Characters are graphic symbols for human beings to express their feelings, express their thoughts and record their language. They are the oldest people in the world. In addition to the China script, there are cuneiform scripts of Sumerians and Babylonians, sacred scripts of Egyptians and Mayan scripts of Central America, all of which have contributed to the historical achievements of ancient civilization. Now cuneiform, sacred script and Mayan script have disappeared and are no longer used. The existing scripts in this area have nothing to do with these ancient scripts. Therefore, China script should be regarded as the oldest existing script.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions was discovered in the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty more than 100 years ago. King Guo Zijian was seriously ill and sought medical advice everywhere. He came across a tortoise shell engraved with medicinal materials, and thought it was a valuable antique, so he sent people here to look for it. It turned out that these tortoise shells were collected by farmers in Anyang, Henan Province and sold to Chinese medicine shops. Later, after research, it was found that the lines on the tortoise shell should be ancient characters. This discovery caused a sensation in the academic and cultural circles. Since then, Oracle Bone Inscriptions has attracted the attention of many scholars, antique dealers and collectors. Oracle Bone Inscriptions is the earliest China script we have found so far. It was carved on tortoise shells or animal bones in Shang Dynasty. These scripts are mainly used to predict good luck or bad luck. In the process of divination, tortoise shells are burned first, and cracks will appear on them. People in Shang Dynasty predicted good or bad according to this kind of crack, and recorded the divination events and results on tortoise shells or animal bones, and these words were engraved on tortoise shells or animal bones.

. inscriptions on ancient bronze objects

The custom of casting inscriptions on bronzes became popular in the late Shang Dynasty and reached its peak in the Zhou Dynasty. In the pre-Qin period, copper was called gold, so later generations were also called inscriptions on ancient bronzes. Because Zhong and Ding played an important role in all kinds of bronze inscriptions in the Zhou Dynasty, they were also called bronze inscriptions. The application time of inscriptions on bronze was from the early Shang Dynasty to the Qin Dynasty and the annihilation of the Six Kingdoms for more than 1,200 years. And modern cast iron. Generally speaking, clay models are also used to cast bronzes, which is called "Fan Tao". Bronze inscriptions were carved on Fan Tao in advance and then cast, and a few were directly carved after bronze casting. Because Fan Tao is soft, it is easier to carve than tortoise shells and animal bones, and the early bronze inscriptions are stronger than Oracle Bone Inscriptions's pictures, which are closer to the original characters.

lesser/small seal character

"Turn" is a combination of small turn and big turn. Because it is customary to call Zhuan Xu the big seal script, later generations often call "Wen Zhuan" the small seal script. Xiao Zhuan, also known as Qin Zhuan, is a font evolved from Da Zhuan, which originated in Qin State at the end of the Warring States Period and prevailed in Qin Dynasty and early Western Han Dynasty. During the Warring States period, the characters of different countries were not unified and the fonts were quite complicated. Abolish all kinds of glyphs different from those of Qin, omit and modify the glyphs of seal script inherent in Qin, and at the same time absorb some simplified and popular fonts from folk characters and standardize them to form a new font-Xiao Zhuan.

China characters developed to the stage of Xiao Zhuan, and gradually began to finalize the outline, strokes and structure. The pictographic meaning is weakened, which makes the characters more symbolic and reduces the confusion and difficulty of writing and human reading. This is the first time in the history of China to standardize Chinese characters on a large scale by administrative means. The Qin Dynasty unified the national characters with the sorted Xiao Zhuan, which not only basically eliminated the phenomenon of different characters in different places, but also made the situation of different fonts in ancient China literature very big. The development of ancient philology had a great influence on the study of ancient history, philosophy, economy, law, culture and science and technology in China.

official script

Although the seal script is a relatively neat rectangle and its structure is composed of even and round lines, it is quite inconvenient to write and the font is more complicated. Due to various shortcomings, a new font soon appeared among the people, Xiao Zhuan's dignified and neat, round and curved lines, written with square folds. This font is said to be very popular among petty officials, craftsmen and slaves at that time, so it is called "official script". In the Han Dynasty, it was called "official script", and the development history of China characters changed from the ancient script stage to the official script stage. After the Han Dynasty, Xiao Zhuan became an ancient Chinese character mainly used for seal cutting and engraving on gold. The formation of official script changed the characters from describing the shape of objects into simplified Chinese characters composed of some straight strokes, which greatly improved the writing speed. The change of China script from Xiao Zhuan to Li Shu was called "Li Shu", which was an important turning point in the development of China script and came to an end.

cursive script

Cursive script is a font that is written in a hurry and quickly. Cursive script is a simple font used to assist official script, which is mainly used for drafting manuscripts and communication. In the process of its formation, officials and historians often need to use cursive scripts, which affects the spread of cursive scripts. After entering the Eastern Han Dynasty, after the processing of literati and calligraphers, cursive script has a relatively regular and strict shape, which can be used in some official occasions and is called ". It retains the strokes and strokes of official script. Because the cursive font is too simple and easy to be confused with each other, it cannot replace the official script as the main font. After the appearance of regular script, cursive script developed further on the basis of regular script. Not only the strokes can be Lian Bi, but also the upper and lower strokes can be Lian Bi. Some features of the strokes of official script have disappeared, forming another cursive script called "Modern Grass".

semi-cursive/running script/hand (in Chinese calligraphy)

Running script is a font between regular script and cursive script, which is neither neat nor bold. If regular script is like a person sitting and cursive script running, then running script is a person walking, because running script is more casual than regular script and can be written faster, and unlike cursive script, people can't understand it, so it is the most popular. Running script probably began to be popular among the people from the Wei and Jin Dynasties. Wang Xizhi, a great calligrapher in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, is known as the "sage of calligraphy" and has created a large number of running script works, which have long been loved by people. Cursive script is called cursive script. It is faster than regular script, and it is not as difficult to distinguish people as cursive script, so it has high practical value.

regular script

In font structure, regular script is similar to official script, but it changes the writing style of official script strokes from flat official script to basically square regular script, which is called "square character". Regular script is also called official script and original script, which shows that regular script is a regular script for people to learn and use. The earliest calligrapher of regular script was Zhong You in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. In his works, there are still some traces of official script. Regular script experienced many changes in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and was basically finalized after Sui and Tang Dynasties. After the regular script is finalized, the strokes and structure are quite exquisite and rigorous, such as the works of Ou Yangxun, a famous calligrapher in the Tang Dynasty.

After China characters entered the regular script stage, the font continued to be simplified, but the font changed little. Printing, as one of the four great inventions in China, 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, which was called "Song Style". Later, it was changed because of imitation of Song Dynasty, which was called "imitation of Song Dynasty". The book we read today.