Regarding the history of Chinese characters, based on the existing ancient documentary records and now confirmed archaeological discoveries, it is at least five thousand years old, and the history of the origin of Chinese characters is the beginning of ancient Chinese civilization, so we usually It is said that the Han nation has a history of 5,000 years of civilization.
Origin legends
1. Bagua theory
The preface to Kong Anguo's "Shangshu" is a forgery, but it is very old and says, "In ancient times, the Pao Xi clan was the king of the world. The beginning of drawing the Eight Diagrams and making the book deed to replace the knotting of ropes was the origin of the ancient Chinese text "Yiwei·Qian·Zhedu". The ancient text with the character Gua Huo, the ancient text with the character Kan Gua Shui, the ancient text with the character Xun Gua Feng, the ancient text with the character Zhen Gua Lei, the ancient text with the character Gen Gua Shan, the ancient text with the character Dui Gua Ze.
2. Hetuluo Shushuo
"Yi Xici Part 1" Hechutuluo wrote the book and the sage followed it.
"River Map·Jade Edition" Cangjie, for the emperor, patrolled the south to hunt for Yangxu Mountain, and came to Huluo I of the Yuan Dynasty. The water spirit turtle carried a book with red and green inscriptions to teach it.
"Pictures" and "Books" come from Heluo. What happened is so mysterious. Mysticism is a major feature of this theory.
In virtual terms, it can be understood as pictures and book records; in practical terms, it can be understood as "Yi Jing" and "Shang Shu".
Under the article "Hetu and Luoshu" in "Cihai", it is said that during the time of Fuxi, a dragon and horse appeared from the Yellow River carrying "Hetu" and a divine turtle appeared from Luoshui carrying "Luoshu".
Fuxi drew Bagua based on this kind of "pictures" and "books", which is the source of the later "Book of Changes".
It is said that when Yu controlled the flood, the Emperor of Heaven gave him "Hong Fan Jiuchu" and "Shang Shu·Hong Fan". Liu Xin believed that "Hong Fan" was Luo Shu.
It is not difficult to uncover the mystery of this theory and find that its true core is that arithmetic can be compared with the "Nine Palaces" algorithm.
The so-called "nine palaces" according to the Chenwei family are the Eight Diagrams plus ***, which are combined into nine. The "five" is located in the center and can also be connected with the five elements. In the eyes of the mathematicians, the numbers are horizontal, vertical, and diagonal. , the number added together is always 15.
3. The theory of Cangjie’s creation of characters
“The theory of Cangjie’s creation of characters” has been popular since the Warring States Period.
"Lu Shi Chun Qiu·Jun Shou" said that "Cangjie wrote the book and Houji did the crops." "Xunzi" and "Han Feizi" also have records.
Gao Youxuan in "Huainanzi Xiuwu Xun" said that Cangjie "was born to write books when he saw the traces of birds."
In the Qin and Han Dynasties, this legend became more popular.
Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jiezi·Xu" "Cangjie first wrote book covers based on pictograms."
Who is Cangjie? Legend has it that he is the historian of the Yellow Emperor. Who is the Yellow Emperor? The leaders of the ancient Central Plains tribal alliances had an urgent need to establish a set of communicative symbols shared by each alliance as the society entered the stage of larger-scale tribal alliances. Diplomatic affairs between alliances became increasingly frequent, so they began to collect and organize shared texts. Then it was handed over to the historian Cangjie.
During the Chunhua period of the Song Dynasty, there was a famous calligraphy collection called "Chunhua Pavilion Tie". The fifth volume contains the legend that the twenty-eight characters in ancient seal script were written by Cangjie.
The conventional Chinese character system that has been gradually perfected through long-term exploration and repeated trials by the people will never be created by one person.
4. Picture theory
Modern scholars believe that Chinese characters truly originated from original pictures.
The graphics carved on some unearthed cultural relics are likely to be related to the text.
The painted pottery basins from the Yangshao Culture of the Neolithic Age, unearthed around 4,000 BC at the Quanhu Village site in Huaxian County, Shaanxi Province, should be the emblems of the original clans here, which were in the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy. There are four bird-shaped patterns in the clan society stage that are very similar to the "bird" ascending and "鹹" descending in ancient Chinese characters.
"Shuowen" says that "鹹" is the general name for short-tailed birds.
The fish-shaped patterns on the Yangshao Culture pottery basins unearthed from the Banpo site in Xi'an and the late Shang bronzes are lifelike.
Comparing them with some "fish" in ancient Chinese characters, their similarity is enough to make people believe that Chinese characters evolved from original pictures.
The evolution of Chinese characters
The evolution of Chinese characters has gone through a long process of thousands of years and has gone through stages such as oracle bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, seal scripts, official scripts, regular scripts, cursive scripts, and running scripts. Today, regular scripts are commonly used. Still not completely finalized.