich ancient cultural information, and deciphering Chinese characters can restore ancient society. On the other hand, only.