How many fonts are there in China?

Chinese characters have a historical process of development and evolution that lasts for thousands of years, which is roughly as follows: the origin before the Shang Dynasty, and the oracle bone inscriptions of the Yin and Shang dynasties as the mature period.

Since then there has been a series of evolutions, especially in the Han Dynasty, when official script replaced Xiaozhuan as the main font, and the development history of Chinese characters separated from the ancient writing stage and entered the official regular script stage.

Regular script was basically finalized during the Sui and Tang Dynasties. In the books printed in the Song Dynasty, it was artistically transformed into "Song font". Later, there were imitation Song fonts, which are roughly the fonts we use today.

Ethnic minority languages ??have many languages ??and have different types of development. Over the long years, people of all ethnic groups have jointly created the excellent written culture of the motherland.

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Words used in history:

1. Oracle

Oracle bone inscriptions are the oldest and most complete texts among the ancient texts discovered in China. Oracle bone inscriptions mainly refer to Yin Ruins oracle bone inscriptions, also known as "Yin Ruins characters" and "Yin Qi". They are characters carved on tortoise shells and animal bones during the Yin and Shang Dynasties.

At the end of the 19th century, the ruins of the capital of the Yin Dynasty were discovered in Xiaotun, Anyang, Henan today. The character-making method inherited from pottery inscriptions was used by the royal family in the late Shang Dynasty (14th to 11th centuries BC) for divination and recording. Words carved (or written) on tortoise shells and animal bones.

After the demise of the Yin Shang Dynasty and the rise of the Zhou Dynasty, oracle bone inscriptions continued to be used for a period of time.

2. Bronze inscriptions

Bronze inscriptions refer to the inscriptions engraved on Yin and Zhou bronzes, also called bell and tripod inscriptions. The Shang and Zhou dynasties were the age of bronzes. The ritual vessels of bronzes were represented by tripods, and the musical instruments were represented by bells. "Zhongding" is synonymous with bronzes. The so-called bronze is an alloy of copper and tin.

China has entered the Bronze Age in the Xia Dynasty, and the technology of copper smelting and copperware manufacturing was very developed. Because copper was also called gold before the Zhou Dynasty, the inscriptions on the bronzes were called "jinwen" or "jinjinwen"; and because this type of bronzes had the largest number of characters on bells and tripods, they were also called "zhongdingwen" in the past. ".

The period when bronze inscriptions were used ranged from the early Shang Dynasty to the Qin Dynasty when it destroyed the Six Kingdoms, about 1,200 years ago. The number of characters in bronze inscriptions, according to Rong Geng's "Inscriptions on Bronze Inscriptions", totals 3,722, of which 2,420 are identifiable.

3. Xiaozhuan

After Qin Shihuang unified China (221 BC), Xiaozhuan implemented the policy of "writing with the same text and carriages with the same track" and unifying weights and measures. Prime Minister Li Si was responsible for it. Based on the large seal script originally used by the Qin State, it was simplified and the variant characters of the other six countries were eliminated to create a unified Chinese character writing form.

It was popular in China until the end of the Western Han Dynasty (about 8 AD), and was gradually replaced by official script. But because of its beautiful font, it has always been favored by calligraphers.

Because of its complex strokes, strange and ancient forms, and the ability to add twists and turns at will, seals were made in seal script, especially official seals that required anti-counterfeiting, until the fall of the feudal dynasty and the emergence of new anti-counterfeiting technologies in modern times. .

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Chinese characters mainly originate from pictographic pictures for recording events. Pictograms are the basis for the formation and development of the Chinese character system. The subsequent evolution has gone through a long process of thousands of years, and has gone through stages such as oracle bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, seal script, official script, regular script, cursive script, and running script. Regular script is commonly used today, but it has not yet been completely finalized.

According to ancient Chinese literature, the stems and branches and related records were invented in the Emperor's era. In the later inheritance, the name of the stems and branches was simplified to one word in the Yellow Emperor's era.

There are records of comparative relationships in "Historical Records" and "Erya", but the versions of "Historical Records" and "Erya" are different. Invent numbers: zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, twenty, thirty, eighty, one hundred, one thousand, ten thousand.

It is said that Cangjie created Chinese characters. "Shuowen Jiezi" records that Cangjie was inspired by the footprints of birds and animals, classified them into different categories, collected, organized and used them. He played an important role in the creation of Chinese characters and was revered as the "Sage of Character Creation".

In the Shang Dynasty, the earliest known mature Chinese character oracle bone inscriptions appeared. Although the Zhongding inscriptions that appeared later had an increase in the number of characters, the shape did not change significantly.

In the Zhou Dynasty, due to the vast territory and the long-term separatism of the princes, the Chinese characters clearly had different shapes among the princes in the late Spring and Autumn Period, and the situation was even more serious during the Warring States Period. After the unification of Qin, in order to consolidate its rule, Qin Shihuang ordered Prime Minister Li Si, CRRC Magistrate Zhao Gao, Taishi Magistrate Hu Wujing and others to organize the writing, and based on the Qin State's large seal script, the small seal script was formulated as a standard font for use throughout the country.

Later, based on the fonts that were popular among the people at that time, the official script was compiled into a simpler font, which was widely circulated across the country as a common script.

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The earliest mature writing discovered in China was once thought to be oracle bone inscriptions. As far as the written materials of the Yin and Shang Dynasties are concerned, there are many categories of text carriers. In addition to using brushes to write on slips, the other main means of writing at that time were to inscribe on tortoise shells, animal bones, pottery, jade, and cast on bronze.

The written materials of the Shang Dynasty are mainly based on the oracle bones and bronze ritual vessels used for divination in the Yin Ruins. Among the unearthed oracle bone inscriptions, a total of 4,672 characters have been discovered, and scholars have recognized more than 1,000 characters. It is only a partial preservation of the writing of the Shang Dynasty, and is called oracle bone inscriptions, a unique discipline - oracle bone science.

Chinese characters are an important tool for carrying culture, and there are currently a large number of classics written in Chinese characters. Different dialects and even languages ??use Chinese characters as their own writing system.

In ancient Japan, the Korean Peninsula, Vietnam, the Ryukyu Islands, and the Lanfang Kingdom in Borneo, Chinese characters were the only system for official documents in the country. Therefore, Chinese characters played an important role in history. The spread and sharing of civilization plays an important role.

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