Promote Zhong Yao culture composition

Chinese characters are an important carrier for inheriting and promoting Chinese culture. They are the basic symbol of the Chinese nation and a significant symbol of Chinese civilization. They have a huge and far-reaching impact on the writing culture of North Korea, South Korea, Japan and other countries. The history of Chinese character culture lasting more than 4,000 years can be said to be a history of Chinese characters in the Central Plains. The emergence of Chinese characters and every important stage of their development almost all occurred in the Central Plains.

——Xu Guangchun

The earliest deed symbols discovered so far in China are in Henan; it is said that Cangjie in the Huangdi era created characters in Henan; the first complete set of Chinese character system oracle bone inscriptions Unearthed in Henan; Li Si, who helped Qin Shihuang "write the same text" and formulate the standard for writing "Xiaozhuan", was from Shangcai, Henan; Xu Shen, the philologist who compiled the world's first dictionary, summarized the rules of Chinese character generation, and unified the meaning analysis, was from Luohe, Henan. He completed the Chinese philology masterpiece "Shuowen Jiezi" in his hometown; the standardized font "Song Ti" that we still use today was produced in Kaifeng, Henan, and the famous movable type printing also took place here.

If the invention of axes and hammers has enhanced human strength tenfold, and the invention of bows and arrows has extended human arms a hundredfold, then the invention of writing has infinitely expanded human wisdom, and human society has therefore evolved. to develop by leaps and bounds. The emergence of writing is a landmark in prehistory and the history of civilization. Similarly, the emergence of Chinese characters also marks the beginning of ancient Chinese civilization. It can be said that a history of writing is a history of Chinese civilization.

Chinese characters have been a tool used by the Han nation to record the Chinese language and communicate ideas since ancient times. They were created by the Han ancestors in their labor and life practices. Chinese characters themselves have certain strict rules and have their own complete systematity. Although there are many differences in Chinese dialects, the written language written in Chinese characters can be understood by people from all over the north and south. Although the pronunciation has changed greatly from ancient to modern times, whether it is the ancient characters of Shang and Zhou Dynasties or the ancient books handed down from Qin and Han Dynasties, they are still the same today. Can read and understand.

In the course of thousands of years of social development in China, Chinese characters have played an extremely important role in uniting the entire Chinese nation, developing the economy and culture of the entire nation, consolidating the unity of the country, and spreading Chinese culture to the outside world. . Former French President d'Estaing once pointed out: "This unity of China" is "reinforced by language, not spoken language that varies from region to region, but written language, that is, those famous Chinese characters that are absolutely consistent everywhere in China."

From "Cangjie's creation of characters" to Wang Yongmin's "five-stroke font"

——The long history of Chinese characters

Chinese characters are not only used to record language As a tool, it also embodies rich and profound Chinese culture and is the most charming and vital carrier of the five thousand years of Chinese civilization. Oracle bone writing is one of the three oldest writing systems in the world. Among them, the ancient Egyptian holy book characters and the cuneiform characters of the Sumerians in the Mesopotamia were lost early due to the sudden cessation of their respective civilizations. Only Chinese characters have accompanied the long-standing and uninterrupted Chinese civilization, from the oracle bone inscriptions more than 3,300 years ago. It is still used today. In this sense, Chinese characters are the only ancient writing in the world and can be called the longevity star.

In the splendid history of Chinese writing, the history of writing in the Central Plains occupies an extremely important position. Not only has a large number of precious ancient writing materials been unearthed in Henan, but also a large number of philology experts have emerged, who are very interested in Chinese writing. played a decisive role in its development.

Li Lixin (Deputy Director of the Institute of Archeology, Henan Academy of Social Sciences, Doctor of History): According to legend, Chinese characters originated from the creation of characters by Cangjie. Cangjie, named Shihuang, was the historian of the Yellow Emperor. He created Chinese characters based on the shapes of the sun and moon and the footprints of birds and animals. From a historical perspective, the complex Chinese character system cannot be invented by one person. Cangjie may have made outstanding contributions in the collection, arrangement, and unification of Chinese characters. Therefore, Li Si's "Cangjie Pian" says: "Cangjie wrote books to teach future generations. "Huainanzi Benjingxun" records that the sky and the earth shook when Cangjie wrote the calligraphy: "In the past, Cangjie was writing and the sky rained grains, and ghosts cried at night." The literature records that Cangjie was the historian of the Yellow Emperor. In ancient times, there was no separation between witchcraft and history. , the prevalence of witchcraft is related to Cangjie's writing of "The Ghosts Cry in the Rain". Wang Chong's "Lunheng·Bone Phase Chapter" says: "Cangjie has four eyes." It seems that Cangjie is another witch of the Yellow Emperor. Wu Village, Liangcun Township, Nanle County, Puyang City today is the hometown of Cangjie. This village used to be called Shihuang Village, and now most people in the village still have the surname Shi. There is an existing Cangjie Mausoleum here, covering an area of ??more than 70 acres. It is an ancient cultural site of the Neolithic Age.

When talking about Chinese characters, we cannot fail to mention Oracle Bone Inscriptions.

Oracle bone inscriptions are ancient inscriptions carved on tortoise shells and animal bones for divination. They date from the late Shang Dynasty and were discovered mainly in Xiaotun Village, Anyang, our province, which is Yin Ruins, the capital of the late Shang Dynasty where Pan Geng moved to Yin. So far, there are as many as 150,000 pieces of oracle bone inscriptions discovered in the Yin Ruins, with about 5,000 single characters, and there are currently more than 1,000 undisputed interpretable characters. Confucius once lamented that due to the lack of documents, the Yin dynasty was difficult to conquer. At the end of the 19th century, 1.5 million words of oracle bone inscriptions were suddenly discovered. This was a direct historical material of the Shang Dynasty that even Confucius had never read, so it was extremely precious. Luo Zhenyu, a collector and researcher of early oracle bone inscriptions He proudly said "Yin Li is in Si Tang". It is precisely because of the discovery and in-depth study of oracle bone inscriptions that it has been proven that the records of the Shang Dynasty lineage in "Historical Records" are basically correct, and the mysterious door of the Yin-Shang Dynasty that has been locked by many historical doubts has suddenly been opened.

Wang Yuxin (President of the China Yin Shang Culture Research Association, researcher and doctoral supervisor at the Institute of History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) and historian Wang Yuxin once profoundly pointed out: "The rise of new knowledge in ancient times was mostly due to new discoveries." At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China when Wang Guowei lived, several new cultures that attracted worldwide attention were formed due to the discovery of bamboo slips dropped from the quicksand, scripture writing in Dunhuang, cabinet archives, the inscriptions of the "four descendants" and the oracle bone inscriptions of the Yin Ruins. In particular, the discovery of oracle bone inscriptions in 1899 and subsequent scientific excavations formed two new disciplines: oracle bone inscriptions and Yin Shang archeology. Since then, the research on Yin and Shang culture, which had been exhausted due to insufficient historical data, has taken a turn for the worse, opening up a new dimension.

Li Lixin: In the field of oracle bone inscriptions research, Henan people have also made significant contributions. Mr. Dong Zuobin, a native of Nanyang, is the most famous oracle bone expert in modern times. He has made outstanding contributions to the excavation of oracle bone inscriptions in the Yin Ruins and the study of oracle bone inscriptions. Together with Luo Zhenyu, Wang Guowei and Guo Moruo, he is known as the "Four Oracle Bone Temples" and is known as He is a master of oracle bone research.

Guo Moruo once asserted: "Before the oracle bone inscriptions, Chinese characters had experienced a development process of two to three thousand years." Among the relics unearthed from the Jiahu site of the Peiligang Culture in Wuyang County, 16 examples of carved symbols were found. These symbols are most likely words. The symbols carved at the Jiahu site are about 8,000 years old and are of great significance to the study of the origin of Chinese characters. In the later sites of the Yangshao Culture, Longshan Culture and Erlitou Culture in Henan, pottery engraved symbols were found. These Neolithic engraved symbols should be the source of oracle bone inscriptions, and Henan is also the most likely place where Chinese characters originated. .

In the history of the development of Chinese characters, Li Si is a person who cannot be ignored. Li Si (? ~ 208 BC) was a native of Shangcai (now southwest of Shangcai) in Chu State at the end of the Warring States Period. A famous politician, essayist, writing reformer and calligrapher in the Qin Dynasty. Before the unification of Qin, due to the long-term separation and division of various vassal states, a situation of different languages ??and different characters was formed. After the unification of the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shihuang ordered Prime Minister Li Si to formulate a standard script. Li Si boldly cut out the complexity of the large seal script and simplified it, and compiled a set of characters with simple strokes and neat shapes, called Li Si's small seal script. It was designated as the standard script by Qin Shihuang and was used throughout the country. It was for the Qin Dynasty. Seal script, also known as Xiaozhuan script. The emergence of Xiaozhuan is a great progress in the history of the development of Chinese characters and an important milestone in the transformation of Chinese characters from ancient to modern styles. There are still Li Si’s hometown and Li Si’s tomb in Shangcai County.

Zheng Huisheng (Professor of History Department of Henan University): At the beginning of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Xu Shen set a new milestone in the field of Chinese character research. Xu Shen, courtesy name Shuzhong, was a native of Zhaoling, Runan (now Yancheng County, Henan Province), and the author of "Shuowen Jiezi". Before Xu Shen wrote "Shuowen Jiezi", there were no philological works in China. There is "Erya", which is a dictionary, and it is only responsible for explaining the meaning of words; there is also "Dialect", which is responsible for comparing dialect words from various places. There is only one such book, "Shuowen Jiezi", which collects all popular Chinese characters, introduces their creation methods, and analyzes the form, sound, and meaning structure of each Chinese character...

"Shuo Wen Jie Zi" collected 9353 popular Chinese characters at that time, and copied them all in the small seal script commonly used in Qin and Han Dynasties; some characters are different in ancient Chinese, large seal script and small seal script. "Wen Jie Zi" also recorded them, which provides us with excellent materials for studying the origin and changes of writing today.

"Shuowen Jiezi" established 540 radicals for Chinese characters, which belong to 9353 Chinese characters. With the radicals, river, lake, sea, ocean... go to the water part, pine, cypress, plum, peach... go to the wood part, it is simple, clear and much more convenient. Therefore, since the establishment of the radical method, "Yupian", "Kangxi Dictionary", "Ciyuan" and "Cihai" have adopted it one after another.

Even today, editing dictionaries is still inseparable from this method. In particular, the compilation of some ancient text dictionaries is not only inseparable from radicals, but also must be based on the fourteen-volume divisions of "Shuowen Jiezi", such as "Oracle Bone Inscriptions", "Block Inscriptions", etc.

Li Lixin: The Northern Song Dynasty had a prosperous economy and advanced science and technology, especially its scientific and technological level was ahead of the world. Tokyo (today's Kaifeng City), the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, was the political, economic and cultural center of the country at that time. It was a famous international metropolis with a population of more than one million. Bi Heng, the inventor of movable type printing, was a palace blacksmith. Not only did he invent movable type printing During the Northern Song Dynasty, the most popular Chinese character font "Song Ti" in book printing today was also formed and named after the Northern Song Dynasty.

Printing, known as the "Mother of Civilization", is one of the four great inventions in ancient China. Ancient printing technology was divided into two categories: block printing and movable type printing. Block printing was invented in the Sui Dynasty, became popular in the Tang Dynasty and was perfected in the Song Dynasty. Block printing is very complicated because it involves engraving and printing the whole page. During the Qingli period of the Northern Song Dynasty (1041-1048), Bi Heng invented movable type printing for the first time in the world. Movable type printing involves engraving single characters and printing them together. Single characters can be reused, which greatly improves printing efficiency. With the movable type printing technology, the number of printed books doubled. The popularization of books promoted the spread of culture and the development of education. Chinese history entered a new era.

Song style is a Chinese character font that appeared in the Song Dynasty to adapt to woodblock printing. In the Song Dynasty, woodblock printing had been quite perfected. Because each edition of books at that time was printed with two pages, rectangular wooden boards were used to engrave the plates. The wooden board has wood grain, which is generally horizontal. The horizontal lines of the engraved characters are consistent with the wood grain and are relatively strong. However, when the vertical lines of the carved characters intersect with the wood grain, they are easy to break. Therefore, the vertical lines of the font are thicker and the horizontal lines are thinner. Horizontal lines, even if they are strong, tend to fray at the ends, so they are thicker at the ends. This resulted in a Song-style font that is thick vertically and thin horizontally, with a thicker point at the end of the horizontal line. For more than a thousand years, Song-style characters have been in constant use.

Henan not only has a glorious history of ancient writing, but Henan people have also made significant contributions in the field of computer Chinese character input technology, among which Wang Yongmin is an outstanding representative. Wang Yongmin, a native of Nanzhao County, Henan Province, is a professor-level senior engineer and a national-level expert with outstanding contributions. From 1978 to 1983, he spent five years researching and inventing the "Wubi font (i.e. King Code)" which was evaluated by domestic and foreign experts as "as significant as movable type printing", and created the first "Periodic Table of Chinese Character Roots" ”, invented the 25-key 4-code efficient Chinese character input method and word compatibility technology, and was the first in the world to break the 100 words per minute mark for Chinese character input into a computer. According to a survey in 1992, 85% of computer users in mainland China at that time used Wangma (Wubi font). Wangma has become the most popular, most installed, and most influential computer Chinese character technology in the whole society. . Wang Yongmin is known as "Bi Sheng of China's computer age."

The cradle of culture and the hometown of calligraphy

——The star-studded history of calligraphy in the Central Plains

and the development of Chinese characters Closely accompanying the history of calligraphy is the unique history of Chinese calligraphy. From the Shang and Zhou dynasties to modern times, Chinese calligraphy has continued to develop. In terms of form, there are seal script, official script, regular script, running script, cursive script and other fonts. In terms of artistic style, different eras, different calligraphers and different styles have formed a situation where the sun and the moon join forces and the mountains and rivers are radiant. Henan is particularly rich in ancient and modern calligraphy relics, and representative works of various calligraphy styles can be found in Henan.

Zhai Benkuan (Professor of Zhengzhou University): In addition to the well-known oracle bone inscriptions from the Yin Ruins, a large number of bronze inscriptions from the Shang and Zhou dynasties have also been unearthed in Henan. The bronze inscriptions are also called Zhongdingwen. They are written on soft blanks with a pen and then cast and engraved on bronze vessels. text on. Bronze inscriptions evolved from oracle bone inscriptions. Due to different writing tools, the strokes are thicker and fuller than oracle bone inscriptions, and the structure is strict and sparse.

There are many remains of ancient stone carvings in my country, especially the extremely rich calligraphy art preserved in the inscriptions, which are treasures worth cherishing in the calligraphy garden. There are a large number of steles remaining in Henan and they are rich in content. They are all in various calligraphy styles including seal script, official script, regular script, running script and cursive script. According to a province-wide survey of stone inscriptions in 1960, more than 5,000 pieces of information were obtained. For example, seal script is divided into large seal script and small seal script. The large seal script includes nail bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, and inscriptions on six countries. The ancient script in the "Zhengshi Stone Classic" is a type of large seal script. The "Zhengshi Stone Classic" is also called "Three Seals" "Ti Shi Jing", written in ancient Chinese, seal script and official script, was inscribed at the beginning of the Three Kingdoms period by the Fei Emperor of the Wei Dynasty (Cao Fang). It was built together with "Xi Ping Shi Jing" in front of Luoyang Taixue.

Official script: Henan is rich in official script inscriptions, ranking first in the country in terms of number, such as the "Confucius Temple Stele", "Li Mengchu Stele", "Huaiyuan Temple Stele", etc., which are all official script treasures; regular script: "Longmen Four Products" among the Longmen Northern Wei Dynasty statues, "Twenty items of Longmen", "Thirty items of Longmen" and the "Stele of Yique Buddhist Niche" written by Chu Suiliang among the inscriptions on the statues of the early Tang Dynasty are the wonders of the calligraphy garden. The "Shi Ping Gong" on the north wall of Guyang Cave in Longmen is a representative work of stele inscriptions and calligraphy art among the inscriptions of Longmen statues.

Song Dynasty calligraphy inherited and developed from its predecessors, and had its own unique style. Su, Huang, Mi, and Cai of the Northern Song Dynasty created the four calligraphy schools of the Song Dynasty, while the Emperor Zhao Ji of the Song Dynasty (Huizong of the Song Dynasty) created the thin gold style, which was unique among the calligraphy schools of the Song Dynasty. , which preserves this kind of large physical material in calligraphy style. The inscription was written and written by Zhao Ji. Running script: For example, Chu Tingjie's "Cheng Bo Xian's Epitaph" can be regarded as a representative of general running script in the Tang Dynasty. This annals was engraved in the 27th year of Kaiyuan of the Tang Dynasty (739 AD), written by Liu Tong and written by Chu Ting. In addition to the handwriting seen in "Chunhua Ge Tie", the unearthing of this Zhi is a new discovery. The font is plump and evenly rounded, with a slight and heavy tone; cursive script: "Stele of Prince Shengxian" by Yanshi, Henan, First, the inscription was written in cursive script, which was an unprecedented example. This stele was engraved in the second year of the Holy Calendar (699) by Empress Wu of the Tang Dynasty. Empress Tianwu wrote it and wrote it, and it was the first time a woman wrote the stele.

Henan is located in the Central Plains, with beautiful people and famous calligraphers. There are as many as 4,000 calligraphers from Henan in historical records. Some of them played a pioneering role at the turning point in the development of calligraphy and made great achievements. made an indelible contribution.

Zhai Benkuan: In fact, Cangjie, Li Si, Xu Shen, etc. not only made significant contributions to the development of writing, but they are also famous calligraphers. Li Si is known as the "ancestor of Xiaozhuan". In addition, there are several famous calligraphers in Henan that must be mentioned. One is Cai Yong, a calligrapher of the Han Dynasty. Cai Yong, courtesy name Bojie, was born in Chenliuyu (now Qixian County, Henan Province) and was a famous writer and calligrapher in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Cai Yong was good at seal script, and he was especially famous for his official script, which had the beauty of the eight styles of seal script. In the fourth year of Emperor Ling's Xiping reign (175), in order to correct the Confucian classics, the Eastern Han government erected 46 stone scripture steles in front of Luoyang Taixue, known as the "Xiping Stone Classics" in history, some of which were written by Cai Yong. This stone scripture not only made an important contribution to the correction of ancient books, but also brought the art of calligraphy to a new peak. It is a valuable material for studying the art of calligraphy in our country.

Zheng Daozhao (? ~516), a native of Kaifeng, was a calligrapher of the Northern Wei Dynasty. His calligraphy art not only ranked first in the Northern Dynasties, but also was outstanding in real books. He is worthy of being a calligrapher of the Northern Dynasties.

The ancestors of regular script are Zhong Yao and Chu Suiliang. Zhong Yao (AD 151-230), whose courtesy name was Yuanchang, was a native of Changshe, Yingchuan (now Xuchang, Henan Province). He rose to the rank of Taifu, and was known as Taifu Zhong in the world. When it came to the Three Kingdoms, Zhong Yao (Yuan Chang) had the "Declaration Table" and other documents, which prepared all the laws and regulations, and was the ancestor of the official book. Zhong Yao has an extremely important historical position in the history of Chinese calligraphy. Zhongshu is divided into three parts: the first is the "stone inscription" (i.e. the main script), the second is the "constitutional script" (eight points), and the third is the running script (used for rulers and tablets). It is good at all three bodies, and Emperor Wu of Liang Dynasty commented on it as "clouds and cranes roam the sky, and a group of honghongs play in the sea". Yu Shinan also said: "Taifu Zhong's teacher's qualifications and virtues have risen, and he has traveled to Cao and Cai. He imitated his studies and integrated them into one, and his true regular script was uniquely refined."

Chu Suiliang, courtesy name Dengshan, was born in Yangzhai, Henan (today's Henan Province). Born in Yu County, Henan Province, he was one of the four most famous calligraphers in the early Tang Dynasty, together with Ouyang Xun, Yu Shinan and Xue Ji. Its influence not only spreads throughout the country, but also spreads to Japan, South Korea and other countries. He worked in regular script, and his handed down works include "Yique Buddhist Niche Stele", "Master Meng Stele", "Fang Xuanling Stele", "Yanta Sacred Preface" and so on. "Mobian" said: "Suiliang's calligraphy may be learned from Zhong Gong's ancient and elegant style, or it may be learned from Yi Shao's method and become thin and hard."

Liu Desheng, Yingchuan of the Eastern Han Dynasty (now Yu County, Henan) )people. It is widely rumored in history books that running script was created by Liu Desheng. Liu Desheng's writing of running script is a major contribution to the development of calligraphy art, and he was the first to enter the calligraphy industry from regular script.

Wang Duo, a cursive calligrapher. Wang Duo (1592-1652), a native of Mengjin, Henan, was known as Wang Mengjin in the world. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, calligraphy was still charming, but less vigorous and vigorous. In the art of calligraphy, he came up with new ideas in the legal system. He was unique outside the Dong School and was famous among contemporary calligraphers. His handwriting is particularly rich, with materials found in Mengjin, Qinyang, Jiyuan, Junxian and other places. His handwritten calligraphy "Xuanshanyuan" is particularly famous.

Xi Zhongwen (Executive Director of the Henan Calligraphy Association): There were many famous calligraphers from the Central Plains in ancient times, and today’s calligraphy in Henan is also booming.

In the past 20 years, Henan has always ranked first and second in the number of awards in all national calligraphy exhibitions and competitions. It is recognized as a major calligraphy province in the country. It can be said that the "Central Plains calligraphy style" is popular in China. A group of Henan calligraphers represented by Xie Ruijie, Zhang Hai, and Wang Cheng have had an important influence not only in the province, but also across the country. In the 2005 Chinese Calligraphy Association general election, Zhang Hai, chairman of the Henan Provincial Calligraphy Association, was elected as the Chinese Calligrapher. Chairman of the Home Association. At present, Henan's calligraphy team has formed a well-organized pyramid structure, with more than 2 million calligraphy enthusiasts. Members of the Chinese Calligraphy Association form the backbone, and 5 to 10 famous calligraphers are in the leading position. The overall development trend is gratifying.

The perfect combination of pronunciation, shape and meaning

——The characteristics and rules of the development of Chinese characters

After introducing the history of Chinese writing and calligraphy, let us take another look What are the outstanding characteristics of Chinese characters compared with the characters of other ethnic groups in the world? In short, it has three characteristics: First, it mainly expresses the meaning through the body, but also expresses the sound. It combines the form and sound, and has strong expressive power. Second, the structure is regular, the writing is elegant, each word is one sound, the rhythm is ups and downs, and it has both physical and phonological beauty. Third, it contains a large amount of information. Chinese characters have a history of four to five thousand years, and their development and evolution have never been interrupted. It contains very rich information on all aspects of ancient society. Fourth, it is concise and concise. The same content, if written in Chinese, would take one page, but if translated into English, it would take more than one and a half pages.

Zheng Huisheng: The three elements of writing are shape, sound and meaning. Shape - the shape of the character itself, how it is written; sound - the syllable that this shape is to mark, what sound it pronounces; meaning - the meaning that this pronunciation can express, and what it is meant to say. Chinese characters were formerly known as pictographs, but pictographs were only the first method of creating characters for Chinese characters. The vast majority of Chinese characters are pictophonetic characters, which represent both sounds and meanings. They best reflect the combination of form, sound and meaning. For example, the character "Giao" is divided into two parts, the upper part is "杝" and the lower part is "目". According to the rules of Chinese character creation, we can explain the relationship between clear form, pronunciation and meaning from the glyph: the word "congmu" has the pronunciation "congmu", and its meaning is "to look quickly", so the word "congmu" has the pronunciation piē, so it means "坝声". Western alphabetic characters are easy to pronounce but difficult to express meaning. For example, "peep" in English is pronounced as [pip] and means "to glance". The pronunciation is easy to distinguish from the spelling, but you can imagine it from the spelling of peep. What do you mean by "a quick look"? Chinese characters are the most adept at expressing shapes, sounds and meanings, so they can break the distance of time and space. They have lasted for thousands of years and tens of thousands of miles across, making them the oldest and most vital type of writing.

Li Lixin: There are three laws for the development of Chinese characters: 1. There is a tendency to simplify the form of Chinese characters. As a kind of ideogram, most of the initial shapes of Chinese characters were quite complex. During the thousands of years of use, Chinese characters have experienced a natural evolution process from complex to simple. The ways of simplification are generally as follows: changing graphics into symbols; Delete redundant and repeated radicals; use fonts with simple strokes to replace fonts with complex strokes; cut out part of the original character to replace the original character, etc. The glyphs of Chinese characters have roughly gone through several forms: oracle bone inscriptions - bronze inscriptions - small seal script - official script - Wei stele - regular script, as well as two auxiliary fonts: running script and cursive script.

2. There is a standardization trend in the form of Chinese characters. In the early days, the shape of Chinese characters had no fixed rules, and the position of the radicals was not fixed, either left or right, up or down, and the phenomenon of homonymous characters was also quite serious. Chinese characters are being simplified and standardized at the same time. Standardization was mainly completed by the government. The most important one was the "Shu Tongwen" completed by Qin Xiang Li Si. Later, Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jiezi" of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the "Xiping Stone Classic" of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the "Zhengshi Stone Classic" of Cao Wei , the "Kaicheng Stone Classic" of the Tang Dynasty, etc. all played a great role in the standardization of Chinese characters.

3. The shape of Chinese characters has a tendency of phonophonetic transformation. Chinese characters are a kind of ideographic characters. In oracle bone inscriptions, they are mainly pictographic characters and ideographic characters. The proportion of pictophonetic characters is only 20%. By Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jiezi", the pictophonetic characters accounted for 80%. Today, the pictophonetic characters in Chinese characters account for only 20%. The proportion of words is as high as 90%. It can be seen that there is a process of pictophoneticization in the development of Chinese characters. Because the content expressed by human language is very rich, some of which are difficult to express with pictograms and meanings. Fortunately, pictographic Chinese characters are single-type characters. Using homophonic phonetic characters and adding pictographic characters that express meanings constitutes a new expression. Meaning of phonograms. Since pictophonetic characters can be combined in large numbers from single pictographic characters and can easily express new meanings in the language, the difficulty of insufficient Chinese characters is solved.

But the pictophonetic characters do not destroy the ideographic function of Chinese characters, because there are still half of the meaning characters. As the saying goes: "A scholar can read half of the characters." This is the brilliance of Chinese characters.

The characteristics and rules of Chinese characters fully reflect the inspiration and wisdom of the ancient Chinese, especially the people of the Central Plains. It also shows that Chinese characters are an ancient and ever-new writing that keeps pace with the times and can adapt to the requirements of modernization.

Promoting Chinese character culture is of great practical significance

Zhang Shenghan (College of Liberal Arts, Henan University): In history, countless people from Henan have contributed to the promotion of Chinese national culture, especially the development of Chinese language and characters. Made outstanding contributions to research and compilation. To build a modern new Henan, we should also make a difference in the research, popularization and application of Chinese language and characters, especially Chinese characters and Chinese character culture. To achieve this, I believe that firstly, we must formulate the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" for the language and writing work in Henan Province; secondly, we must pay attention to the construction of professional teams, strengthen the development and utilization of Chinese character information technology, and make Henan strive to become a major province in the Chinese character information technology industry. .

Han Yuhong (Researcher at the Institute of Literature, Henan Academy of Social Sciences): Chinese characters are the bond of unity of the Chinese nation. Promoting Chinese character culture will help enhance the cohesion of Chinese people around the world, which is not only conducive to national unification and ethnic unity, but also Conducive to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Due to the important position in the history of Chinese characters in the Central Plains, promoting the culture of Chinese characters is also of great significance to the rise of the Central Plains and the rejuvenation of Henan.

Promoting Chinese character culture and letting more people in the world know and understand Chinese characters will help Chinese culture go to the world at a greater pace, help people around the world know and understand China, eliminate misunderstandings, and enhance China’s Friendship with the people of the world.

Promoting the culture of Chinese characters will help more people in the world understand the unique art of calligraphy in China, gain more unique aesthetic enjoyment, and also gain new ways and methods of enjoying themselves, nourishing their spirits, and enjoying leisure and entertainment.

Chinese characters are a kind of magical writing. Among all kinds of writing in the world, from the perspective of writing and printing, Chinese characters use the least amount of paper for the same document. A senior United Nations diplomat said that in any pile of documents, he can tell at a glance which document is in Chinese characters, and that is the thinnest one. Obviously, Chinese characters are more in line with economic principles and the spirit of environmental protection. Chinese character culture is actually very modern.

Chinese characters are a great writing. Since the advent of various computer digital input methods such as Wubi font, practice has proved that the input speed of Chinese characters does not lag behind any kind of pinyin text. Promote Chinese characters Culture, at least, is conducive to accelerating the modernization process in the Chinese character culture circle.

Some experts who are familiar with multiple languages ??have made this comparison: Since the creation of Chinese characters, *** have created more than 50,000 characters; most of them are now "dead" and are no longer used. . There are only about 1,500 commonly used words in daily communication. People only need to master 4,000 to 6,000 words to cope with everything. There are 500,000 to 600,000 words in English. With the development of the times, about 1,000 new words are created every year. This means that even a scholar needs to learn another 1,000 new words every year. However, due to the special ability of Chinese characters to form words, you can understand and master any new things brought about by the changes of the times just by recombination of familiar characters. There is no need to constantly re-learn new characters. This kind of text that does not require "subsequent investment" saves people so much time and energy! This is the charm and modern value of Chinese characters, which of course deserves to be vigorously promoted.

Chinese character culture will definitely become a beautiful cultural landscape in the world!