Chinese civilization is a unique civilization, and its writing is also unique. Of all the countries in the world, only China has an uninterrupted cultural heritage because of its strong inclusiveness and assimilation, which makes Chinese characters a rare uninterrupted writing form in the world. Oracle Bone Inscriptions appeared in the late Shang Dynasty, about14th century BC, and is generally regarded as the first form of Chinese characters. It has a history of 3000 to 4000 years. Later, various fonts such as comprehensive art, whole block, floating clouds and variant characters were born one after another, and the prosperity of Chinese culture was presented to the world, which was also the inevitable result of the development of Chinese characters.

Before Shang dynasty

Since ancient times, China has said that "calligraphy and painting are of the same origin", because the earliest source of words is pictures, and calligraphy and painting are brothers, born from the same root, and have many internal relations. The origin of Chinese characters is the original painting, and primitive people express themselves in the form of "painting" in their lives. Slowly changed from the original picture to "ideographic symbol"

Jia Hu prints

More than 8,000 years ago, a batch of prints (9,000-7,800 years ago) were unearthed at Jiahu Site in Wuyang, Henan Province, which were called Jia Hu prints. Some scholars think it's just lettering, while others think it's writing. Tsung i Jao, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, made an in-depth study of Jia Hu's inscriptions, and put forward that "Jia Hu's inscriptions provide brand-new information for the key issue of the origin of Chinese characters". Ge, an archaeologist in the history department of Peking University, also thinks that "these symbols should be a kind of writing".

The article The Earliest Use of Characters and Symbols in 7000 BC in China, Henan and Jia Hu, co-authored by Zhang Zhongzhu and Professor Li Xueqin, was published in the British magazine Ancient, which attracted the attention of some domestic and foreign media, and interested foreign scholars also discussed it on the website of Science. An Analysis of Cai and Zhang Juzhong's The Brilliant Dawn of Chinese Civilization —— Also on the hexagram characters discovered by Jia Hu Wuyang: In Jia Hu's text of 2 11,the confirmed word1belongs to the hexagram characters, which respectively reflect the images of Ber Ber and Kun in Yi Studies.

Shuangdun sculpture

More than 7000 years ago, more than 630 carved symbols were found in the Shuangdun site in Bengbu, which were rich and diverse. As far as the cultural remains of the same period at home and abroad are concerned, it is very rare and amazing. The types and richness of symbols are unmatched by other sites in the same period. The function of double pier lettering can be divided into three categories: ideographic, stamping and counting. From October 24th to 25th, 2009 10, more than 30 famous experts and scholars at home and abroad gathered in Bengbu to discuss "the sculpture symbols of Shuangdun site in Bengbu and the origin of early civilization". Many experts attending the meeting agreed that the engraving of Shuangdun reflected the way of life of the early ancestors of Shuangdun, and had the nature of the original characters, which was one of the sources of Chinese characters.

Banpo pottery symbol

Six thousand years ago, there were twenty or thirty kinds of carved symbols on the edge of the pottery jar mouth belonging to the Banpo site of Yangshao culture, that is, Banpo pottery symbols, which were considered as "some simple characters produced in the origin stage of characters", and some of them were numbers.

Qingdun engraving

Qingdun site in Jiangsu belongs to Liangzhu culture in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, with digital inscriptions dating back 5,000 years.

Qiao Zhuang Tombstone Sculpture

The inscriptions on the tomb site in Qiao Zhuang, Zhejiang Province, which belongs to Liangzhu culture in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, were connected into sentences 5,000 years ago.

Bone carving paper

Oracle Bone Inscriptions refers to the symbols carved on animal bones-hieroglyphics or graphic characters, which are found in Shandong (Chifeng, Guanzhong and other places) and are the earliest recognizable characters in China. In 2005, Professor Fengjun Liu, a famous archaeologist and director of the Institute of Fine Arts and Archaeology of Shandong University, discovered and named it "Bone Carving", and determined that the carving tool was agate and other acute-angle gems, which were formed between 2600 BC and 1300 BC and were popular characters in Longshan culture period. Since the end of 20 10, Ding Zaixian, a famous scholar and full-time vice president of Shandong Tourism Industry Association, has successfully deciphered Oracle bone inscriptions systematically, and comprehensively discussed the inheritance relationship between Oracle bone inscriptions and modern Chinese characters from the aspects of the source and structure of characters.

Taosi Zhu Wen

According to radiocarbon dating and correction, the age of Taosi site in Xiangfen County, Shanxi Province is about 2500 BC ~ 65438 BC+0900 BC. 1984, archaeologists found a fragment of a flat pot at Taosi site. The stubble around the debris was painted red, and there were two big characters on the debris, one of which was "Wen" and the other was interpreted by experts in many ways. Zhu Naicheng, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and director of the Information Center, said that Zhu Wenshu was earlier than Oracle Bone Inscriptions 1500 years [4]. Su Zeng, an archaeologist, commented: "Taosi culture not only reached a higher stage of the" national party "era than Hongshan Culture's later society, but also established its central position at that time, which was equivalent to the Yao and Shun era in ancient history, that is, the earliest" China "in the pre-Qin historical records, which laid the foundation for China." Yicheng County, located in the southeast of Xiangfen County, is a descendant of the legendary Tang Tao Tang Yao.

Shui Shu in Xia dynasty

There are 24 water characters on the pottery unearthed from Erlitouxia site in Yanshi, Luoyang City, Henan Province.

Yin and Shang dynasties

About BC14th century, late Yin and Shang dynasties. "Ideographic symbol" evolved into a relatively stereotyped "Oracle Bone Inscriptions". This is considered to be the first form of Chinese characters. The characters carved on the tortoise shell of animal bones and found in Yin ruins are considered as the direct ancestors of "modern Chinese characters", which can prove the continuation of Chinese civilization. For thousands of years, Middle Easterners have been unable to read the hieroglyphics of their ancestors. Only modern people in China can understand some "Oracle Bone Inscriptions" in Shang Dynasty. The words on these tortoise shells were originally used to predict good luck or bad luck. Ancient people thought that if some problems about diseases, dreams, hunting, weather, etc. were carved on tortoise shells, and then tortoise shells and animal bones were burned, then the cracks could be judged by fortune tellers according to the shapes and directions of these cracks. This is the ancestor of the modern Chinese character "Oracle Bone Inscriptions". Up to now, there are more than 5,000 species of "Oracle Bone Inscriptions". And there are more than 1000 kinds that can be interpreted.

Western Zhou Dynasty

Due to the extensive use of bronzes, the words engraved on bronze bells and stone drums are "bronze inscriptions". Also known as Zhong Dingwen and Shi Guwen. Legend has it that it was written by Taishi Gong of Zhou Xuanwang. Up to now, the Palace Museum has ten Zhou Dynasty stone drums engraved with ten four-character poems. Because the feudal regime was fragmented, the words were different. Until the Qin dynasty. Qin Shihuang unified China. To unify the text.

Qin dynasty

Qin Shihuang unified writing and measurement. His outstanding achievement was Li Si, the prime minister at that time. Li Si collected and sorted out the characters at that time, and then simplified and beautified them. The unified characters were called Xiao Zhuan, also known as Qin Zhuan. At this time, there are almost no hieroglyphs in the text.

The writing of Xiao Zhuan in Qin Dynasty was too standard and slow, so many simple fonts appeared among the people. This font is characterized by changing the circle of "Xiao Zhuan" into a square. The tune of Xiao Zhuan was straightened and some radicals were separated, which was called Qin Li.

Han Dynasty

Official script is very popular, basically square, but Han Li has given full play to the role of a brush, with the twists and turns of "silkworm head and goose tail", which is easy to write. This kind of official script was popular in the Western Han Dynasty. Call it "Han Li".

When Han Li was popular in the Han Dynasty, regular script was still in its infancy. It was very popular in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi in Jin Dynasty were the real founders of regular script, and at the same time they absorbed the round strokes of seal script, kept the straightness of official script, removed the "dovetail" and basically fixed the structure of Chinese characters. At that time, it was called "true calligraphy", and later generations renamed it "orthodox calligraphy" because it was used as a model for learning calligraphy.