The origin of Chinese characters

The origin of Chinese characters




The origin of Chinese characters
Short, extract the essence, about 100 words.


Chinese characters, also known as Chinese characters, Chinese characters and national characters, are widely used in the cultural circle of Chinese characters. They belong to the morpheme syllabic characters of ideographic characters. They were invented and improved by the ancient Chinese people. At present, the exact history can be traced back to the oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty in about 1300 B.C, Up to the Tang Dynasty, regular script became the standard of today's handwritten font - regular script. Chinese characters are the main characters that have been used continuously for the longest time up to now, and are also the only characters that have been handed down to the present day in the major writing systems of ancient times. Some scholars believe that Chinese characters are one of the key elements to maintain the long-term unification of the north and the south of China, Some scholars have listed Chinese characters as the fifth greatest invention in China. Chinese characters are the main official characters in all Chinese dynasties. Archaeological and literature records show that Chinese characters originated in the Yangshao culture period, about 4000 BC, and entered the character accumulation stage in 2000 BC. A considerable scale of character system was formed in the early Shang Dynasty [1]



The origin and origin of Chinese characters, urgent!
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The mystery of the origin of Chinese characters
Chinese characters are one of the oldest characters in the world, which has a history of about 6000 years. From the ancient legend of Cangjie's characters to the discovery of oracle bone inscriptions more than 100 years ago, Chinese scholars have been committed to solving the mystery of the origin of Chinese characters
There are various opinions about the origin of Chinese characters in ancient Chinese literature, such as "knot rope", "eight trigrams", "picture" and "Book deed". There are also legends about the creation of characters by Cangjie, a historian of the Yellow Emperor. Modern scholars believe that systematic writing tools can not be completely created by one person. If there is a real person, Cangjie should be the arranger or promulgator of characters
Guo Moruo and Yu Shengwu, the older generation of Chinese historians and paleographers, once believed that the emergence of Chinese characters could be traced back to the Yangshao culture in Banpo 6000 years ago, while the formation of Chinese characters in China was in the middle of 3000 BC. A more eclectic view was that Chinese characters "sprouted among the people" was in the late primitive society 6000 years ago, The formation of a relatively complete writing system was in the middle and late Xia Dynasty 4000 years ago
In recent years, due to the rapid development of archaeological work, a large number of new clues have been provided to explore the origin of Chinese characters. The excavation report of Xi'an Banpo published in 1963 tentatively pointed out that the symbols on the pottery of Yangshao culture may be related to the origin of characters. The absolute age of Banpo type of Yangshao culture is about 4000 BC
From 1984 to 1987, three symbolic tortoise shells and a stone tool were unearthed from several tombs at Jiahu Site in Wuyang County, Henan Province. The shape of the symbols is very similar to the Shang Dynasty oracle bone inscriptions. The site date is earlier than 5500 BC
In recent decades, Chinese archaeologists have published a series of unearthed materials related to the origin of Chinese characters earlier than the oracle bone inscriptions in the Yin Ruins. These materials mainly refer to the carved or painted symbols on pottery in the late primitive society and the early slave society, as well as a small number of symbols carved on oracle bone, jade and stone tools, Together, they provide a new basis for explaining the origin of Chinese characters
Chinese characters are a kind of writing system with independent origin, which does not depend on any foreign language. However, its origin is not single. After multiple and long-term running in, about the time of entering the Xia Dynasty, on the basis of widely absorbing and using the experience of early symbols, the ancestors creatively invented the writing symbol system used to record the language, The system of Chinese characters has matured rapidly
It is reported that according to the unearthed documents, there were official documents in China at least in the Yuxia period. Shang Dynasty documents, mainly carried by Oracle Bones and bronze ritual vessels, are the earliest mature documents found in China so far



The origin and origin of Chinese characters. (about 200 characters)!


From the ancient legend of Cangjie's creation of Chinese characters to the discovery of oracle bone inscriptions more than 100 years ago, Chinese scholars have been working hard to uncover the mystery of the origin of Chinese characters



The origin, origin and development of Chinese characters


The origin of Chinese characters
From the ancient legend of Cangjie to the discovery of oracle bone inscriptions more than 100 years ago, Chinese scholars have been working hard to uncover the origin of Chinese characters
There are various opinions about the origin of Chinese characters in ancient Chinese literature, such as "knot rope", "eight trigrams", "picture" and "Book deed". There are also legends about the creation of Chinese characters by Cangjie, a historian of the Yellow Emperor. Modern scholars believe that systematic writing tools can not be completely created by one person. If there is a real person, Cangjie should be the arranger or promulgator of Chinese characters
The earliest symbols are more than 8000 years ago
In recent decades, Chinese archaeologists have published a series of unearthed materials related to the origin of Chinese characters earlier than the oracle bone inscriptions in Yin Ruins. These materials mainly refer to the carved or painted symbols on pottery in the late primitive society and the early historical society, as well as a small number of symbols on oracle bone, jade and stone tools, Together, they provide a new basis for explaining the origin of Chinese characters
Wang Yunzhi, doctoral supervisor of Zhengzhou University, believes that the earliest Chinese Carved symbols appeared in the Jiahu Site in Wuyang, Henan Province, which has a history of more than 8000 years
As a professional, he tried to make a comprehensive arrangement of these raw materials through scientific means, such as comprehensive use of archaeology, ancient Chinese character construction, comparative philology, scientific and technological archaeology and high-tech means, so as to comb out some clues about the occurrence and development of Chinese characters before Shang Dynasty
However, the situation is not so simple. In addition to the Xiaozong materials of Zhengzhou Shangcheng site and Xiaoshuangqiao site (where more than 10 cases of early Shang Dynasty Zhu calligraphy and pottery inscriptions have been found in recent years), other pre Shang symbols are scattered and lack each other, Most of the symbols are not in conformity with the characters of Shang Dynasty
The system of Chinese characters was formally formed in the Central Plains
Wang Yunzhi believes that the formal formation of the Chinese character system should be in the Central Plains. Chinese characters are a kind of writing system with independent origin, which does not depend on any foreign language. However, its origin is not single. After a multi-dimensional and long-term running in, the ancestors, on the basis of extensive absorption and application of early symbols, probably entered the Xia Dynasty, He creatively invented the character symbol system for recording language. At that time, the Chinese character system matured rapidly
It is reported that according to the unearthed characters from archaeological excavations, there were official characters in China at least in the Yuxia period. For example, in recent years, archaeologists found the character "Wen" with brush and Zhu script on a flat pottery pot unearthed from the Taosi site in Xiangfen, Shanxi Province. These symbols belong to the basic configuration of the early character system, but such unearthed characters are still rare
Characters were first mature in Shang Dynasty
As far as the literature of Shang Dynasty is concerned, there are many types of literature carriers. At that time, the main means of writing were carved on tortoise shells, animal bones, pottery, jade and pottery cast on bronze. The literature of Shang Dynasty was mainly carried by Oracle Bones and bronze ritual vessels, It is the earliest mature writing found in China so far
The characters of Shang Dynasty reflected in the Yin Ruins period not only reflected in the large number of characters and rich materials, but also showed that the way of making characters had formed its own characteristics and rules. The structural characteristics of basic characters of Shang Dynasty can be divided into four categories: Taking the physical characteristics of human body and a certain part of human body as the basis of word formation; taking the labor creation and labor object as the basis of word formation; taking the human body and a certain part of human body as the basis of word formation; From the perspective of cultural connotation, the objects of these mature and early glyphs are quite close to the social life of the ancestors, and have strong realistic characteristics. At the same time, the content described by these glyphs involves all aspects of human and nature, Therefore, it also has the characteristics of extensive sources of configuration
There are various legends about the origin of Chinese characters. In ancient Chinese books, it is said that characters were created by Cang Jie. It is said that Cang Jie saw a god of heaven with a strange appearance and his face looked like a painting with characters. Then Cang Jie described his image and created characters. Some ancient books say that after Cang Jie created characters, because of the leakage of the characters, he created characters There is also a legend that Cangjie observed the footprints of birds and animals on the soil, which inspired him to invent characters. All these legends are unreliable. Characters are based on the needs of the working people's actual life, after a long period of social practice It has been gradually enriched and developed
From the autumn of 1954 to the summer of 1957, Chinese archaeologists excavated the Banpo site (now the north of Banpo village in the eastern suburb of Xi'an city) for many times, and found that Banpo people had created writing symbols, paintings, sculptures, decorations and other arts as early as 6000 years in their long-term life and production practice Works. Banpo people's symbols are mostly preserved on painted pottery, which can be regarded as the original Chinese characters
In recent years, a number of tombs (more than 4500 years ago) have been found in a site of late Dawenkou Culture in Lingyang River, Ju county, Shandong Province. A large number of cultural relics have been unearthed. Some pottery statues are engraved with one image character, and more than 10 characters have been found. These characters are based on the shape of objects The structure of the font is very similar to that of the oracle bone inscriptions, but it is more than 1000 years earlier than that of the oracle bone inscriptions. Therefore, "pictograph" is the earliest Chinese character, which has the characteristics of characters
There are three ways to form Chinese characters
Pictographic method
This is the earliest way to form Chinese characters, so the most primitive characters were created, such as "sun", "Moon", water, cattle and so on. After gradual evolution, these hieroglyphs changed the original shape of the characters, and became the later founder of the font. Some strokes were reduced, and some strokes were changed Strokes have been added, from irregular to regular
Understanding method
Hieroglyphs are easy to see the reason of making characters, but they can't express abstract meaning. The ancients created another kind of hieroglyphs