The Chinese people probably noticed the origin of their own writing during the Warring States Period. Some people believe that knotting is the origin of Chinese characters. But many people disagree. Knotting is a method used in ancient times to record events, and almost all primitive peoples have used it. Even if it is a record, it cannot be regarded as writing after all. Some people also believe that the origin of Chinese writing originated from Bagua. In addition, there is also the theory that "Hetu and Luoshu evolved into writing". The most popular theory in ancient China is that Cangjie (jié) created the characters, which has been spread among scholars at least since the late Warring States Period.
Generally speaking, the development of writing involves a process from multiple heads to single heads, from simple to complex to simple, and from appearance to pronunciation. Therefore, many people have suggested that Chinese writing was created collectively by the working people and was compiled and developed through "witchcraft" and "history". As for who "Witch" and "Shi" are? There are various speculations. At present, a common saying in Chinese history circles is that the origin of Chinese writing began in the Yin and Shang Dynasties. However, there are also some people who have slight objections. According to some people's opinions, the oracle bone inscriptions in the Yin and Shang Dynasties are very mature. And everything always has a process from occurrence to development and gradually matures. Therefore, the first year of Chinese writing can be pushed forward. As for how many years to push back? Some people advocate pushing it back to at least a thousand years; some advocate pushing it back to the end of summer; others advocate pushing it back to before summer. Everyone has their own opinions.
Among archaeologists, there are disagreements about the origin of Chinese characters. Among them, the one who proposed the most extraordinary views must be Guo Moruo. He pointed out in the article "The Dialectical Development of Ancient Writing": "When did the origin of Chinese characters begin? I think this can be indexed from the age of the Banpo Village site in Xi'an." "The age of the Banpo site "The Banpo site is a typical example of Yangshao culture in the Neolithic Age." "There are often simple carvings similar to characters on the Banpo pottery, which are completely different from the patterns on the vessels." "Although the carvings are very different. The meaning has not yet been clarified, but it is undoubtedly a symbol with a literal nature. "It can be said with certainty that it is the origin of Chinese writing, or the remnant of the original Chinese writing."
According to this, Chinese civilization should be counted as nearly six thousand years. When did the Chinese writing originate? When did the oldest writing come into being? What do they mean? It is still being debated by hundreds of schools of thought. It seems that a lot of materials are needed to prove it! It is currently recognized as the earliest writing in the world. Writing is cuneiform writing that appeared in the ancient Middle East and dates back to 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. However, some symbols carved on tortoise shells found in Jiahu, Henan, date back to 8,000 years ago.
According to legend, Chinese characters were created by a man named Cangjie during the Yellow Emperor period.
There was a man named Cangjie in Guanzhong, Shaanxi Province, my country. He had four eyes, and his eyes were always filled with eye feces, but there were always strange things radiating from these two pairs of misty eyes. With its light, one can observe things particularly clearly. He has long hair, a long beard, and animal skins. He sits on the skin of a ferocious beast. He often holds an earthen pen in his hand, talking to the person sitting opposite him, and seems to be thinking again. What. The shape of his head is also different from that of ordinary people. The top of his head is raised high, like a strange-shaped tutu, which makes him look particularly intelligent.
He often rides a donkey on the Loess Plateau of Shaanxi Province, traveling across mountains and rivers, across states and counties, to understand folk customs and collect popular folk language symbols. There was no paper at that time, so he wrote the collected information on reed leaves, put it in his pocket, and let the donkey carry it. He collected a lot and packed many bags. The donkey died of exhaustion after walking to what is now Qishan County, Shaanxi Province.
Cangjie took this batch of information with him and could no longer walk without the donkey, so he simply found a straw hut to live in. Cangjie constantly observed the celestial phenomena. He raised his head to carefully observe the changes of the moon's roundness and bending. He also observed the evolution of wind and rain in the landscape, identified the various footprints of birds and beasts, or the traces left by passing beasts and vehicles, and distinguished and distinguished the various footprints. similarities and differences in textures and start creating text.
In fact, the formation of words is a gradual process and cannot be accomplished by one person at a time. Characters should be symbols that the ancient working people have continuously created, invented, developed and perfected in their long-term production practice. The quantity is also accumulated from small to large.
There are many Chinese characters, but no one can tell the exact number. We can only know its approximate number from ancient and modern dictionaries. Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jiezi" of the Eastern Han Dynasty contains 9353 characters. During the Cao Wei Dynasty, Li Deng's "Sheng Lei" contained 11,520 characters. King Gu Ye of Nanliang's "Jade Pian" contains a total of 22,721 characters. In the Tang Dynasty, Yan Zhenqing's "Yunhai Jingyuan" contained 26,911 characters. "Ji Yun" written by Ding Du and others during the Song Dynasty contains 53,525 characters. The "Kangxi Dictionary" written by Zhang Yushu and others in the Qing Dynasty contains 47,035 characters. The contemporary "Chinese Dictionary" contains 54,678 words, which is currently the dictionary with the most words.
After primary school, we need to be able to read a total of 3,000 words, of which about 2,500 need to be able to write.
The evolution of Chinese characters has generally gone through several stages, including oracle bone inscriptions - large seal script - small seal script - official script - cursive script - regular script - running script. This is in line with the development of characters from complex to simple, from irregular to standardized. Oracle bone inscriptions, large seal script and small seal script can be collectively referred to as seal script. Then, seal script, official script, regular script, running script, and cursive script constitute the five types of Chinese calligraphy. With the development of Chinese characters today, regular script and running script are still used, but seal script, official script, cursive script, especially seal script are no longer used in daily life, and only exist as an art of calligraphy.