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| Precursors | |
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Main article: Neolithic signs in China
In recent decades, inscriptions have been found on Neolithic pottery and on bones at a variety of locations in China, including Banpo and Hualouzi near Xi'an. These simple, often geometric marks are similar to some of the earliest known Chinese characters, potentially indicating that the history of Chinese writing extends back over six millennia.
However, because these marks occur singly, without any implied context, and are made crudely and simply, Qiu Xigui concluded that "we do not have any basis for stating that these constituted writing nor is there reason to conclude that they were ancestral to Shang Dynasty Chinese characters."[10] Nonetheless, isolated graphs and pictures continue to be found periodically, frequently accompanied by media reports that push back the purported beginnings of Chinese writing by thousands of years. For example, at Damaidi in Ningxia, 3,172 pictorial cliff carvings dating to 6000–5000 BC were discovered, leading to headlines such as "Chinese writing '8,000 years old.'"[11] Similarly, archaeologists reported finding a few inscribed symbols on tortoise shells at the neolithic site of Jiahu in Henan dated to around 6600–6200 BC, leading to headlines of "'Earliest writing' which was found in China".[12]
In a comment released to the BBC, Professor David Keightley urged caution in the latter instance, pointing to the lack of any direct connection to the Shang culture, considering that the Shang Dynasty arose several millennia later. However, in the same BBC article, a supporting argument was provided by Dr. Garman Harbottle of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York City, who collaborated with a team of archaeologists at the University of Science and Technology of China in Anhui in the discovery. Dr. Harbottle pointed to the persistence of sign use at different sites along the Yellow River throughout the neolithic and up to the Shang period, when a complex writing system appears.[12]
One interesting group of sites comprises the Dawenkou sites (2800–2500 BC), only a millennium earlier than the early Shang sites and plausibly positioned as ancestral to the Shang. There, a few inscribed pottery and jade pieces have been found,[13] one of which combines pictorial elements (a sun, moon or clouds, and a fire or a mountain[citation needed]) in a stack which brings to mind the compounding of elements in Chinese characters. Major scholars are divided in their interpretation of such inscribed symbols. Some, such as Yu Xingwu,[14] Tang Lan,[15] and Li Xueqin[16] have identified these with specific Chinese characters. Others such as Wang Ningsheng[17] interpret them as pictorial symbols such as clan insignia, rather than writing. But in the view of Wang Ningsheng, "True writing begins when it represents sounds and consists of symbols that are able to record language. The few isolated figures found on pottery still cannot substantiate this point."[18]
[edit] Tags:Chinese,Min,Wu,Old,New,Han,China,Neolithic Signs In China,Neolithic,Banpo,Hualouzi,Xi'an,Qiu Xigui,Shang Dynasty,Damaidi,Ningxia,Jiahu,Henan,Bbc,David Keightley,Brookhaven National Laboratory,New York City,University Of Science And Technology Of China,Anhui,Yellow River,Dawenkou,Yu Xingwu,Tang Lan,Li Xueqin,Wang Ningsheng,Qin, | |
| Legendary origins | |
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According to legend, Chinese characters were invented by Cangjie (c. 2650 BC), a bureaucrat under the legendary Yellow Emperor. There are quite a few variations of the legend. One of them tells that Cangjie was hunting on Mount Yangxu in modern Shanxi when he saw a tortoise whose veins caught his curiosity. Inspired by the possibility of a logical relation of those veins, he studied the animals of the world, the landscape of the earth, and the stars in the sky, and invented a symbolic system called zì (字) — the first Chinese characters. It was said that on the day the characters were born, Chinese heard the devil mourning and saw crops falling like rain, as it marked a second beginning of the world.
[edit] Tags:Cangjie,Yellow Emperor,Mount Yangxu,Shanxi, | |
| Oracle bone script | |
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Main article: Oracle bone script
Shang Dynasty Oracle Bone Script on Ox Scapula, Linden-Museum, Stuttgart, Germany. Photo by Dr. Meierhofer
The oldest Chinese inscriptions that may be classified as writing are the oracle-bone inscriptions (甲骨文, jiǎgǔwén, "shell-bone script"). These were identified by scholars in 1899 on pieces of bone and turtle shell being sold as medicine. By 1928, the source of the oracle bones had been traced to a modern Xiaotun village near Anyang in Henan Province, where official archaeological excavations in 1928–1937 discovered 20,000 oracle bones, about 1/5th of the total discovered. The inscriptions were records of the divination performed for or by the royal Shang household. The oracle-bone script is a welldeveloped writing system, attested from the late Shang Dynasty (1200–1050 BC).[19][20][21] Only about 1,400 of the 2,500 known oracle-bone logographs can be identified with later Chinese characters and thus be deciphered by paleographers.
[edit] Tags:Oracle Bone Script,Oracle-bone Inscriptions,甲,骨,文,Xiaotun,Anyang,Paleographers, | |
| Bronze Age: parallel script forms and gradual evolution | |
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Main article: Chinese bronze inscriptions
The traditional picture of an orderly series of scripts, each one invented suddenly and then completely displacing the previous one, has been conclusively demonstrated to be fiction by the archaeological finds and scholarly research of the later 20th and early 21st centuries.[22] Gradual evolution and the coexistence of two or more scripts was more often the case. As early as the Shang Dynasty, oracle-bone script coexisted as a simplified form alongside the normal script of bamboo books (preserved in typical bronze inscriptions), as well as the extra-elaborate pictorial forms (often clan emblems) found on many bronzes.
Left: Bronze fāngzūn (方樽) ritual wine container dated about 1000 BC. The written inscription cast in bronze on the vessel commemorates a gift of cowrie shells (then used as currency in China) from someone of presumably elite status in Zhou Dynasty society. Right: Bronze fāngyí (方彝) ritual container dated about 1000 BC. A written inscription of some 180 Chinese characters appears twice on the vessel. The written inscription comments on state rituals that accompanied court ceremony, recorded by an official scribe.
Based on studies of these bronze inscriptions, it is clear that, from the Shang Dynasty writing to that of the Western Zhou and early Eastern Zhou, the mainstream script evolved in a slow, unbroken fashion, until assuming the form that is now known as seal script in the late Eastern Zhou in the state of Qin, without any clear line of division.[23][24] Meanwhile other scripts had evolved, especially in the eastern and southern areas during the late Zhou Dynasty, including regional forms, such as the guwen (“ancient forms”) of the eastern Warring States preserved in the Han Dynasty character dictionary Shuowen Jiezi as variant forms, as well as decorative forms such as bird and insect scripts.
[edit] Tags:Scripts,Seal Script,Ming,Chinese Bronze Inscriptions,Bamboo,Bronze Inscriptions, | |
| Unification: seal script, vulgar writing and proto-clerical | |
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Calligraphy
Arabic
Chinese
Georgian
Indian
Japanese
Korean
Kufic
Nepalese
Persian
Sini
Tibetan
Western
Seal script, which had evolved slowly in the state of Qin during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, became standardized and adopted as the formal script for all of China in the Qin Dynasty (leading to a popular misconception that it was invented at that time), and was still widely used for decorative engraving and seals (name chops, or signets) in the Han Dynasty period. However, despite the Qin script standardization, more than one script remained in use at the time. For example, a little-known, rectilinear and roughly executed kind of common (vulgar) writing had for centuries coexisted with the more formal seal script in the Qin state, and the popularity of this vulgar writing grew as the use of writing itself became more widespread.[25] By the Warring States period, an immature form of clerical script called “early clerical” or “proto-clerical” had already developed in the state of Qin[26] based upon this vulgar writing, and with influence from seal script as well.[27] The coexistence of the three scripts – small seal, vulgar and proto-clerical, with the latter evolving gradually in the Qin to early Han dynasties into clerical script – runs counter to the traditional belief that the Qin Dynasty had one script only, and that clerical script was suddenly invented in the early Han Dynasty from the small seal script.
[edit] Tags:Japanese,Korean,Small,Clerical Script, | |
| Proto-clerical evolving to clerical | |
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Proto-clerical script, which had emerged by the time of the Warring States period from vulgar Qin writing, matured gradually, and by the early Western Han period, it was little different from that of the Qin.[28] Recently-discovered bamboo slips show the script becoming mature clerical script by the middle-to-late reign of Emperor Wu of the Western Han,[29] who ruled from 141 BC to 87 BC.
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| Clerical and clerical cursive | |
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Contrary to the popular belief of there being only one script per period, there were in fact multiple scripts in use during the Han period.[30] Although mature clerical script, also called 八分 (bāfēn)[31] script, was dominant at that time, an early type of cursive script was also in use by the Han by at least as early as 24 BC (during the very late Western Han period),[32] incorporating cursive forms popular at the time, well as many elements from the vulgar writing of the Warring State of Qin.[33] By around the time of the Eastern Jin dynasty, this Han cursive became known as 章草 zhāngcǎo (also known as 隶草 / 隸草 lìcǎo today), or in English sometimes clerical cursive, ancient cursive, or draft cursive. Some believe that the name, based on 章 zhāng meaning "orderly", arose because the script was a more orderly form[34] of cursive than the modern form, which emerged during the Eastern Jin Dynasty and is still in use today, called 今草 jīncǎo or "modern cursive".[35]
[edit] Tags:Cursive Script, | |
| Neo-clerical | |
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Around the mid-Eastern Han period,[34] a simplified and easier-to-write form of clerical script appeared, which Qiú (2000, p. 113 & 139) terms "neo-clerical" (新隶体 / 新隸體, xīnlìtǐ). By the late Eastern Han, this had become the dominant daily script,[34] although the formal, mature bāfēn (八分) clerical script remained in use for formal works such as engraved stelae.[34] Qiú describes this neo-clerical script as a transition between clerical and regular script,[34] and it remained in use through the Cao Wei and Jin dynasties.[36]
[edit] Tags:Regular Script, | |
| Semi-cursive | |
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By the late Eastern Han period, an early form of semi-cursive script appeared,[37] developing out of a cursively-written form of neo-clerical script[38] and simple cursive.[39] This semi-cursive script was traditionally attributed to Liu Desheng ca. 147–188 AD,[36][40] although such attributions refer to early masters of a script rather than to their actual inventors, since the scripts generally evolved into being over time. Qiu gives examples of early semi-cursive script, showing that it had popular origins rather than being purely Liu’s invention.[41]
[edit] Tags:Semi-cursive Script, | |
| Written styles | |
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Sample of the cursive script by Chinese Tang Dynasty calligrapher Sun Guoting, c. 650 AD.
There are numerous styles, or scripts, in which Chinese characters can be written, deriving from various calligraphic and historical models. Most of these originated in China and are now common, with minor variations, in all countries where Chinese characters are used.
The Shang Dynasty oracle bone script and the Zhou Dynasty scripts found on Chinese bronze inscriptions are no longer used; the oldest script that is still in use today is the Seal Script (篆书 / 篆書, zhuànshū). It evolved organically out of the Spring and Autumn period Zhou script, and was adopted in a standardized form under the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. The seal script, as the name suggests, is now used only in artistic seals. Few people are still able to read it effortlessly today, although the art of carving a traditional seal in the script remains alive; some calligraphers also work in this style.
Scripts that are still used regularly are the "Clerical Script" (隶书 / 隸書, lìshū) of the Qin Dynasty to the Han Dynasty, the Weibei (魏碑, wèibēi), the "Regular Script" (楷书 / 楷書, kǎishū), which is used mostly for printing, and the "Semi-cursive Script" (行书 / 行書, xíngshū), used mostly for handwriting.
The cursive script (草书 / 草書, cǎoshū, literally "grass script") is used informally. The basic character shapes are suggested, rather than explicitly realized, and the abbreviations are sometimes extreme. Despite being cursive to the point where individual strokes are no longer differentiable and the characters often illegible to the untrained eye, this script (also known as draft) is highly revered for the beauty and freedom that it embodies. Some of the simplified Chinese characters adopted by the People's Republic of China, and some of the simplified characters used in Japan, are derived from the cursive script. The Japanese hiragana script is also derived from this script.
There also exist scripts created outside China, such as the Japanese Edomoji styles; these have tended to remain restricted to their countries of origin, rather than spreading to other countries like the Chinese scripts.
[edit] Tags:Simplified Chinese,Gan,Strokes,Idu, | |
| Regular script | |
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Regular script has been attributed to Zhong Yao, of the Eastern Han to Cao Wei period (ca. 151–230 AD), who has been called the “father of regular script”. However, some scholars[42] postulate that one person alone could not have developed a new script which was universally adopted, but could only have been a contributor to its gradual formation. The earliest surviving pieces written in regular script are copies of Yao's works, including at least one copied by Wang Xizhi. This new script, which is the dominant modern Chinese script, developed out of a neatly-written form of early semi-cursive, with addition of the pause (顿 / 頓, dùn) technique to end horizontal strokes, plus heavy tails on strokes which are written to the downward-right diagonal.[43] Thus, early regular script emerged from a neat, formal form of semi-cursive, which had itself emerged from neo-clerical (a simplified, convenient form of clerical script). It then matured further in the Eastern Jin Dynasty in the hands of the "Sage of Calligraphy", Wang Xizhi, and his son Wang Xianzhi. It was not, however, in widespread use at that time, and most writers continued using neo-clerical, or a somewhat semi-cursive form of it, for daily writing,[43] while the conservative bafen clerical script remained in use on some stelae, alongside some semi-cursive, but primarily neo-clerical.[44]
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| Modern cursive | |
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Meanwhile, modern cursive script slowly emerged out of the clerical cursive (zhāngcǎo) script during the Cao Wei to Jin period, under the influence of both semi-cursive and the newly emerged regular script.[45] Cursive was formalized in the hands of a few master calligraphers, the most famous and influential of which was Wang Xizhi.[46]
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| Dominance and maturation of regular script | |
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It was not until the Southern and Northern Dynasties that regular script rose to dominant status.[47] During that period, regular script continued evolving stylistically, reaching full maturity in the early Tang Dynasty. Some call the writing of the early Tang calligrapher Ouyang Xun (557–641) the first mature regular script. After this point, although developments in the art of calligraphy and in character simplification still lay ahead, there were no more major stages of evolution for the mainstream script.
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| Modern history | |
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Although most of the simplified Chinese characters in use today are the result of the works moderated by the government of the People's Republic of China in the 1950s and 60s, character simplification predates the republic's formation in 1949. One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lufei Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperiali Tags: | |
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