Chinese characters, as a part of our cultural development in China, have a history of thousands of years, from the initial Oracle Bone Inscriptions to the bronze inscriptions to the simplified Chinese characters. For thousands of years, Chinese characters have gone a long way, and their strokes are becoming more and more suitable for modern times with the continuous simplification of people.
Of course, the simplification of Chinese characters is actually not a bad thing for us, because it is actually a development trend. Because the strokes of ancient Chinese characters were complicated and it was extremely difficult to write, various dynasties continued to develop and simplify the writing methods of Chinese characters on this basis, so the simplified Chinese characters are now available. That is to say, simplified Chinese characters, like our nation, have come a long way since ancient times, from Oracle Bone Inscriptions to bronze inscriptions to official scripts and small seal scripts of Qin State to later regular script. We are also changing along the way. Let's take a look at the changing course of Chinese characters today.
The appearance of Oracle Bone Inscriptions created the origin of Chinese characters
In p>1898 Qing Dynasty, in that stormy era, a Qing official inadvertently found traces of lines on a medicinal material "keel". He was knowledgeable and immediately found something was wrong. With his profound knowledge, he found that it recorded something like "rain", "day", "moon" and "mountain".
The official of the Qing Dynasty who discovered Oracle Bone Inscriptions was Wang Yirong. The year after he discovered Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing. At that time, as a training group in Beijing, he felt powerless to return to the sky when he saw the Qing Dynasty in the western hills at sunset, so he threw himself into the well with his family after Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing.
However, the archaeological cause will not stop because of the death of a person. Oracle Bone Inscriptions's secular life has led historical researchers to find a new direction. From the end of the Qing Dynasty to the present, we have always found about 15, pieces of Oracle bones, which are scattered all over the world, only 1, pieces in Chinese mainland.
Oracle Bone Inscriptions's secular life is of great significance to the Chinese nation:
1. We can better understand the history before the Shang Dynasty. In the past, we could only rely on books to record the history of the Shang Dynasty, but by studying Oracle Bone Inscriptions and combining books, we have a more accurate understanding of the culture of the Shang Dynasty.
2. Oracle Bone Inscriptions has also attracted the attention of researchers from all over the world, on the other hand, it is also a way to carry forward Chinese culture.
Of course, it is understood that Oracle Bone Inscriptions was not used to record history in the Shang Dynasty, but was used for divination. In ancient times, people believed in the theory of ghosts and gods. Every time they met with important events, they would rely on divination to calculate good or bad luck. For example, you mainly went to war, and even small things like thunder and rain, they would rely on divination to judge good or bad luck. After the sacrifice, they would record the divination in words on the animal bones or tortoise shells. This is the origin of "Oracle Bone Inscriptions".
From these Oracle Bone Inscriptions, we can vaguely know the general situation of the social, economic and cultural development of the ancient Shang Dynasty at that time, which is also a great wealth left to us.
However, it is still inconclusive whether there are any ancient scripts before Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Of course, with the development of science and technology, I think more information about ancient times will be presented soon. With the inscriptions on bronze after Oracle Bone Inscriptions
With the demise of Shang Dynasty, Oracle Bone Inscriptions gradually withdrew from this historical stage and was replaced by inscriptions on bronze.
bronze inscriptions are a kind of characters carved on the bells or ding of bronze wares, which originated in Shang dynasty and prevailed in Zhou dynasty. Bells are mostly musical instruments, and ding are mostly ritual vessels. The words carved on it are mostly for remembering things or commending merits, because copper was also called gold a week ago, so the inscriptions on bronze also came from this.
Most of the contents recorded in the inscriptions on bronze inscriptions are about the events of sacrificial rites, giving orders, imperial edicts, campaigns, hunting, covenants and so on, which, like Oracle Bone Inscriptions, reflect the activities and customs at that time.
With the eastward movement of Ping and the decline of the Zhou royal family, governors began to make their own bronzes. Because of the influence of the Zhou royal family, governors from all walks of life in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period began to record what happened on bronzes. The Eastern Zhou Dynasty was the heyday of bronze inscriptions.
Until Qin Shihuang unified the Central Plains, Qin Shihuang abolished the six-nation script, and the imperial edict was written in the same language, and it was not engraved on the inscription, thus the inscriptions on bronze withdrew from the historical stage. Qin Shihuang's unification of the whole country promoted the development of later generations
With Qin Shihuang's unification of the whole country, inscriptions on bronze gradually withdrew from the historical stage, followed by Xiao Zhuan of Qin State.
Although Qin Shihuang was portrayed as a "tyrant" in history because of a series of events he did later, no matter how future generations evaluate Qin Shihuang, in my opinion, Qin Shihuang's series of things, such as "writing with the same language, sharing the same train, and unified measurement", can be said to be a great success.
at that time, the vassal States fought for hundreds of years, and because of the regional differences, the characters of different countries were very different, which hindered the economic and cultural exchanges between different places, and at the same time was not conducive to the effective control of the Qin empire over the whole country, and the laws promulgated could not be effectively implemented.
Therefore, in view of this situation, after the unification of the world, Qin Shihuang made it the first task to unify the characters. He ordered Li Si, the prime minister, to solve this problem, and Li Si invented a new font based on the characters of the original six countries, which was called "Xiao Zhuan" by our descendants. Of course, in order to facilitate writing on the basis of "Xiao Zhuan", "Li Shu" also began to stand out. These two characters were used as
In my opinion, Qin Shihuang has at least two great achievements in this fact:
1. "Writing in the same language" made Qin truly realize unity, unified writing, unified culture and unified territory. This measure greatly improved the Qin empire's control over the whole country, making the promulgation of laws more convenient and the issuing of instructions to local governments more convenient.
2. Most of the Han Dynasty after the Qin Dynasty followed the system of the Qin Dynasty, and the official characters of the Han Dynasty were also official scripts, and many fonts in later generations were constantly evolving on this basis.
And many fonts in later generations have evolved from this basis, so this policy of Qin Shihuang's unification of characters is also of great benefit to us in later generations. The development of Chinese characters gave birth to a group of special artists: calligraphers
Due to the high development of Chinese characters, a group of special artists: calligraphers were also given birth in ancient China.
They regard writing as a supreme art, but their writing style is not as casual as we do now. When they write, they will even describe the artistic conception at that time. For example, we often say that this word contains some sadness or feelings.
For example, as everyone knows, Wang Xizhi, the great calligrapher, has been practicing calligraphy since he was seven years old, and he is diligent and studious every day.
At the age of 17, he read the calligraphy works of the previous generation that his father kept in secret, and when he felt ripe, he practiced writing. He sat by the pool and practiced writing every day, day after day, year after year. In this way, I don't know how many bad pens he wrote. Finally, one day, he washed the water in the pond into ink, but it was because of his hard work that he created a generation of calligraphy masters in later generations.