Chinese characters, also known as Chinese characters, Chinese characters and Chinese characters, are widely used in the circle of Chinese character civilization, belonging to the morpheme syllable characters of ideographic characters, which were invented and improved by Chinese people in ancient times. At present, the exact history can be traced back to Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty around 13 BC. Then the seal script of the Qin Dynasty was named "Chinese characters" in the Han Dynasty, and it became the standard of handwritten font used today in the Tang Dynasty-regular script. Chinese characters are the secondary characters that have been used for the longest time in a row so far, and they are also the only characters that have been passed down to this day in various Daimonji systems in ancient times. Some scholars believe that Chinese characters are one of the key elements to maintain the long-term consistent shape between the north and the south of China, and some scholars list Chinese characters as the fifth invention of China. In China, Chinese characters were used as the secondary official characters in all previous dynasties.
Oracle Bone Inscriptions and bronze inscriptions (seal characters) were used in Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, various governors developed their own writing styles.
it was not until the Qin dynasty that the writing style of characters was consistent, with Xiao zhuan as the common font, and official scripts were created one after another to simplify the writing of Xiao zhuan.
the Han dynasty was dominated by official script, the early western Han dynasty was dominated by Qin official script, and the official script was completely separated from official script in the middle western Han dynasty. The Eastern Han Dynasty was dominated by official script, and regular script and running script also appeared in the Eastern Han Dynasty, which are used in current dynasties.
During the period of Cao Wei (Three Kingdoms), Zhong You founded the real script (regular script). So far, the evolution of Chinese characters has been perfected. Not only that, but since the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the writing of Chinese characters has become a special art, namely calligraphy. (Regular script: also known as official book and real book. Because it is a model of font, it is called regular script, standard and regular script. The Western Han Dynasty began to sprout, and after the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty flourished. Tang Kai has been used as the standard font of Chinese characters for more than 1 years. Features: square shape, straight strokes, strict rules, plump and beautiful.
Running script: a kind of font which came into being at the end of Han Dynasty and is between real script and cursive script. It is easy to recognize the shape of regular script, and it is also quick to write in cursive script, so it has become a common font like regular script today. )
On this basis, Song typefaces were added and used in the Song Dynasty.
Mongolian characters are used in Mongolian Yuan Dynasty, with eight thoughts and eight writings.
Chinese characters used in Liao dynasty, qidan characters.
Chinese characters were used in Jin dynasty, and nuzhen characters were used.
Xixia used Chinese characters and Tangut characters.
The Northern Wei Dynasty was supposed to have its own written language, but it was banned after Emperor Xiaowen's reform.
the Qing dynasty used four languages: Han, Manchu, Mongolian and Tibetan.
Chinese characters have changed for more than 6 years, and the evolution process is:
Oracle Bone Inscriptions → Jinwen → Xiaozhuan → Lishu → Regular script → Running script
(Shang) (Zhou) (Qin) (Han) (Wei and Jin Dynasties) cursive script
The above seven fonts are called "Jia Jin Zhuan Li Cao Kai Xing". Oracle Bone Inscriptions is both an pictograph and a phonetic character. Up to now, there are still some pictographs in Chinese characters, which are very vivid.
in the late western Zhou dynasty, Chinese characters developed into big seal script. The development of the seal script has produced two characteristics: first, the lines with uneven thickness in the early days have become uniform and soft, and the lines they draw with the objects are very concise and vivid; The second is standardization, and the glyph structure tends to be uniform, gradually leaving the prototype of the picture and laying the foundation for the square characters.
Later, Li Si, the prime minister of the Qin Dynasty, simplified Da Zhuan and changed it to Xiao Zhuan. In addition to simplifying the shape of the big seal, the small seal has reached a perfect level of lineation and standardization, almost completely divorced from pictures and characters, and has become a uniform, harmonious and very beautiful rectangular square font. However, Xiao Zhuan also has its own fundamental shortcoming, that is, its lines are very inconvenient to write with a pen, so almost at the same time, it also produces an official script with a flat shape on both sides.
by the Han dynasty, the official script had developed to a mature stage, and the readability and writing speed of Chinese characters had greatly improved. After Lishu, it evolved into Zhangcao, and now it is grass. By the Tang Dynasty, there was a wild grass that expressed the writer's thoughts and feelings in the pen. Subsequently, regular script (also known as real script), which was a combination of official script and cursive script, became popular in Tang Dynasty. The print we use today is a change from regular script. Between regular script and cursive script is running script, which is fluent in writing and flexible in writing. It is said that it was made by Liu Desheng in Han Dynasty, and it is still the font used in our daily writing today.
in the song dynasty, with the development of printing, block printing was widely used, and Chinese characters were further improved and developed, resulting in a new style of writing-Songti printing font. After the invention of printing, the carving knife used for lettering had a profound influence on the shape of Chinese characters, resulting in a kind of printing font with fine horizontal and thick vertical, which is eye-catching and easy to read, and later called Song Style. At that time, there were two kinds of fonts carved: fat imitation face, Liu Ti, thin imitation European style and dangerous style. Among them, Yan Ti and Liu Ti's brushwork are tall and straight, and they used to have some characteristics of being horizontal, thin and vertical. In the Ming Dynasty, between Qin Long and Wanli, it evolved from Song style to Ming style with fine strokes and square characters. It turned out that at that time, a kind of Hongwu style with very thin horizontal strokes and particularly thick vertical strokes was popular among the people, and this font was used in the title cards of official posts, lanterns, notices, the boundary stones of the government, and the main cards of the gods in the ancestral temple. At present, some book carvers create a non-face, non-European skin silhouette in the process of imitating Hongwu style. In particular, because the strokes of this font are horizontal and vertical, it is really easy to carve. It is different from seal script, official script, truth and grass, and it is fresh and pleasing to the eye. Therefore, it has been widely used and has become a very popular secondary printing font since the 16th century. It is still called Song Style, also called Lead Font.
in China, various fonts formed in different historical periods have their own distinctive artistic features. For example, seal script is simple and elegant, official script is quiet and dynamic, rich in decoration, cursive script is fast, compact in structure, neat and beautiful in regular script, easy to read and write in running script, strong in applicability, and diverse in style and personality.
the evolution of Chinese characters is from pictographic pictures to symbols of lines, strokes that conform to the writing brush and printed fonts that are convenient for carving. Its evolution history provides us with rich inspiration for Chinese font design. In character design, if we can give full play to the characteristics and elegant demeanor of various fonts of Chinese characters, skillfully use them and have unique ideas, we will be able to design exquisite works.
since the agreement of Qin Shihuang, China characters have gradually embarked on the road of development. China characters in different times have unusual and unique connotations of nationality and folk customs, and the wisdom and diligence of Chinese people are deeply engraved in the history of China characters. However, at present, some people know little about their own languages, but they are still half-toned when they devote great enthusiasm to the spoken and written languages of other countries. Writing is the soul of a country. In order to understand the changes, history and soul of the motherland, we chose this topic.
The development of China characters, after Qin and China agreed, simplified and sorted Chinese characters continuously, making Chinese characters gradually standardized. The development of Chinese characters can be roughly divided into four stages: ancient prose, seal script, official script and regular script. Among them, seal script is divided into big seal script and small seal script; Official script is different from Qin official script and han li official script. It can be seen that any new font in history is gradually formed through long-term evolution. Generally speaking, after the formation of regular script, China characters have been basically finalized.
1 Oracle Bone Inscriptions
Before the Qin Dynasty agreed on writing, the Chinese characters in China were still confused in terms of font and application. In a broad sense, ancient Chinese includes the characters before Xiao seal, including Da seal. Broadly speaking, it refers to the characters before Da Zhuan in the history of China characters. Here, the concept of classical Chinese is adopted in a broad sense. Ancient prose includes Oracle Bone Inscriptions and inscriptions on bronze; Among them, the former is regarded as the earliest stereotyped writing in China.
Oracle inscriptions: written or engraved characters left on tortoise shells and animal bones in the late Shang dynasty, most of which are "Oracle inscriptions" and some are "notes". Most of Oracle Bone Inscriptions accords with the criterion of pictographic and comprehensible characters, and pictophonetic characters only account for 2%. Its characters are carved with a knife, some filled with cinnabar, and some directly written in ink. Because the characters are mostly evolved from pictures and characters, they are highly pictographic, multi-character and uncertain in strokes. This shows that China's writing was not consistent in the Yin and Shang Dynasties.
bronze inscriptions on images in the yin dynasty: copper was called gold in the pre-Qin dynasty, so the characters carved on bronzes were called bronze inscriptions, also known as Zhong Dingwen and Yi Qi. Compared with Oracle Bone Inscriptions, inscriptions on bronze inscriptions are more pictographic, showing the ancient characters. The solid writing style of the bronze inscription makes the generality vivid, vivid and natural.
Oracle Bone Inscriptions is a popular style of writing in Shang dynasty, and bronze inscriptions are the official style, which shows that the official style is numerous and complicated, and the popular style tends to be simple.
Oracle Bone Inscriptions's writing has a hard brushwork because most of them are carved on tortoise shell bones with knives. This kind of brushwork, such as knife carving, has also been applied to ancient graphic design.
2 Da Zhuan
In China's writing history, in Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, in terms of its contribution to philology, Shi Shu was the most important. Shi Cheng is a historian in Zhou Xuanwang, so he should not create profanity to make it simple. Da Zhuan is also known as Shu Wen, Shu Zhuan, Shu Shu and history books. Because it was written by Shi Chuan, it is known as "Chuanwen". Da Zhuan can be found in Shuo Wen Jie Zi and various Zhong Ding Yi wares collected by later generations. Among them, Zhou Xuanwang's Shi Guwen is the most famous.
3 Xiao Zhuan
Xiao Zhuan, also known as Qin Zhuan, is a standard font compiled by Li Si, the prime minister of Qin Dynasty. It is simplified by Da Zhuan. Also known as Yujin seal, because it has the meaning of vigorous brushwork. The shape and structure of Xiao Zhuan are in harmony, the strokes are even and uniform, and the radicals are also changed and merged. Compared with the big seal script, it has no pictograph. The change of characters from Da Zhuan to Xiao Zhuan is of great significance in the history of China characters.
4 Official script
The first step in the evolution from Xiao Zhuan to Official script, the most remarkable change is from graceful money bars to straight strokes, from no corners to angles. Ordinary people think that the official script refers to the official script with a long tail like a carving knife, which is just one of them. The official script mainly includes Qin Li and han li, and Qin Li is the early way of official script; Han li is a mature font of official script. The official script usually refers to the "eight points" in han li. "Eight points" came into being gradually after Qin transferred. The official script developed to eight points, which used to be mature. Lishu has a serious sense of integrity because its characters are square and thick.
5 regular script
"regular script" is also known as real script, official script and official script. Such as Ou Yangxun, Liu Gongquan and other inscriptions. It includes the founder of ancient Li, the beauty of eight points and the simplicity of Zhang Cao. This kind of font is still in use today, and it is regarded as a standard font and is liked by the world. Regular script has a sedate and tranquil feeling: the characters have different styles of the same font due to the difference of personal writing style and temperament, which is different from Song Huizong's thin gold body in that the characters are outlined with thin lines, but it is shown in a sleek way because of the turning point, showing a completely different visual sense from the thin gold body.
6 running script
"running script" is a kind of writing style which is between regular script and cursive script. Running script is different from official script and official script, and its fluidity can be freely used by writers. Running script shows a romantic and aesthetic smell.
7 cursive script
"cursive script", also known as "broken grass" and "modern grass", is made up of seal script, eight points and chapter grass, which are changed by many ancient Chinese characters. The cursive script originated from Zhangcao, and Zhangcao has a strong taste of official script, so it is named because it is mostly used for memorials. Zhangcao further developed into "modern grass", which is commonly known as "a book". Most of today's grass tends to be simpler than zhangcao and running script. Cursive script gives the viewer a sense of uninhibited and fluent.
8 printing fonts
after the invention of printing, in order to meet the needs of printing, especially the printing of books and periodicals, the characters gradually developed in the direction suitable for printing, and a horizontal, vertical and square printing font, Songti, appeared. It originated in the Song Dynasty, the golden age of block printing, and was shaped in the Ming Dynasty, so the Japanese called it "Ming Dynasty Style". Song typeface is a secondary font for publishing and printing because it is suitable for printing and engraving, and also suitable for people's visual requirements when reading.
9 computer fonts
with the development of civilization and science, under the influence of oriental writing style, many new fonts have appeared, such as bold font, art font, etc., such as poster (POP) style, comprehensive art style, kiosk style, girl font, etc., and more variations of Song style, such as imitation Song and flat Song style. And all kinds of Chinese characters are computerized, and the scope of application is more and more extensive.
The origin of Chinese characters is an unsolved mystery. When it comes to Chinese characters, I have to mention Oracle Bone Inscriptions. The Shang Dynasty Oracle Bone Inscriptions, which was supported by archaeology, first appeared 3,3 years ago, which is nearly 2, years later than the ancient Egyptian characters and Sumerian characters in the two river basins. Up to now, * * * has discovered more than 5, Oracle Bone Inscriptions words, of which about 1,7 can be recognized. To some extent, China, as one of the four ancient civilizations, has no reason to lag behind others so much! At the same time of thinking, we found that the earliest Oracle Bone Inscriptions once had a certain degree of understanding and pictophonetic components. Among these Oracle Bone Inscriptions, "knowing words" accounted for less than 8%, and pictophonetic words accounted for more than 2%. This is very different from other early hieroglyphics such as ancient Egyptians and Sumerians.
Some people think that the scientific level of ancient China is far less than that of ancient Egypt and ancient Greece. When the ancient Egyptians used to build great pyramids with huge stones, China only needed rammed earth. When the ancient Egyptians once carved exquisite hieroglyphics on hard stones, China could only carve rough scratches on animal bones or tortoise shells. But look at the general degree of Oracle Bone Inscriptions in China, but it is far higher than those concrete figures in ancient Egypt. It seems that Chinese characters have directly crossed the early stage of early hieroglyphics and entered a more general and advanced stage. There are almost no pictographic stages in the development of Chinese characters: ideographic-pictophonetic ways. The so-called pictographic characters were highly generalized in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Later, with the evolution of Chinese characters, Chinese characters were no longer purely ideographic. When the Greeks built the exquisite sculpture of Parthenon and the Romans built the huge dome of the Pantheon, China only wanted the rammed Great Wall in the Qin and Han Dynasties and the pottery terracotta warriors and horses, but the small seal script of the Qin Dynasty was once a nationally consistent standard character, and the official script of the Han Dynasty was very close to today's Chinese characters. It can be said that it is a spectacle, whether it is the leaping forward writing civilization or the huge and complicated verbal symbols of Chinese characters in China.
in the early days of writing, hieroglyphics could work well. However, with the continuous enrichment of words, some words can not be expressed in general terms. The ancient Egyptians and Sumerians began to create symbols that only represented pronunciation to record these words. China people chose another way to deal with it:
knowing words, such as "day+month = bright, female+child = good";
Phonetic words, such as "A", have no meaning, and only represent one syllable;
generic words, such as "Shuo-Yue"; Began to appear in Chinese characters.
When it comes to Chinese, it is inevitable that people will think of strange English, which accounts for a large part of civilization class. At the same time, we also thought a lot. The highest level of learning a language is to think in this language, just like thinking in your mother tongue. However, it is the mother tongue that can give full play to one's creativity, not to mention that learning a "foreign language" requires great energy. The ancient Romans did not envy Greek civilization, but switched to Greek-