Chinese characters are the most widely used script in the world and the longest-lived script.
It is difficult to determine when Chinese characters began to appear. The oldest writing that can be seen today is the writing inscribed on oracle bones and cast on bronze vessels in the Shang Dynasty. The writing of the Shang Dynasty was already very developed. The era when writing was first produced must be long before the Shang Dynasty, that is, the Xia Dynasty or earlier. About four to five thousand years ago, it should be in the Neolithic Age. Many pictures and characters similar to objects can be seen in the pottery symbols unearthed from the Erlitou Culture and Dawenkou Culture. On this basis, the ideographic patterns in these pictorial characters and pottery patterns evolved into word-memory characters. Chinese characters gradually accumulated from scattered and individual characters. After reaching a certain number, they were artificially standardized and became a writing system.
According to research, it took nearly 2,600 years for the original Chinese characters to emerge in the middle of the Neolithic Age and develop into a preliminary writing system. Origin: One type is the abstract, square-shaped symbols represented by the glyphs on the painted pottery from the Dadiwan site in Gansu; the other type is the zodiac pictographic symbols represented by the glyphs on the oracle bones from the Jiahu site in Henan. . The former evolved in an orderly manner into a series of engraved symbols on the Jiangzhai in Banpo, Lintong, Xi'an; the latter developed into images on the Dawenkou pottery. By the late Longshan Culture, patriarchal society was basically established. During this period, groups of engraved symbols appeared on the jade objects of the Liangzhu Culture. Some of these engraved symbols are identical or similar to the images on Dawenkou pottery, and some are similar to those in Xi'an and other places. These engraved characters may be one of the prototype pre-Chinese character systems of the time. It is worth noting that the Liangzhu culture was on the eve of the birth of China's centralized slave state, and the Xia Dynasty should be the most critical period for the formation of a formal Chinese character system. It has a great role in promoting the development of Chinese characters. Chinese characters may have been created by Cangjie. It is said that Cangjie adapted it based on the footprints of birds, beasts and insects. But this is just one kind of legend.
2 Development History
The origin of Chinese characters can be traced back to two types of symbols around 8,000 years ago: one type is represented by the engraved symbols on the painted pottery at the Dadiwan site in Gansu Province The other type is the abstract, square-shaped symbols; the other type is the zodiac pictographic symbols represented by the talismans on the oracle bones at the Jiahu site in Henan. The former evolved in an orderly manner into a series of engraved symbols on the Jiangzhai in Banpo, Lintong, Xi'an; the latter developed into images on the Dawenkou pottery.
By the late Longshan Culture, patriarchal society was basically established. During this period, groups of engraved symbols appeared on the jade objects of the Liangzhu Culture. Some of these engraved symbols are identical or similar to the images on Dawenkou pottery, and some are similar to those in Xi'an and other places. These engraved characters may be one of the prototype pre-Chinese character systems of the time. It is worth noting that the Liangzhu culture was on the eve of the birth of China's centralized slave state, and the Xia Dynasty should be the most critical period for the formation of a formal Chinese character system. So, the question is: why did Chinese characters appear so late? According to archaeological and genetic research, language was born about hundreds of thousands of years ago, but the real Chinese character system was not formed until about 5,000 years ago.
2.1 Development Trend
Chinese characters have undergone many changes since the oracle bone inscriptions. According to historical facts, these changes can be roughly divided into two categories: reform and natural change. The reform of Chinese characters refers to the process of people consciously and actively managing Chinese characters, while the natural evolution of Chinese characters refers to the natural change process of Chinese characters. The reform of Chinese characters is generally discontinuous, drastic, and completed in a short period of time; while the natural evolution of Chinese characters is continuous, slow, and long-term. The natural evolution of Chinese characters has both temporal and geographical factors, which diversify the shape, pronunciation, and meaning of Chinese characters, resulting in more and more variant characters, different pronunciations, and changes in meaning, resulting in the disunity of Chinese characters. , irregular. Therefore, after a period of natural evolution, people must reform Chinese characters to standardize and unify them.
In addition, Chinese characters cannot be perfect as soon as they are produced to meet the needs of the development of productivity in each period. Therefore, as the times progress, people will also take the initiative to reform Chinese characters so that Chinese characters can meet the needs of the continued development of productivity. need. After the reform measures were promoted, Chinese characters began a new round of natural change.
The changes in Chinese characters are like the changes in roads. The road is made by people; after the road is made, people have to repair it every once in a while; after the repair, the road gradually undergoes some changes, such as widening, straightening, damage, or new branches appearing, and needs to be repaired again.
In addition, with the development of the times, the previous roads gradually cannot meet the needs of the development of the times, and new roads need to be built, such as railways, highways, etc. Building roads is equivalent to the reform of Chinese characters, and changes such as roads gradually and naturally widening, straightening, being damaged, and branching are equivalent to the natural evolution of Chinese characters. These two change processes have different natures, trends, laws and functions. Therefore, in the past, we generally put these two changes together to discuss the historical evolution of Chinese characters, and drew some conclusions, such as "The development trend of Chinese characters is driven by traditional Chinese characters." "To be simple" is inevitably ambiguous and specious.
Evolution process
4.1 From ancient characters to Xiaozhuan
4.2 From Xiaozhuan to official regular script
Not long after Xiaozhuan became popular, the people created another A new calligraphy style that is simpler and more stereotyped than Xiaozhuan. This is "official script". Official script started out as Xiaozhuan, which was written in a rather hasty and unstandardized way. By the time Qin Shihuang unified the script, official script had formed a fixed and standardized font. The official script was changed from the rounded lines of the seal script to the square and folded strokes, which complied with the society's need for convenient and standardized writing. According to legend, a prisoner named Cheng Miao compiled 3,000 characters of the popular official script in prison and passed it to Qin Shihuang. Qin Shihuang greatly appreciated it and promoted Cheng Miao to the position of censor, and allowed his characters to be used among the common people in Zaoli. After that, official script was not only widely popular among the people in the Qin Dynasty, but also government documents were generally written in official script. However, important imperial edicts were still written in small seal script, so official script was also called "zuoshu" in the Qin Dynasty.
The emergence of official script is an important milestone in the history of the development of Chinese characters. Chinese characters before official script were written with painterly lines, while after official script, Chinese characters were written with horizontal and vertical strokes such as dots and folds. Since the emergence of official script, the structure of Chinese characters has been basically fixed. Until the founding of New China, there was basically no big change.
With the fall of the Qin Dynasty, Xiaozhuan quickly withdrew from the stage of history, and official script became the primary writing method and the model of calligraphy in society. Soon thereafter, the more standardized regular script font appeared. After the Han Dynasty, regular script occupied an orthodox position.
4.3 From Traditional Chinese Characters to Simplified Chinese Characters
The following is a detailed description of the reform process of Chinese character structure at this stage.
Many Chinese characters have been written in various ways among the people since ancient times. Some are written with more strokes, and some are written with fewer strokes. Characters with more strokes are called traditional Chinese characters, and characters with fewer strokes are called simplified characters.
When official script and regular script came onto the stage of history, various traditional and simplified characters in the form of Xiaozhuan were naturally eliminated. However, for some Chinese characters in the form of official script and regular script, people gradually created new writing styles. Form, some writing methods have more strokes, and some writing methods have fewer strokes. Generally, those with fewer strokes account for the majority. These writing forms with fewer strokes are called simplified characters, and those with more strokes are called traditional characters. Simplified Chinese characters are generally not officially recognized and are only popular among the people, so they are also called vulgar Chinese characters. By the way, after we implemented the simplified character movement in the last century, some simplified or vulgar characters replaced the orthodox traditional characters and became the orthodox characters. These simplified characters are called simplified characters. It can be seen that "simplified characters" and "simplified characters" are two related but different concepts.
In 1909, Lu Feikui published an article "Vulgar Chinese Characters Should Be Used in General Education" in the "Education Magazine", which for the first time explained to the Chinese people the superiority of simplified Chinese characters and that simplified Chinese characters are not inherently unsightly. This article is considered the beginning of the modern simplified character movement.
In 1922, the National Language Unification Planning Committee of the Ministry of Education of the Kuomintang government established the Chinese Character Provincial Style Committee to formally organize and lead the study of simplified Chinese characters, and passed Qian Xuantong's "Stroke Reduction Plan for Current Chinese Characters". This case first explained the importance of reducing the strokes of Chinese characters, pointing out that although switching to pinyin was a permanent solution, and reducing the strokes of Chinese characters was a temporary solution, the shortcomings of Chinese characters had become increasingly obvious at that time, and the permanent solution was temporarily removed. It didn't come out, so the temporary solution of reducing strokes was the only option at that time. This case also describes several ways to reduce strokes, and these methods all have a certain mass base and a history of folk use.
In 1935, after more than ten years of academic discussions and preparations, the Kuomintang government issued an order nationwide to implement the "First Batch of Simplified Chinese Character Lists". However, the watch was opposed by some conservatives soon after its implementation. In 1936, the Ministry of Education, following an order from the Executive Yuan, officially issued an order that "the implementation of simplified Chinese characters should be suspended", marking the demise of the movement to simplify Chinese characters during the Republic of China.
However, the simplified character movement continues among the people, especially in the areas liberated by the Red Army, where simplified characters can be seen everywhere. They appear on people's handwritten manuscripts and various printed matter, and are called "liberation characters". With the expansion of the liberated areas, "liberated characters" have also become popular throughout the country, laying a good foundation for the Chinese character simplification movement in New China among the masses.
After the founding of New China, the simplification of Chinese characters was quickly put on the agenda. On October 10, 1949, the Chinese Character Reform Association was formally established and Wu Yuzhang was elected as chairman. In 1952, the Chinese Character Reform Research Committee was established. Its chairman was Ma Xulun. It consisted of a pinyin planning group, a Chinese character arrangement group, a teaching experiment group, an editing and publishing group, and a secretariat. In October 1954, this committee submitted the "Draft of Simplified List of Commonly Used Chinese Characters", which had been studied and discussed by many parties and revised four times, to the central government. It was approved by the central government and sent to local governments for further review and preliminary testing. In October of the same year, the Chinese Character Reform Commission was established, a unit directly under the State Council. In 1956, the State Council passed the "Chinese Character Simplification Plan" and the "Resolution on Announcement (Chinese Character Simplification Plan)", and began to formally implement the Chinese character simplification plan. According to the resolution of the State Council, the "Chinese Character Simplification Plan" will be carried out in four batches. The first batch of 260 simplified characters was implemented in February 1956, including 230 simplified characters and 30 radical analogies outside the plan; the second batch of 95 simplified characters was implemented in June 1956; and the third batch of simplified characters was implemented in 1958. 70; in 1959, the fourth batch of simplified characters was implemented with 92 characters, and an additional 54 simplified radicals were appended. There are a total of 517 simplified characters in the four batches, of which 30 are radical analogies outside the "Chinese Character Simplification Plan", while 28 of the "Chinese Character Simplification Plan" have not been implemented. In 1964, the Cultural Reform Commission compiled and printed the "General List of Simplified Chinese Characters", which was divided into three tables. The first table contains 352 simplified characters without radicals, and the second table contains 132 simplified characters that can be used as radicals and 14 simplified radicals. The third table contains 1,754 simplified characters, which is based on the simplified characters and simplified radicals of the second table, and is basically simplified by analogy with the 8,000 Chinese characters included in the "Xinhua Dictionary". In addition to the general list, there are two important appendices: one is a list of variant characters that are regarded as simplified characters, and the other is a list of rare place names approved by the State Council. The compilation and printing of the "General List of Simplified Characters" showed that China's first simplified character campaign was finally successful.
The effects of the first simplified character campaign are outstanding: ① It reduced the average number of 2235 Chinese characters from 16.03 strokes to 10.3 strokes, making learning and writing much easier; ② Eliminated a number of Variant characters; ③ The structure is more reasonable. For example, "compensation" is easy to read as "shǎng", and it will not be misread after it is changed into the simplified character "compensation"; ④ The structure is more beautiful, and the differences between glyphs are more prominent. . The author once showed Chinese newspapers in traditional Chinese characters and simplified characters to Germans and Thais who did not know Chinese characters, and asked them to compare which form of Chinese characters was more beautiful. As a result, most of them thought the simplified characters were beautiful.
In literacy tests, the efficiency of literacy in simplified characters is about 20% higher than that in traditional characters.
The first movement to simplify characters also had some problems: ① Some characters were unreasonably simplified; ② Some traditional Chinese characters were not simplified when they should have been. These problems are secondary to its above-mentioned beneficial effects.
Everything has a certain degree of inertia, and the movement of simplified characters is no exception. After the success of the first simplified Chinese characters, some people were thinking about how to further simplify Chinese characters, so they started the second simplified character movement. The general process is as follows:
From 1966 to 1971, the work of simplifying Chinese characters was at a standstill. In March 1972, the Chinese Academy of Sciences established a Character Reform Office, and the character reform work began to resume. In July of that year, the Character Reform Office began to formulate the "Second Chinese Character Simplification Plan") and widely collected simplified characters that were popular among the masses. In 1973, the State Council agreed to restore the name of "Chinese Character Reform Commission" and put it under the management of the Science and Education Organization of the State Council. In 1975, the Cultural Reform Commission formulated the "Second Chinese Character Simplification Plan (Draft)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Two Slips"). In 1977, the Cultural Reform Commission drafted the "Second Chinese Character Simplification Plan" based on extensive solicitation of opinions from all parties. (Draft)" contains 853 simplified characters.
On December 20, 1977, "People's Daily" published an editorial "Accelerating the pace of character reform" and began to trial the 248 simplified characters in the first table of "Two Slips" the next day. In March 1978, the Ministry of Education issued a notice requiring all nationally compiled textbooks to use the first character in the "Two Slips" and began to promote the "Two Slips".
However, there are many unreasonable things in "Er Bamboo": ① Some characters are simplified irregularly; ② Some Chinese characters are unreasonably merged, such as "diao" and "diao" are merged into one character. . In addition, after the overall situation of Chinese characters was deeply impacted by the "One Jane", it had just returned to calm, and was impacted by the "Two Janes" again, causing some confusion. Therefore, since 1978, people's opposition to "Er Jane" has become increasingly louder. In August 1978, newspapers and periodicals across the country stopped using the simplified characters in the first table of "Two Slips". Starting from 1980, relevant agencies began to revise the "Two Slips", which lasted until 1985. However, when it seemed that the revision was complete, it was abolished by the government: in December 1985, the Cultural Reform Commission was renamed the National Language and Writing Working Committee; on June 24, 1986, the State Council approved the National Language and Writing Working Committee's decision to abolish the "Two Slips" and requested instructions to correct the confusion in social word usage, and clearly stated in the notice that "the "Second Chinese Character Simplification Plan (Draft)" published on December 20, 1977, will cease to be used from the date of issuance of this notice." This notice It declared the failure of the second simplified character movement.
Why did the second simplified character campaign fail? The author believes that the fundamental reason is that the benefits of the second simplified character movement are very limited. The first simplified character movement changed the structure of Chinese characters so much, but the effect was that in the literacy test, the efficiency of simplified character literacy was only about 20% higher than the efficiency of traditional character literacy. The scale of the second simplified character movement is far less than that of the first simplified character movement, the mass base is not as good as that of the first simplified character movement, and the rationality is not as good as the first simplified character movement, so the benefits it produces will not be great.
Although the second simplified character movement failed, it left us with many questions worth thinking about and many lessons worth learning. The key point is "don't do it if you are not familiar with it". Therefore, on November 6, 1992, the State Council issued the "Notice of the State Council Approving the State Language Commission's Request for Instructions on Current Language and Writing Work" which further clearly pointed out that in the future, a cautious attitude should be taken when simplifying Chinese characters to keep Chinese characters stable and facilitate social application.
5 Natural changes
5.1 Natural changes in the structure of Chinese characters
The natural changes in the structure of Chinese characters include at least the following aspects: ① Variants are increasingly The more, that is to say, there are more and more different writing forms of the same word; ② there are more and more stroke patterns; ③ there are more and more writing methods.
When Chinese characters originated, they were actually lifelike pictures. Each tribe or even each person may have a different look when writing these characters, or painting these pictures, so the meaning of each character There are many ways to write. This phenomenon is still very obvious in the oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty. For example, there are at least 20 ways to write the word "Zun" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, and there are at least 45 ways to write the word "Sheep". Multiple ways of writing a character are called variant characters.
In the process of changing the structure of Chinese characters, new fonts replaced the old fonts. Various writing methods in the old fonts were often abolished at the same time, that is, many variant characters were eliminated. However, for new fonts, through natural evolution, there are phenomena, requirements and trends of simplification, cursive, fast writing, and casual writing among the people. There are no unified rules for casual writing, and the country has never established standards for writing Chinese characters. Therefore, a single Chinese character has been written in multiple ways, and new variants have emerged.
In addition, as people's understanding of society and nature continues to grow, existing characters are often insufficient. Therefore, some other words will be coined. Since the man-made words in each period often spread without being reviewed by specialized institutions, some words actually mean the same meaning, which increases the chance of variant words appearing. .
In terms of fonts, Chinese characters have also undergone major changes. For example, not long after the official script came onto the stage of history, its strokes evolved naturally and formed the regular script. The Song Dynasty invented printing. In order to meet the needs of printing, especially books and periodicals, the strokes underwent further natural evolution, and the horizontal, vertical, and square printing fonts - Song Dynasty - appeared.
With the development of cultural undertakings and science and technology, as well as the influence of Western character fonts, Chinese characters have appeared in many new fonts such as black fonts and art fonts, such as poster fonts, variety fonts, Kantingliu, girl fonts, imitation Song Dynasty, and flat Song fonts. wait. These fonts are generally "written" by computers rather than by hand, so they can now be collectively referred to as "computer fonts".
In addition, in order to facilitate handwriting and develop the art of calligraphy, people also created various writing methods such as running script and cursive script. The structure of running script is basically similar to regular script. Although the structure of cursive script is far different from regular script, cursive script is generally only used as a kind of calligraphy or as a shorthand method. It is rarely used in information exchange and is often rejected.
5.2 The natural evolution of the number of Chinese characters
In the process of natural evolution, the number of Chinese characters gradually increases. This is because people continue to create Come up with some new words to meet the needs of production and life. In addition, the natural increase of variant characters is also one of the reasons for the increase in the number of Chinese characters.
5.3 Natural changes in the pronunciation of Chinese characters
From ancient times to the present, the pronunciation of Chinese characters has undergone certain natural changes. For example, in ancient times, there were some compound consonants, but now they have changed from disappeared in Chinese. Additionally, in terms of tone, there are some notable changes. For a long time, there has been no standard phonetic notation tool for Chinese characters, which is one of the important reasons for the natural change of their pronunciation.
5.4 The natural evolution of the meanings of Chinese characters
From ancient times to the present, the meanings of some Chinese characters have undergone great changes. For example, before the Han Dynasty, "low" only meant "head hanging down"; after the Han Dynasty, "low" meant the opposite of "high", including "short", "low-lying", "small voice", "poor degree" ” and other meanings.
by Baidu