The evolution of Chinese characters 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.
1. Oracle bones
About 150,000 oracle bones and more than 4,500 single characters were found. The contents recorded in these oracle bone inscriptions are extremely rich and involve many aspects of social life in the Shang Dynasty, including not only politics, military, culture, social customs, etc., but also science and technology such as astronomy, calendar, medicine, etc.
2. Bronze inscriptions
Bronze inscriptions refer to the characters engraved on the bronzes of the Yin and Zhou dynasties, 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. Therefore, bell and tripod inscriptions or bronze inscriptions refer to the inscriptions cast or engraved on bronze vessels.
3. Large Seal Script
The representative stone drum inscriptions that exist today are named after the script written by Taishi Zhen during the reign of King Xuan of Zhou Dynasty. He carried out reforms on the basis of the original writing, which was named after it was carved on a stone drum. It is the earliest stone-engraved writing that has been handed down to this day, and is the ancestor of stone carving. It started in the late Western Zhou Dynasty and spread in the Qin State during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. The font is similar to Qin seal script, but the configuration of the glyphs often overlaps.
4. Xiaozhuan
Xiaozhuan is also called "Qin Zhuan". During the Qin Dynasty, Li Si was ordered to unify the script, and this script was Xiaozhuan. Popular in the Qin Dynasty. The shape is relatively long, evenly rounded and neat, and it is derived from the large seal script.
5. Regular script
Regular script is also called Zhengshu, or Zhenshu. Its characteristics are: square shape and straight strokes, which can be used as a model, hence the name. It began in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
6. Cursive script
A writing style of Chinese characters. It was formed in the Han Dynasty and evolved on the basis of official script for the convenience of writing.
7. Running script
A font between regular script and cursive script. It can be said to be the cursive version of regular script or the regular script version of cursive script. It was created to make up for the slow writing speed of regular script and the difficulty of legibility of cursive script. The writing style is not as sloppy as cursive script, nor is it required to be as straight as regular script. Those with more regular script than cursive script are called "Xingkai". Those with more cursive than regular script are called "Xingcao". Running script was produced around the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty