Analysis:

fxzx . FP/JDC/yanjiuxing/chengguojijin/zhuan Ji-6/zhuan Ji-6-07 . doc

The Development and Evolution of Chinese Characters/Bauhinia in China

Writing is a tool used by human beings to record language and express feelings. China had written in the era of the Yellow Emperor. The appearance of Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin Ruins strongly supports and proves this view. Therefore, China characters have a history of at least five thousand years.

Before writing, the tools used by human beings to express their feelings and help them remember were expressions, knots and language. However, the complex and precise thoughts of human beings can never be fully expressed by expressions and knots, and language is also limited by time and space, so there are words.

It is said that a long time ago, there was an old man with a strange appearance. His brow bone is raised, but there are four eyes below. Every eye is bright. Look straight ahead. He can draw many graphic symbols, which represent different meanings. He concentrated on painting and worked hard until late at night, when suddenly there was a loud noise and heavy rain.

He is Cang Xie, the legendary "God of words". Jing Xun, the son of Huainan, records: "In the past, when Cang Xie wrote a book, it rained, and ghosts cried at night. It describes the magical power of words, and human intelligence will advance by leaps and bounds because of "words", which makes the ghosts and gods who have been in control of human beings daunting, thus producing this spectacle.

Later, people in China generally respected writing, even the paper with words did not dare to destroy or discard it at will, and the literate scholar-officials were also respected by the public. In ancient times, many officials who managed documents in the government collectively offered sacrifices to Cang Xie every autumn, honoring him as the "God of Writing". Its origin is also a legend in Cang Xie, which is why later generations say that Cang Xie first created writing.

However, the writing system is huge, and it is by no means that one person can create words at one time. According to historical records, the Yellow Emperor is the era of the origin of Chinese civilization, and Cang Xie is the legendary historian of the Yellow Emperor. In fact, before Cang Xie, various tribes had many ideographic symbols, but they were inconsistent. Cang Xie unified them. Therefore, people put all the credit for the initial writing on him.

Although the written language in China has a history of 5,000 years, the early written language is no longer visible. So far, the earliest known writing is Oracle Bone Inscriptions unearthed from Yin Ruins in Shang Dynasty. After that, it is roughly bronze inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, seal script, official script, cursive script, regular script and running script.

Bronze inscriptions are inscriptions cast on bronzes. According to archaeological data, China entered the Bronze Age in the Xia Dynasty. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. Among the unearthed bronzes, many are engraved with words. Because bronzes were also called "gold" before the Zhou Dynasty, the inscriptions on bronzes were called "bronze inscriptions". It is also called "Zhong Dingwen" because Zhong Ding has the largest number of words.

Wen Shu, also known as Da Zhuan, is regarded by most experts and scholars as the Qin language at the end of the Warring States Period. Symmetrical strokes and neat fonts also indicate that it is the official standard writing.

Originally, "Zhuan" was the combined name of Dazhuan and Xiaozhuan. Because it was customary to call Zhuan Shu as Dazhuan, later generations used "Wen Zhuan" to refer to Xiaozhuan. Before the Warring States Period, after Qin Shihuang unified China, the first thing he did was to unify the characters, and Prime Minister Li Si presided over this work. He abolished all kinds of glyphs different from Qin in six countries, simplified and revised the characters of Qin, and absorbed folk fonts to standardize them, forming a new official font "Xiao Zhuan".

The neat rectangular seal script is composed of even and round lines, which is inconvenient to write. As a result, a new scrawled font soon appeared among the people, which destroyed the dignity and neatness of Xiao Zhuan and turned the rounded and curved lines into glyphs with square folds. It is said that this new font is popular among petty officials and official (soap) slaves at the lower level, so it is called "official script".

The "cursive script" in philology is a specific font, which originated from the folk official script. In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, we can see that some words were written by Lian Bi, and in the late Western Han Dynasty, cursive fonts appeared. After entering the Eastern Han Dynasty, these cursive scripts, which were popular among the people, had a more regular and strict shape after being processed by literati and calligraphers. The cursive script is not only connected with strokes and characters, but also highly simplified in shape. Later, a variation of cursive script appeared, called "Crazy Grass". The shape of Chinese characters is too simplistic and random, so it is difficult for ordinary people to recognize them, so they gradually lose their practical value and can only be appreciated as calligraphy art.

Regular script is also directly born out of official script, which turns the plane shape of official script into a square. People often say that Chinese characters are "square characters", which are aimed at regular script. Regular script experienced many changes throughout the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and was basically mature in Sui and Tang Dynasties. As one of the four great inventions in China, printing uses regular script as the main font for printing books. In the Song Dynasty, regular script was refined, and the writing was more regular and beautiful, so it was called "Song Style Character". Later, some people imitated Song Ci and changed it, which was called "imitation of Song Dynasty".

Running script is a font between regular script and cursive script. It is not as neat as regular script, nor as unrestrained as cursive script. Because running script is more casual than regular script, it can be written quickly and is not as difficult to understand as cursive script, so it is loved by people. If you write it correctly, it is called "running block letters"; If you are close to cursive script and write a little indulgently, it is called "cursive script". Wang Xizhi, a great calligrapher in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, is known as the "sage of books". He created a large number of running script works, which were treasured and cherished by later generations for a long time.

Among many calligraphy styles, running script has the most changes and the most inconsistent writing style, but it is also the easiest to identify, convenient and lively, which is not only practical, but also a multiple display of art forms. So it is still the most popular and widely used font until now.

Reference book:

Chinese characters in China, written by National Open University, by Lu Guoping and Huang Fushan.