Modern Chinese characters refer to capitalized Chinese characters, including traditional characters and simplified characters. Modern Chinese characters have developed from Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, calligraphy and seal script to official script, cursive script, regular script and running script. Chinese characters were invented and improved by Han ancestors, which is an indispensable link to maintain the Han dialect area. The earliest existing Chinese characters are Oracle Bone Inscriptions of Shang Dynasty and later inscriptions on bronze in about 1300 BC, which evolved into seal script in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and then to seal script and official script in the Qin Dynasty, until the official script prevailed in the Han and Wei Dynasties, and the official script was changed to regular script at the end of the Han Dynasty. Regular script prevailed in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and it is still popular today.
Chinese characters have been used for the longest time so far, and they are also the only ones in various ghost writing systems in ancient times. Chinese characters have always been the main official language in China. In ancient times, Chinese characters were also used as the only international communication language in East Asia. Before the 20th century, they were the official written standard characters of Japan, Korean Peninsula, Vietnam, Ryukyu and other countries, and all East Asian countries created their own Chinese characters to some extent. In the non-Chinese character system, Japan has formulated a list of commonly used Chinese characters, and South Korea has also formulated basic Chinese characters for education, while countries that used Chinese characters in history, such as Vietnam, North Korea and Mongolia, have now abandoned Chinese characters.
The origin of Chinese characters
Origin theory of Chinese characters
From the ancient legend of Cangjie word-making to the discovery of Oracle Bone Inscriptions more than 1000 years ago, China scholars have been trying to uncover the mystery of the origin of Chinese characters. There are always different opinions about the origin of Chinese characters, among which the most influential ones are: knot rope theory, gossip theory, seal cutting theory, Cangjie word-making theory, description theory and picture theory.
Conclusion: Before writing came into being, the ancients remembered and recognized things by tying knots, which played a role in helping people remember. The Book of Changes under Cohesion: "After the ancient times, the sages changed it into a book contract, and all officials ruled it, and all the people kept it." Zheng Xuan in the Han Dynasty noted: "Knotting rope is a promise, a big event and a big knot; It's all small things, sum up the rope. " The article "Zhuangzi Guilou" said: "In the past, Rong Cheng, Da Ting, Bo Huang, Zhong You, Lu Li, Xu Li, Xuan Yuan, Xushi He, Zunlu, Zhu Rong, Fu Xishi and Shennong were allowed to use them when necessary." Another example is the Book of Changes, which quotes JUNG WOO's Jiu Jia Yi: "The ancients were silent, but they swore, and the big things tied their ropes, and the small things summarized their ropes. The number of knots depends on the number of things; " It is enough to treat each other with the same test. "After the Eastern Han Dynasty, many people attached the origin of Chinese characters to knots.
Gossip theory: There are different views on the origin of gossip, such as description theory, astrology theory, number theory and "Hai" theory. The Book of Changes said: "The ancients respected the king of the world, looked up at the sky and the earth, observed the culture of birds and beasts and the suitability of the earth, and took all things near and far, so they started gossip to communicate the virtues of the gods and the feelings of all things." The eight diagrams mentioned in this passage originated from Yong Jia's description of the natural and objective world, which is similar to the origin of Chinese characters "pictographs are written according to categories". In the preface of Kong Anguo's History Book (a fake, but ancient), he said: "The ancients loved the king of Xi family in the world, and began to draw gossip and make books to replace the politics of tying ropes, so they were born out of literary books." Compare the functions of gossip and calligraphy (writing), and link the origin of Chinese characters with gossip.
Cang Xie said: According to legend, Cang Xie was a historian and creator of Chinese characters in the era of the Yellow Emperor. Huangdi was the leader of the tribal alliance in ancient Central Plains. With the society entering the stage of large-scale tribal alliances, foreign affairs between alliances are becoming more and more frequent. Therefore, there is an urgent need to establish a set of communication symbols enjoyed by all alliances, so the work of collecting and sorting out * * * was handed over to historian Cang Xie.
During the Warring States period, "the theory of Cangjie's word creation" was popular. "Lu Chunqiu Junshou" said: "Cang Xie is a book and Hou Ji is a crop." In the Qin and Han Dynasties, this legend became more popular. Han Xu Shen's Preface to Explaining Words: "The Yellow Emperor Shi Cang Xie, seeing the hoof tracks of birds and animals, knows that the points can be different, and makes a book agreement first." "Cang Xie wrote a book from the start, Gai Yi is pictographic, so it is called an article. After that, the form and sound benefit each other, that is, the word. The writer is the foundation of image; "Writing is full of milk, but in fact, my mind is full of words." Modern scholars believe that systematic writing tools cannot be completely created by one person. If Cang Xie really exists, he should be a text organizer or publisher.
Engraving: Engraving is another physical recording method to help the ancients remember after tying the rope. It is mostly used in contracts, which is much more advanced than tying ropes. A "contract" is to carve a notch in a piece of wood or bamboo. Interpretation of the deeds of famous books: "The deeds are engraved, and their numbers are also engraved." Zheng Xuan's Note of the Book of Changes: "The book is to the wood, and its side is engraved as a contract, each holding its own share, and then it is consistent." Zheng Xuan also said in the note of the Book of Rites Oath: "Book deeds are also city vouchers." Coupons are like two books, engraved on its side. Liezi Fu Shuo: "Song people swam in the Tao, but those who were left behind by others returned to hide them and counted their teeth. "This' tooth' is the tooth mark engraved on the title deed. This kind of block print has the function of keeping records, which can be used as the evidence of the contract and can also be used to transmit information. Some carved symbols are similar to some Chinese characters. Such as "one, two, three, swish,? "It is no different from the numbers' one, two, three, four and five' in ancient Chinese characters. At the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, Dai Dong put forward that "the book begins with the deed, and the deed is based on the number" and "each is like its number", and thought that the inscription "recognizing its number" was a source of the original writing.
Description: On the basis of comparative study of Banpo pottery symbols and Oracle Bone Inscriptions of Yin Shang Dynasty, Mr. Guo Moruo thinks that early characters can be divided into two systems: description and drawing. Description system is the evolution of tying rope and tying wood, and there are few of them, so this system should precede the graphic system. Judging from the carved symbols found in Banpo, there are some numbers and some words. Many modern scholars believe that it has a fixed sound, form and meaning and should be the source of Chinese characters.
Wang, a doctoral supervisor at Zhengzhou University, believes that the earliest carved symbols in China were unearthed at the Jiahu site in Wuyang, Henan, more than 8,000 years ago. These original materials are comprehensively sorted out in order to compare the occurrence and development of Chinese characters before Shang Dynasty. However, the situation is not so simple. Except the existing small-scale data of Zhengzhou Shangcheng site and Xiaoshuangqiao site (more than one case of Zhu Shutao's character 10 has been found in the early Shang Dynasty), other symbols before the Shang Dynasty were scattered and lacked many rings, and most of them were inconsistent with the Shang Dynasty characters. There are also some symbols with heavy regional colors and complex backgrounds.
It is reported that according to the written materials unearthed from archaeological excavations, China had formal written materials at least in the Xia Dynasty. For example, archaeologists once found the word "Wen" for writing brush and bamboo script on a flat pottery jar unearthed from Taosi site in Xiangfen, Shanxi. These symbols belong to the basic configuration in the early writing system, but unfortunately such unearthed writing materials are still rare. About 6000 years ago, there were more than 50 kinds of carved symbols on the outer wall of pottery in Yangshao cultural sites such as Banpo site. They are well-planned, regular and have the characteristics of simplified Chinese characters, which may be the bud of Chinese characters.
Caption: About the origin of Chinese characters, the theory of "confused Luo Shu" once prevailed in history. Book of Changes: "Rivers draw, Luo writes, and saints write." The chronicles of bamboo books point out: "In the autumn and July of the fiftieth year of Emperor Xuanyuan, the phoenix arrived and the emperor offered sacrifices to Luoshui." Shen Yue's note: "The dragon figure goes out of the river, the turtle book goes out of Luoshui, and the word is sealed in red and given to Xuanyuan." "River Map Jade Edition": "Cang Xie is the emperor, hunting in the south, making the mountain have a yang que, the water near the yuan, Gui Ling's book, Jia Danwen Qing, to give it." Some modern scholars believe that Chinese characters really originated from the original picture. Some figures carved on unearthed cultural relics are probably related to words. Chinese characters mainly come from recordable pictographs, which are the basis of the formation and development of Chinese character system.
1927 Mr. Shen Jianshi put forward the view that Chinese characters originated from notes and pictures, and thought that ancient Chinese characters were preceded by the origin stage of "calligraphy and painting". Shen Jianshi's "People and Paintings before Liu Shu" deduces the antique: "There should be another stage before Liu Shu's writing period, which is the source of Liu Shu's writing. Today, it is named' Character and Painting Period' ". Figure painting is a narrative painting that evolved into characters. It has the characteristics of drawing and writing, and initially has the recognizable function of recording information in words. As for the connection and difference between pictures and words, Mr. Shen Jianshi said very incisively: "Pictures with words are images depicting things, not symbols representing words. Although it is a hieroglyphic mother type, it must not refer to the hieroglyphics of the Six Books. "
In the pottery of the late Dawenkou cultural site and Liangzhu cultural site about four or five thousand years ago, relatively regular graphic descriptions were found, which were early graphic characters.