1, the emergence of Oracle Bone Inscriptions.
Chinese characters are the most commonly used characters in China, and there are many magical legends about their evolution and development. For example, the beautiful legend of Cang Xie's creation of Chinese characters, according to the research of relevant scholars, originated from graphics, and the formation of Chinese characters takes a long time.
Oracle Bone Inscriptions in the Yin and Shang Dynasties reflected this point. Oracle Bone Inscriptions is a writing carved on animal bones or tortoise bones, also known as Yin Ruins, which can be said to be the oldest writing in China. Our investigation found that there are many figures in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, such as pictographs, and Oracle Bone Inscriptions drew an elephant. Judging from the characteristics of writing, Oracle Bone Inscriptions retains the color of painting, but does not lose the freehand brushwork consciousness of sketch.
Some experts have studied the contents of Oracle bone inscriptions and found that most of them are "Oracle Bone Inscriptions" and a few are "memorabilia", because people used the lines on the burnt Oracle bone inscriptions to judge the fate of the event. The time, name, events, results and subsequent verification after divination are all engraved on it, forming a text with obvious characteristics.
Why should Oracle Bone Inscriptions be carved on Oracle bones or animal bones? After investigation and discussion, our group and tutor came to two conclusions: the first Oracle bone can be preserved for a long time, and the second Oracle bone is easy to obtain.
The words on Oracle bones are carved with a knife, and so are bamboo books and ink books. Knife carved Oracle Bone Inscriptions filled with cinnabar, and the characters are different from today, which is difficult to identify. Four or five thousand Oracle Bone Inscriptions have been discovered. Through the analysis and judgment of writers and archaeologists, there are nearly two thousand pieces that can be identified. These Oracle Bone Inscriptions are hieroglyphics evolved from books and characters. Many characters have complex strokes, close to images and many variant characters. This shows that China's writing was not unified in the Yin and Shang Dynasties.
Oracle Bone Inscriptions's appearance marks that China has entered a civilized era. It records important historical events in the Yin and Shang Dynasties and plays an important role in people's understanding of history. It is regarded as the earliest empty script in China. Although it is difficult to identify and write, the pace of history will not stop, and it will always move towards an advanced road. In the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, there appeared a more advanced script than Oracle Bone Inscriptions-bronze inscription.
2. Jinwen
Bronze inscriptions, also known as Zhong Dingwen. Because most bronzes are memorable, sculptors are also very careful. Compared with Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscriptions are a kind of decorative body. Bronze inscriptions are long and complete, ranging from numbers to hundreds of words. For example, in the early Western Zhou Dynasty, there were 29 1 records in Dading. At present, Mao Dinggong in the Western Zhou Dynasty has the largest number of words, with 500 words, followed by Wang Ding in Zhongshan, Pingshan County, Hebei Province during the Warring States Period, with 469 words.
The words written by the sculptor on the bronze tripod or bell are mainly used to record political events such as wars, covenants, regulations, ceremonies, awards and appointments. Early bronze inscriptions were engraved with names, posthumous title, clans and artifacts.
The characters on Zhong Ding bronzes are engraved and cast, but most of them are cast. From the perspective of technology, casting is more complicated and more difficult than carving. Therefore, the appearance of bronze inscriptions is a leap in the development history of handicraft carving technology. The use of bronze inscriptions is wider than that of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, which has played an important role in promoting the development of China's cultural undertakings.
China experienced a long evolution and development from the Neolithic color kiln characters in banpo village, to Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty and Western Zhou Dynasty, and to the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period. However, due to the long-term separatist regime, melee and unstable order, and the lack of character management, there are great differences in the characters of various vassal States, which not only hinders the implementation of Qin decrees, but also is not conducive to economic and cultural exchanges and development.
Therefore, after the Qin Dynasty unified the whole country, Prime Minister Li Si and others put forward a proposal to Qin Shihuang, and Qin Shihuang accepted the proposal and ordered the whole country to ban the scripts left by the vassal states, all of which took Qin Zhuan as the unified script.
3. Xiao zhuan
Qin Zhuan, also known as Xiao Zhuan, was created by Li Si, Zhao Gao and Hu Wujing, prime ministers of Qin Dynasty. They have compiled three books, Cang Xie, Ji Li and erudite, as models for promoting Qin Zhuan.
When it comes to Xiaozhuan, we must mention Dazhuan, which is relative to Xiaozhuan. Da Zhuan was created by Zhou royal historians. After studying the ancient Chinese fonts, he created a convenient font, which was named after Fifteen Great Seal Characters.
Qin Shihuang not only used Xiao Zhuan as the font to unify the national characters, but also used a more convenient and simple character-Lishu. But seal script is used to write some important and solemn letters, and official script is the style of general official documents.
4. Official script
Lishu, also known as Zuo Shu, Fenshu and Bafen, was popular in the Han Dynasty, so it was also called Han Li. It evolved from a round stroke of seal script to a square stroke, and the shape changed from slender to square, tightening up and down, stretching left and right, and changing from slow to short, thus showing a lively and diverse atmosphere, which brought great convenience to writers.
Lishu is divided into Qin Lishu and Han Li. Qin Li refers to the official script from the Warring States, Qin Dynasty to the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, also known as Guli. There are different opinions about the origin of ancient plum. According to the information found so far, Li Qin was born in the Warring States period. Judging from the early official script signs on the "wooden slips" unearthed in Qingchuan County, Sichuan Province in the second year of the Warring States Period (309 BC), the complicated strokes of Da Zhuan were damaged, and the shape of the characters changed from rectangular to square or oblate. Although its structure still smells like seal script, the embryonic form of official script has appeared. By the end of the Warring States period, this prototype official script had been widely used. Judging from the Qin bamboo slips unearthed in Yunmeng Shuihudi, Hubei Province in the fifty-first year of Qin Dynasty (256 BC), this kind of font similar to seal script and official script gradually reflects the simplicity and clarity of the font and the lively and standardized lines. The long process from seal script to official script can be seen in a large number of unearthed wooden slips, bamboo slips and silk books from the Warring States to the Qin Dynasty. After Qin Shihuang unified China in 22 1 BC, he took a series of new measures to promote the rule, one of which was Shu. Li Si, the prime minister of Qin Dynasty, and Zhao Gao, the secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, sorted out the characters of the Warring States Period and unified the official script-Xiao Zhuan, which was popular all over the country. Compared with the previous characters, Xiao Zhuan has made great progress in terms of lines, structures and glyphs. However, the writing method is still long and round, and it does not completely get rid of the pictographic meaning, so the writing speed is slow. At that time, there were many prisons, and there were frequent exchanges between military and political documents and official documents, so it was often necessary to copy a large number of official documents, which became an urgent requirement for the reform of writing at that time. As a convenient writing method, official script was widely popular among the lower classes. Wei Heng's "Four-body Calligraphy" said: "Since the Qin Dynasty used seal script, many things have been played, and seal script is difficult to achieve. Even if someone is invited to write a book, it is called official script. The scribe is also the winner of the seal. " This is the evidence. Let's not study who is the inventor of official script for the time being, because the generation of a font can never be created by an individual, nor can it be completed in one period. It is gradually formed with the progress and actual needs.
Judging from the development history of Chinese characters for thousands of years, if hieroglyphics to Qin Xiaozhuan are classified as ancient characters, then we classify official scripts and regular scripts that have been used to this day as modern characters. Therefore, official script inherits the rules of seal script, opens the foundation of regular script, and occupies a very important position in the development history of Chinese characters and calligraphy. Its appearance is an extremely important turning point in terms of practicality and artistry, and it is a major change in the evolution of Chinese characters. Because the system in the early Western Han Dynasty inherited the Qin system, writing is no exception, so there is not much difference between the official script in the early Western Han Dynasty and the official script in the Qin Dynasty. It not only has the characteristics of calligraphy in the Qin Dynasty, but also laid the foundation for the formation of official script in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and played a role in connecting the past with the future. From the analysis of Mawangdui silk book in Changsha and Juyan bamboo slips in the Western Han Dynasty, the strokes are simplified, the flavor of seal script is reduced, and the fonts tend to be balanced. However, the ups and downs of strokes, lines and structures are more obvious than the official script of Qin Dynasty. Relatively speaking, it reveals the innocence and simplicity of the writer, but the calligraphy skills are not mature enough, so it is not a typical official script.
From the middle of the Western Han Dynasty to the Eastern Han Dynasty, the official script gradually improved, especially in the Eastern Han Dynasty, because the ruling class adopted some wise policies, the whole economy prospered, and so did culture and art. A large number of excellent inscriptions with exquisite skills and distinctive styles appeared, and the official script developed into a formal, artistic and highly aesthetic style.
Han Li, as we usually say, mainly refers to the official script on the tablet in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Their characteristics are richer brushwork, echoing the pitch of stippling, ups and downs of brushwork, twists and turns of brushwork, heavy turbidity, light clarity and unevenness of silkworm head and goose tail structure, which is amazing. Various styles, complete statutes, healthy, handsome, chic, elegant, simple, or rigorous, such as bright stars, have reached the peak of art, and the inscriptions in the Eastern Han Dynasty, such as Yiling Monument, Ode to Shimen, Book of Rites Monument, Confucius Temple Monument, Huashan Monument, Han Dynasty, etc., are all mature.
After Wei and Jin Dynasties, calligraphy mainly consisted of cursive script, running script and regular script. Many calligraphers mainly spend their energy on regular script, running script and cursive script, but official script has not been abandoned. At this time, official script was gradually mixed with regular script, which lost the simplicity and delicacy of Han Li and tended to be neat and inflexible, so did the final regular script. In Qing dynasty, official script was acquired in the wave of the revival of stele study. Such as Gui Fu, Deng, Yi Bingshou, Zhao, how. Gui Fu and others, in particular, were pioneers in advocating, learning and inheriting Han steles, and made innovations on the basis of inheritance, which became one of the mainstream and hot spots of calligraphy art in Qing Dynasty. Especially in the past hundred years, archaeologists in China have unearthed a large number of original calligraphy works of wooden slips, bamboo slips and silk books from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period to the Han Dynasty, which has enabled us to witness the ancient brushwork and provided first-hand information for studying ancient statutes and learning ancient calligraphy techniques.
5. Regular script
After bronze inscriptions, regular script is a more advanced large font. After our investigation and data search, we summarized the following contents.
Regular script is also called official script, or real book. Song Xuanhe's Book Score: "Wang Cizhong began to use official script as regular script in the early Han Dynasty", and thought that regular script evolved from official script. It is said: "On the tomb of Confucius, a regular script tree planted by Zi Gongzhi has straight and unyielding branches." The strokes of regular script are concise and refreshing, and they must be like branches of regular script.
There were few early official scripts, with a slightly wider structure, long horizontal painting and short straight painting. Wei Jinzhong, handed down from generation to generation, such as Zhong You's Declaration Form, Ji Zhi Table, Wang Xizhi's Theory of Music and Huang Tingjing, 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 book in the north is strong, and the book in the south is rich, each of which is wonderful and inseparable. Bao and Kang Youwei, on the other hand, highly praised the books of the two dynasties, especially The Monument to the Northern Wei Dynasty, and Kang cited ten beauties to emphasize the advantages of Wei Bei.
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 regarded his regular script works as models of calligraphy. In ancient times, there was a saying: "Learning calligraphy must start with the pattern, and writing must start with the big characters. Chinese characters are based on face, Chinese characters are based on Europe, Chinese characters are ripe, and then they are gathered into small characters, taking Zhong Wang as the method. " However, according to the results of many years of experimental research, it is not appropriate for beginners to learn too big words first, but it is more suitable for Chinese letters.
The regular script of Ou Yangxun, Yu Shinan and Chu Suiliang, three great calligraphers in the early Tang Dynasty, is the most suitable model for copying Chinese characters. The brief introduction is as follows: regular script originated from ancient Li, based on the style of two kings and the style of Northern School in the Six Dynasties. Their unique structure, originality, special authority and far-reaching influence are the standard books for learning books. Investigating the characteristics of regular script, the pen is strong and powerful, the strokes are neat and tidy, and the structure is cheerful and healthy. His representative works of regular script inscriptions include "Jiuchenggong Liquan Ming" and "Huadu Temple Monument". Yu Shinan's regular script, elegant and smart, inherited the legacy of the wise and brave Zen master, and was a clique of the Wang school. Although it originated in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, its softness on the outside and rigidity on the inside swept away the cowardice of the book style in the Wei and Jin Dynasties. His masterpiece in regular script is Confucius Temple Monument. Chu Suiliang's regular script is famous for its sparseness and strength. Although he is the ancestor of the right army, he can win its charm. Its font structure seems very bold and unrestrained, but it can skillfully reconcile the quiet style and create an unprecedented situation. His masterpiece in regular script is Preface to the Sermon of Yanta.
Lower case, as the name implies, is the lower case in regular script, which was founded by Zhong Yao in the Wei Dynasty of the Three Kingdoms. He is the most outstanding authoritative official script master, and his regular script style is also born out of Han Li, and his brushwork is very vivid. However, the structure is wide and flat, the horizontal painting is long and the vertical painting is short, and the legacy of official division still exists. However, the model method is ready, and it is actually the ancestor of the official book. When Wang Xizhi came to the Eastern Jin Dynasty, he studied the lower case calligraphy more carefully and perfected it, which also laid a good appreciation standard for the lower case calligraphy in China. Generally speaking, writing small characters is very different from writing big characters. In principle, writing big characters should be close and seamless, and writing small characters should be more spacious. In other words: writing big characters should be as accurate as writing small characters; Writing small characters is as cramped as writing big characters, so the ancients said, "Writing big characters should be like small characters, and writing small characters should be like big characters." In Su Dongpo's prose, there is a saying that "the big characters are hard to be seamless, and the small characters are hard to be generous". How do you say these words? Because when we usually write big characters, we think that our position (area) is very wide and we can write freely. As a result, the fonts become loose and empty. Writing small print is just the opposite, because the space is too small, and it is inevitable that you will try your best to shrink it if you are worried that you can't write it. It tends to curl. This is a natural psychological phenomenon, which is easy to break. Therefore, the CPSU's statement that "there are great difficulties and minor difficulties" is based on this statement and is based on experience.
There is not much difference between the center of gravity of writing fine print and the coordination of strokes. As for the pen, it is slightly different. Small print should be round, beautiful, straight and neat; Big characters should be magnificent and heavy. Use the back front (hidden front) to write big characters and the back front to receive pens; You don't have to use sharp edges to write fine print, but use sharp edges to collect pens. For example, when writing a horizontal line, the pen is pointed or pointed, and the pen is round; Write vertically, start or pause, and receive the pen sharply; Skimming the pen to make it fat: hold the pen to make it fat, and at the same time bend slightly from left to right, with vivid and emotional strokes; Point should be sharp and round, pick should be sharp and sharp, bend inside and outside, and hook should be half bent and half straight. The pen is flexible and limitless. In particular, the whole word should be written in different strokes, but in harmony. A line of words is patchwork, but it has always come down in one continuous line. If there is, it will naturally run through and look like a pearl necklace.
The font is close to the Chinese font we use here. Regular script and official script are still used by many people, just to learn calligraphy or write. Now the font can't be simplified basically, because the Chinese characters are very concise now, so we can know from the above that the development of Chinese characters has influenced many aspects of ancient China, so we should think about the influence of Chinese characters on other regions. After investigation, the following conclusions are drawn.
The influence of Chinese characters on neighboring countries
Chinese characters have a great influence not only on our own country, but also on neighboring countries.
The influence of 1. on Japanese characters
Although the Japanese nation has an ancient culture, it is quite late to create its own characters. For a long time, Japan has used Chinese characters as a carrier to spread ideas and express 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, the Japanese pronunciation marked with Chinese characters was relatively fixed, and its marker was the editor of Ye Wan Collection, so it was called "Ye Wan's pen name", which was the basis of pure Japanese phonetic notation.
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. After Silla was unified, it improved slightly. At that time, Xue Cong once created "historical reading", which used Chinese characters to represent Korean auxiliary words and verbs to assist reading chinese books. Finally, because of different languages, it cannot be popularized.
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 wasn't until the 3rd century A.D./KLOC-that Vietnam had its own word "Nan". Zinan is a new word based on Chinese characters, which expresses Vietnamese pronunciation by pictophonetic characters, loanwords and literacy. /kloc-in the 0/5th century, southern characters spread all over the country, completely replacing Chinese characters.
abstract
Chinese characters are one of the great inventions of Han ancestors. China entered the era of civilization thousands of years ago, and the invention of Chinese characters undoubtedly played a great role in promoting it.
First of all, Chinese characters record the splendid cultural and scientific achievements of the Chinese nation. The Chinese nation is a nation with a long history and a proud ancient civilization. The ancient culture is splendid and has long been leading in science and technology. Many great inventions are of vital importance to mankind. They are mainly handed down through the records of Chinese characters, inherited and developed, and spread widely in the international scope, becoming the wealth of us and even all mankind.
Secondly, Chinese characters are the communication between ancient and modern times, creating favorable conditions for people in different dialect areas. Chinese characters have recorded Chinese for decades. Although ancient and modern languages sound * * *, Chinese characters remain ideographic and the fonts are relatively stable because they are not bound by pronunciation. Therefore, the ancient books and works of the Han Dynasty and even the pre-Qin period can still be recognized, so that our cultural and historical traditions have not been interrupted.
Third, Chinese characters also play an active and beneficial role in safeguarding national unity and promoting national unity.
Fourthly, Chinese characters have a positive influence on Chinese in the process of recording Chinese history.
Fifth, Chinese characters have also made important contributions to the development of the surrounding ethnic cultures, and played a role in the formation of a supraethnic and regional Chinese character cultural circle. Historically, many brotherly peoples in Korea, Viet Nam, Japan and China used Chinese characters to record their national languages or create their characters.
Sixth, Chinese characters will serve our lives for a long time, and the current Chinese characters, as the legal language of our country, will play an important role for a long time. It is certain that Chinese characters will play a more full role in real life on the basis of effective arrangement and standardization. The technological breakthrough of computer Chinese character output embodies the bright future of Chinese characters.