Oracle Bone Inscriptions → bronze inscription → seal script → official script → regular script → running script.

(Shang) (Zhou) (Qin) (Han) (Wei and Jin Dynasties) cursive script

The above seven fonts of "Jin Jia seal seal, Cao Li Xing Kai" are called "seven-body Chinese characters". The law is from complex to simple. Details are as follows.

There are two views on the development law of Chinese characters:

The first kind:

The development of Chinese characters also has three laws:

First, there is a tendency to simplify Chinese characters.

As an ideograph, the initial forms of Chinese characters are mostly quite complicated. In the course of thousands of years of use, Chinese characters have experienced a natural evolution from complexity to simplicity, and the simplification methods are: changing graphics into symbols; Delete redundant and duplicate radicals; Replace fonts with complex strokes with fonts with simple strokes; Intercept a part of the original word to replace the original word and so on. The font of Chinese characters has roughly experienced Oracle Bone Inscriptions-bronze inscription-seal script-official script-Weibei-regular script, and the auxiliary fonts are running script and cursive script.

Second, Chinese characters tend to be standardized.

In early Chinese characters, there were no certain rules, the position of radicals was not fixed, or left or right, or up or down, and the phenomenon of homophones was also quite serious. Chinese characters are simplified and standardized simultaneously. Standardization is mainly completed by the government, and the most important thing is the "Tongwen Lu" completed by Li Si, the prime minister of Qin Dynasty. Later, Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi, Xiping Book of Songs, Cao Wei's Zhengshi Book of Songs and Tang Dynasty's Kaicheng Book of Songs all played a great role in the standardization of Chinese characters.

Third, Chinese characters have the tendency of pictophonetic characters.

Chinese characters are ideographic characters. In Oracle Bone Inscriptions, pictophonetic characters are mainly pictophonetic characters and knowing characters, and the proportion of pictophonetic characters is only 20%. By Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi, pictophonetic characters have accounted for 80%. Today, the proportion of pictophonetic characters in Chinese characters is as high as 90%. It can be seen that the development of Chinese characters has a process of pictophonetic characters. Because the content of human language expression is very rich, some of it is pictographic and understandable, but fortunately, pictographic Chinese characters are hui characters, and pictophonetic words expressing new meanings are formed by homophones plus pictophonetic words expressing meanings. Because pictophonetic characters can be composed of a large number of single pictophonetic characters, they can easily express new meanings in the language and solve the problem of insufficient Chinese characters. But pictophonetic characters do not destroy the ideographic function of Chinese characters, because there are still half ideographic characters. As the saying goes, "a scholar can read half", which is the beauty of Chinese characters.

The characteristics and laws of Chinese characters fully reflect the inspiration and wisdom of the ancient people in China, especially the people in the Central Plains, and also show that Chinese characters are an ancient and often new writing that keeps pace with the times and can meet the requirements of modernization.

The second type:

There are four laws in the development of Chinese characters:

1, stroke line

Stroke: There is a shaping process. From Oracle Bone Inscriptions to the ancient writing stage of seal script, strokes gradually formed straight strokes and round strokes. After Li, a regular script stroke system with symmetrical strokes and unified lines was gradually formed.

2. Symbolization of glyphs

In the history of Chinese characters, there used to be the saying of "six books", which linked the form and meaning of Chinese characters to facilitate the analysis and understanding of the sound and meaning of Chinese characters. This method does not regard Chinese characters as symbols, but as graphic combinations to express meaning. Every ingredient has its source and rationality. Through analysis, we can find out the ins and outs of the evolution of glyphs, so as to find the basis of meaning.

With the development and evolution of Chinese characters, this rationality is gradually destroyed and lost. The biggest evolution of font system is the "official change" from seal script to official script.

"Li Bian" fundamentally broke the motivation of ancient Chinese characters. Modern Chinese characters, especially simplified modern Chinese characters, have completely broken the weak power inherited from regular script, that is, the symbol system of Chinese characters has been completely symbolized.

3. Structural standardization

After a long period of development and evolution, Chinese characters have gradually changed from nonstandard to neat and standardized, with the same size and beautiful shape.

This specification was formed in the long-term historical practice since the invention of printing. After liberation, through the arrangement of glyphs, the old Song style was changed and the structural system of modern Chinese characters was determined. The dot matrix font technology of Chinese characters used in Chinese information processing and the formulation and implementation of corresponding national standards have spread the standardized structure of Chinese characters to thousands of households and all over the world through the popularization of computer laser phototypesetting technology.

4. Standardization of word set

Standardization is a new feature of Chinese characters brought by the information revolution. Due to the application and development of computer Chinese information processing technology, the standardization of Chinese characters' form, sound, meaning and use has been promoted. The most important thing is the standardization of character set.

More importantly, the basic Chinese character coded character set is used for information processing and exchange. Related to it are the list of commonly used Chinese characters in modern Chinese, the list of commonly used Chinese characters in modern Chinese and the list of commonly used Chinese characters in printing.