Brief introduction of modern Chinese characters;
Modern Chinese characters refer to capitalized Chinese characters, including traditional characters and simplified characters. Modern Chinese characters have developed from Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, seal script and seal script to official script, cursive script, regular script and running script. Chinese characters were invented and improved by Han ancestors, which is an indispensable link to maintain the Han dialect area.
The earliest existing Chinese characters are Oracle Bone Inscriptions of Shang Dynasty and later inscriptions on bronze in about 1300 BC, which evolved into seal script in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and then to seal script and official script in the Qin Dynasty, until the official script prevailed in the Han and Wei Dynasties, and the official script was changed to regular script at the end of the Han Dynasty. Regular script prevailed in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.
The origin theory of Chinese characters;
From the ancient legend of Cangjie's word-making to the appearance of Oracle Bone Inscriptions more than 1000 years ago, China scholars have been trying to uncover the mystery of the origin of Chinese characters. There are always different opinions about the origin of Chinese characters, among which the most influential ones are: knot rope theory, gossip theory, seal cutting theory, Cangjie word-making theory, description theory and picture theory.
Gossip says:
There are many theories about the origin of gossip, such as description theory, astrology theory, number theory and "Hai" theory. In the Book of Changes, I wrote: "The ancients loved the king of the family, but looked up at the sky and looked down at the land of Dharma. After seeing the culture of birds and beasts and the suitability of the land, they brought everything near and far, so they began to gossip in order to communicate the virtues of the gods and the feelings of all things. "
The eight diagrams mentioned in this passage originated from Yong Jia's description of the natural and objective world, which is similar to the origin of Chinese characters "pictographs are written according to categories". Kong Anguo's Preface to Shangshu (this is a fake, but it is a long time ago) said: "The ancients loved the king of the Xi family and began to draw gossip and make a book contract instead of tying the rope, so literary books came into being."
Big seal script:
Dazhuan is a Chinese character. Legend has it that it was written by Zhou Xuanwang's uncle, so it is also called Wen Shu or Shu Shu. In the Qin dynasty, it was called Da Zhuan, which was different from Xiao Zhuan.
Dazhuan originated in the late Western Zhou Dynasty and traveled in Qin during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. The fonts are similar to those of Qin Zhuan, but the configurations of glyphs overlap. Representing the present Shi Guwen, it was named after a book written by Tai Shihuan of Zhou Xuanwang. On the basis of the original text, he transformed it and got his name because it was engraved on the stone drum. It is the earliest stone carving text and the ancestor of stone carving.