The origin of five characters can be traced back to the development of ancient Chinese characters. Chinese characters are the only writing system in the world that continues to this day, and their form and usage are gradually formed and passed down in a long history.
Here is a detailed introduction to the origin of the five words.
1. Original:
Chinese characters originated from ancient primitive picture characters and first appeared in the Neolithic Age around 6000 BC. People at that time carved simple figures on hides, bones or bamboo to represent objects or concepts. These primitive graphics gradually evolved into later hieroglyphics.
2. hieroglyphics:
With the development of human society, the demand for the expression of more things and concepts has increased, so the form of Chinese characters has also changed. In ancient times, many Chinese characters were expressed by the shapes and characteristics of things, which had intuitive pictographic significance. For example, the word five, represented by the shape of a finger, symbolizes that the number of hands is five.
3. Pictophonetic characters:
The development of Chinese characters has entered a higher stage, and the stage of pictophonetic characters has appeared. Pictophonetic characters mean that a word contains both meaning and pronunciation. In pictophonetic characters, one part means meaning and the other part means sound. Five characters are pictophonetic characters, and the "mouth" on the top of its glyph indicates the meaning of the word, while the "five" below indicates the pronunciation.
4. Regular font:
The development of Chinese characters also includes different writing styles. Regular script is the standard font of Chinese characters and a common font style in modern writing. Five-character regular script is evolved and standardized by calligraphers in past dynasties. After inheritance and evolution, the form of modern Chinese characters has been formed.
To sum up, five characters, as pictophonetic characters, are composed of "mouth" next to the sound and "evening" next to the shape. Its original meaning refers to being hungry at night. However, with the change of time, the five-character extended its extended meaning and was used to express quantity, calculation, naming and related idioms and proverbs.
The origin of five-character book includes the origin and evolution of characters, as well as the phonetic structure and writing style of Chinese characters. This is one of the characteristics of Chinese characters as a unique writing system.