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Chinese characters

Chinese character (hanzi) is a written form of Chinese.  The individual differences in common characters between the two writing systems are less than 25%.

The origin of Chinese characters

The formation of Chinese characters as a system of writing was in the 16th century BC during the Shang Dynasty. Archaeological evidence shows that in the early Shang Dynasty, Chinese civilization had developed to a very high level, and one of its main features was the appearance of oracle bones. Oracle bone inscriptions are ancient characters carved on tortoise shells and animal bones. In the Shang Dynasty, Kings divined before doing anything, and oracle bones were the instruments for divination. Before the bones are used, they have to be processed. First remove the flesh from the oracle bone, then whittle it down. Then, a knife is used to drill a hole in the inside of the nail or on the opposite side of the animal bone. The arrangement of these pits and holes is orderly. The diviner, or shaman, carved his name, the date of the divination, and the questions to be asked into the oracle bones, and then burned the holes in the bones with a fire. The cracks that appear when these pits are heated are called "megabytes". The wizard analyzed the direction of these cracks, obtained the results of divination, and engraved on the oracle bone whether the divination was fulfilled. After the divination was fulfilled, the oracle bones were preserved as an official record.

Evolution of Chinese characters

Chinese characters are gradually accumulated by scattered and individual characters, and after reaching a certain number, they become a writing system through artificial norms. It is believed that the primitive Chinese characters appeared in the middle of the Neolithic Age, and it took about 2,600 years for it to develop into a preliminary writing system. The earliest history of Chinese writing can be traced back to 6,000 years ago. In the course of 6,000 years, the evolution of Chinese characters has been as follows: oracle script, golden script, big seal script, small seal script, official script, regular script, cursive script and running script.

1. Oracle bone inscriptions are the earliest and most complete scripts found in ancient China. Oracle bone inscriptions mainly refer to oracle bone inscriptions in the Yin ruins, also known as "Yin ruins characters" and "Yin Qi", which were carved on tortoise shells and animal bones in the Yin and Shang Dynasties.
2. Jin Wen refers to the inscriptions carved on the bronze ware of Yin and Zhou Dynasties, also called Zhong and Ding wen. The Shang and Zhou dynasties were the age of bronze ware. The rites of bronze ware were represented by the ding, and the musical instrument was represented by the bell. The bell ding was the synonym of bronze ware.
3. In the late Western Zhou Dynasty, Chinese characters gradually evolved into big Seal characters. The broad seal style includes the Qin script and the Six States script.
4. After Emperor Qin Shi Huang unified China (221 BC), he implemented the policy of "same script, same track" and unified weights and measures, under the charge of Prime Minister Li Si. On the basis of the original big Seal script used by the state of Qin (籀文), he simplified it and eliminated the different characters of other six states to create a unified Chinese writing form.
5. Official script, also known as Han Li, is a common solemn font in Chinese characters. The writing effect is slightly wide and flat, and the horizontal painting is long, and the straight painting is short, in a rectangular shape.
6. Regular script, also known as regular script, regular script, regular script or true script, is a common font in Chinese calligraphy. Its font is squarer, unlike the official script written flat. Regular script is still the reference standard of modern Chinese handwriting.
7. A style of writing in Chinese characters characterized by a concise structure and continuous strokes. Formed in the Han Dynasty, it evolved on the basis of official script for simple writing.
8. Running script is produced on the basis of regular script. It is a kind of font between regular script and cursive script. It is produced to make up for the slow writing speed of regular script and the difficulty in recognizing cursive script.

The international influence of Chinese characters

Influence on Japanese writing

Japanese characters were invented late. For a long time, its people have used Chinese characters as a carrier to spread their thoughts and express their emotions, calling Chinese characters "real names". Although kana characters have been popular in Japan since the 10th century, the use of kanji has not been abolished. Today, the Japanese script, which has occupied an important position in the world, still retains more than 1,000 simplified characters.

Influence on North Korean and South Korean writing

The system and culture of ancient China have always influenced the Korean people, so the Korean people call their national script hangul (informal script). The creation and application of hangul is an important achievement of ancient Korean culture, but it was not widely used before the 20th century. In fact, like Japan in the early days, Korea did not have its own writing, but used Chinese characters.

Influence on Vietnamese writing

Before the 10th century, Vietnam was a Chinese county. Qin, Han, Sui and Tang all had officials under their control here. After Vietnam's independence, people used Chinese characters as tools. It was not until the 13th century that Vietnam had its own script.

References

Chinese character culture ISSN1001-0661