The evolution of Chinese characters

The evolution of Chinese characters in China (1): the form of Chinese characters, that is, fonts, refers to the writing posture of Chinese characters; First, Oracle Bone Inscriptions; Oracle Bone Inscriptions is carved on the bones of tortoise shells (mainly on the shoulder blades of cattle; 1, generated; This place was once the ruins of Shang Dynasty capital, and moved from Pan Geng to Yin. These records are Oracle inscriptions, because most of them are divination records, so they are content; Oracle Bone Inscriptions's discovery was entirely accidental; From discovery, after 80 years of continuous collection, sorting and excavation, to the present; 3. Features; Slender and slender style; Bronze inscriptions are cast on bronzes.

Evolution of Chinese Characters in China (I)

The form of Chinese characters, that is, fonts, refers to the writing posture of Chinese characters. Although Chinese characters have never jumped out of the circle of ideographic characters since they came into being, their forms have been developing and evolving according to the law from single to simple. There are eight kinds of fonts: Oracle Bone Inscriptions-bronze inscription-Dazhuan-Xiaozhuan-Lishu-cursive script-running script. Then go to the currently printed font.

I. Oracle Bone Inscriptions

Oracle Bone Inscriptions is carved on the bones of tortoise shells (mainly the words on the shoulder blades of cattle). It is the driest, most systematic and most mature Chinese character material we can see today. This kind of writing was discovered in the Guangxu period of the late Qing Dynasty (AD 1889) in the north and south of Xiaotun Village, Wuli Road, northwest of Anyang County, Henan Province.

1, production

This place used to be the ruins of the Shang Dynasty capital, which was moved from Pan Geng to Yin (that is, Anyang Xiaotun). Until the collapse of the capital, Zhou Wang. So we know that Oracle Bone Inscriptions was written in Shang Dynasty, with a history of about 3,000 years. In the commercial society, science and culture are underdeveloped. People can't explain all kinds of natural phenomena, thinking that they are manipulated by ghosts and gods, and ghosts and gods control natural changes. The souls of dead ancestors can predict future events and decide people's fate. Therefore, the rulers of the Yin Dynasty were very superstitious and worshipped God. From state affairs to daily life, such as sacrifice, war, hunting, weather, safety and disease, male and female fertility, etc. Before they decide to stop, they must foretell and pray to God for good luck or bad luck. The method of divination is to cut the tortoise shell or animal bone, then open an oval groove or hole in the back, and then barbecue with fire. When Oracle Bone Inscriptions fragments are heated, various stripes naturally crack on the front. Historians judge good or bad according to the different shapes of stripes. After divination, the diviner carved the month and date of divination, the content of divination, the result (that is, omen, indicating good or bad luck) and the fulfillment afterwards on the Oracle bone. File it.

These records are Oracle Bone Inscriptions, mostly divination records, so they are called "Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Zhenbu Zi", "Wen Qi" because they were carved with sharp objects, and "Yin Ruins Zi" because they were found in the ruins of the ancient capital of Yin Shang Dynasty. Step 2 find out

Oracle Bone Inscriptions's discovery was entirely accidental. At the turn of 1898 and 1899, when farmers were ploughing the fields, they often found Oracle Bone Inscriptions engraved with pictures and texts. Farmers don't know the origin of these Oracle bones, but they think they are old and can cure diseases, so they collect them and sell them to drug dealers, called "keels". According to legend, in 1899, Wang, then president of Peking University and an expert in epigraphy, took medicine due to illness. He first discovered that Oracle Bone Inscriptions was an ancient script and began to collect it.

Since its discovery, after 80 years of continuous collection, sorting and excavation,160,000 pieces have been discovered so far. According to Oracle Bone Inscriptions's records, the rulers at that time were divining almost every day. According to the names of the above-mentioned emperors and fortune tellers, combined with the engraved text content. As we know, these Oracle Bone Inscriptions included 12 emperors from Pan Geng to Zhou Wang for 273 years. According to statistics, the total number of words in Oracle Bone Inscriptions is about 4,500, but less than 1/3 has been recognized. What most people don't know are special words such as surname, first name and place name. A large number of Oracle Bone Inscriptions's discoveries are precious historical materials for studying the development of Chinese characters and the culture of ancient Chinese characters.

3. Characteristics

Slender and slender style. Because this kind of writing is limited by writing tools, the strokes are straight, sometimes just like turning around. So the font is slender, the lines are thin and hard, thin and straight, straight and thin. B the body structure has not been completely determined. How to write a word in seal cutting has not been completely fixed, and it still retains a strong color to describe objects. For example, the font can be round, the strokes can be more or less, the direction can be positive or negative, the writing can be horizontal or vertical, and the radicals can be left or right. There are many variations and combinations.

Bronze inscriptions are words cast on bronzes. The so-called bronze ware is a vessel made of copper and tin alloy. This kind of alloy is relatively strong and is called bronze ware because of its blue color. There are mainly musical instruments "Zhong", food containers "Yi, Zun and Jue", washing machines "Pan" and weapons "Ge and Ji".

1, production

Bronzes existed in the late Yin Dynasty, but after all, there were few. The Zhou Dynasty was the heyday of bronzes. During the Western Zhou Dynasty, bronzes were mainly royal vessels. The weather is not attractive. The Eastern Zhou Dynasty was dominated by emperors, and bronzes were cast at will. However, a large number of relics were found in the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period. Therefore, inscriptions on bronze generally refer to the writings of the Western Zhou Dynasty.

At first, the content of inscriptions on bronze was only to carve some symbols representing the names of nationalities and countries. Later, he basically recorded his achievements, got a reward, and was engraved and passed on to future generations to show his glory. Because ancient people regarded Zhong Ding as a general term for bronzes. The predecessors once called this kind of writing "Zhong Dingwen", and because the writing is mostly used for "never forgetting, never forgetting", it is also called "inscription". None of these terms can summarize their characteristics. Therefore, later generations renamed it Jinwen, which made the text get rid of pictures. This is the first milestone in the development of Chinese characters.

Step 2 find out

Bronze inscriptions were unearthed earlier and found in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Shuo Wen Jie Zi Xu: "Group countries often reach their peak in mountains and rivers, and their inscriptions are similar to those of the previous generation." However, in later generations, the discovery of this inscription was regarded as an ominous sign and failed to be taken seriously. It was not until more excavations were made in the Song Dynasty that the research began. With epigraphy, there is also the wind of grave robbery. By the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, due to the sudden increase of unearthed inscriptions, the study of inscriptions reached its peak. At present, 8,000 pieces with 3,093 words have been unearthed, of which 1894 words have been published. Mao unearthed in Shaanxi Province in the late Qing Dynasty is an outstanding representative of Ding kiln porcelain. It is now in the Palace Museum in Taiwan. This tripod has 23 lines of inscriptions and 497 words, which is a rare long giant system in the world.

3. Characteristics

① Round and simple style. Bronze inscriptions are the direct inheritance of Oracle Bone Inscriptions and belong to the writing system of Yin and Shang Dynasties. But because most of them are made of models, we have to carve words on them first. If the carving is not good, it can be modified. So the lines are thicker than Oracle Bone Inscriptions, but not slender. There are many curved pens, and there are many round pens at the corner. So the font is long and round, the lines are thick and natural, and the posture is graceful. The structure is more and more square, uniform in size, concise and powerful.

② The body structure is still amorphous. The strokes can be more or less, the writing can be horizontal or vertical, the direction can be positive or negative, and the radicals can be left or right, still retaining strong colors to describe objects. However, compared with Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the bronze inscription has taken a step forward, with relatively simple lines, relatively few variant characters and a lot less essays.

1, production

The big seal is for the later small seal. In a broad sense, Da Zhuan includes Xiao Zhuan, pre-Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscriptions and six-country scripts. The big seal script here refers to the Qin script that prevailed during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. With the eastward move to Luoyang, Qin occupied the hometown of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and at the same time inherited the writing of the Western Zhou Dynasty, which was developed on the basis of inheriting the bronze inscriptions. Because of its regionality, some of them are difficult to identify.

Dazhuan, also known as Zhuan (zhòu) text. It was named after it was recorded in Shi Shuo pian. History of Han Dynasty: "Fifteen poems, printed by Mrs. Shu of Zhou Shi."

4. Calligraphy

There are 225 Shuo Wen, which was collected by Xu Shen on the basis of nine Shi Shuo, and it is the main material for us to study Da Chuan today.

The original seal script is generally considered as "Shi Guwen". At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, in the south of Chencang (now Baoming, Shaanxi Province) in Tianxing County, ten drum-shaped stone piers were originally unearthed, which were about three feet in diameter, small on the top and large on the bottom, flat on the top and shaped like steamed buns. It is engraved with ten four-character poems written by Qin Xiangong in the eleventh year, which is the earliest stone inscription in China. Lost and found, lost again. More than 700 words were originally engraved, and more than 300 words are now in existence. These ten stone cities exist in the Forbidden City. Because the content recorded the hunting, it was named "Hunting or Carving Stones Forever". Wei, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, thought this stone was shaped like a drum, so he renamed it "Shi Guwen". Now he is the representative of Da Zhuan.

3. Characteristics

Shi Guwen has a vigorous and dignified style. The font structure is neat, the strokes are even and round, horizontal and vertical, and the shape tends to be square. Da Zhuan largely retains the writing style of the late Western Zhou Dynasty, but slightly changes, making the strokes more neat and symmetrical. The strokes are round. The lines are more uniform than the bronze inscriptions, and the lines have reached a complete level, with no obvious unevenness in thickness. The body structure is more neat than the bronze inscriptions, and it began to get rid of the shackles of hieroglyphics, laying the foundation for square Chinese characters. There are few variants on the same object. The font is complex, the radicals often overlap, and writing is inconvenient.

Fourth, biographies

1, production

Xiao Zhuan is the first standardized Chinese font in China. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, after Qin Shihuang was unified, he adopted the opinion of Prime Minister Li Si, carried out the reform of "the same characters" and unified the characters. This is the first major writing reform in the history of our country.

(1) "Let it not be combined with Qin Wen" (that is, the regional script popular in the East during the Warring States Period-Six-country script)

(2) "Take the stone script and seal script, or change it to be quite restrained." That is to say, the small seal script is based on the big seal script, which simplifies the physical structure of the big seal script and changes the overlapping bedstead of the big seal script, and the complicated writing is gradually unified and stable, such as "Up: (Big) (Small)".

(3) there is no fixed form of radical, so that there is only one fixed writing method for a radical, such as

"(heart), (clothing) and (water)" and determine the position of each radical in the Chinese character form, which cannot be reversed at will. The number of strokes per word is basically fixed. This makes the fonts basically uniform.

2. Calligraphy

Shuowen preserved the 9353 font of Xiao Zhuan. The original works of Xiao Zhuan are seven kinds of carved stones written by Li Si, an important calligrapher in Qin Dynasty: Taishan carved stone, Yishan carved stone, Langya carved stone, Zhifu carved stone, Dongguan carved stone, Jieshi carved stone and Huiji carved stone.

Stone. After Qin Shihuang unified China, he was full of ambition and toured founding ceremony everywhere, making a monument and praising his achievements in unifying China. These words written on the stone tablet are all Li Si's Xiao Zhuan.

3. Characteristics

A tortuous style. Xiao Zhuan is made on the basis of the circular rotation of Da Zhuan, and most of the pens are round. The corners are arc-shaped, and the twists and turns are long and even, which makes the lines more symmetrical and round, long and round in shape, and strong in body. Look at the beauty of the curve, the lines are even and smooth, both rigid and flexible. It has always been regarded as an authentic seal script. Because strokes are as round and plump as chopsticks,

It was called "jade rib seal" in ancient times. Later generations of seal writers, such as Tangshan stone carving, can write freely and have lively and vigorous characters. Li He in Southern Tang Dynasty is based on Li Si's style.

Use lines instead of graphics. Xiao Zhuan is a standard font, which is more neat and stereotyped than Da Zhuan. Instead of complicated graphics, lines are basically separated from pictures, which determines the symbolic meaning of Chinese characters. Variant characters have also been basically abolished. However, it still retains some pictographic and realistic features of Da Zhuan.

In addition, the Lian Bi of wandering lines and arcs is not clear, which is not convenient for writing. The name "seal script" did not exist at that time. It was not until the appearance of "official script" in Han Dynasty that this kind of writing was called "seal script". So seal script is relative to official script. Xiao Zhuan's mandarin is not long. It was not often used in the Han Dynasty, but for more than two thousand years, the seal has been engraved with Xiao Zhuan, which is one of the traditional arts in China.

Verb (abbreviation of verb) official script

There were two literary reforms in the Qin Dynasty. The first is to unify the characters, from big seal to small seal. The second is to use the official script scribbled by Xiao Zhuan. This is the second milestone-the development of characters gets rid of iconicity.

1, production

Lishu was born out of Xiao Zhuan. It began in the Qin Dynasty, and after the evolution of 23 1 year in the Han Dynasty (206-25 BC), it reached maturity in the Han Dynasty. Lishu is the main popular writing in Han Dynasty. In this way, official script can be divided into two stages, also known as ancient official script and modern official script.

In fact, the early official script of Qin Dynasty was an auxiliary font of Xiao Zhuan, an emergency font of "many things can be played, but it is difficult to make seal script" because of the busy government affairs after the reunification of Qin Dynasty, and a vulgar style unified in the unpretentious Great Hall of the People. The official script of the Qin Dynasty was Xiao Zhuan. Qin Li is actually a cursive script. Compared with Xiao's seal script, the lines only change from arc to straight line, and from circle to square fold, with a certain thickness change. It's much more convenient to write like this. It is said that the earliest documents written in this font were documents dealing with slave affairs.

Wei Huan's four-body calligraphy in the Jin Dynasty: "Qin uses equal proportions, and there are many things to play, so it is difficult to seal calligraphy. Even if the official calligrapher wrote a book, he said that the official calligrapher would do it because of the Han Dynasty ... the official calligrapher's club was a master of seal script. "

In the Tang Dynasty's "Ten Types of Broken Books", "Qin made the official script go quickly for the purpose of litigation and prison, and I still wrote it in Xiao Zhuan." There have always been different opinions about the name "Lishu". Some people say that this kind of calligraphy was first popular with ordinary officials in the government at that time (small officials in charge of prison proceedings), so it was called official script and named Cheng Miao (a prisoner who was released as a royal official because of his contribution to the reform of writing). I can only say that he is a person who collects and arranges official documents.

From the original meaning of the word "reason", Shuowen is "reason, attached to it"; In the later Han Dynasty, Feng Yi preached the admonition of "belonging", which is still intended today, with the word "following". The Biography of Jin Shu Wei Heng, Shuo Wen Abandon and Yin Zhu are all based on official script, which is "impossible to assist seal". Therefore, official script is an auxiliary font of Xiao Zhuan, which can be used as an auxiliary seal script because of its simple and quick writing, also known as "left (left) script".

Han Li was in the process of evolution during the two hundred years of the Western Han Dynasty, basically following Qin Li, but it has not yet been finalized. It was only in the bamboo slips at the end of the Western Han Dynasty that the official script with obvious characteristics of "silkworm head and phoenix tail" was seen, and it was not until the Eastern Han Dynasty that the official script finally matured. Its remarkable feature is that long strokes are used in horizontal painting to form a "swallow-tailed silkworm head".

2. Calligraphy

It's hard to tell what kind of person Qin Li is. Yin Qin's bamboo slips have not been found yet. Compared with the "Taishan stone carving", the weights and measures of the Qin Dynasty and the inscriptions on some weapons are undoubtedly hasty and there is no tendency to point fingers.

The inscription "Yi Ying Bei" in the Eastern Han Dynasty is beautiful and quaint, with a clear explanation of dovetail and foot tail, which has the obvious characteristics of mature official script. The "Ceremony Monument" is a quiet Wen Ya. On the whole, it is thin and strong, but you can't see it in detail, and you can't show disrespect for your wife in the rough.

3. Characteristics

A. stippling and writing lines

Han Li copied the twists and turns of Biography with strokes such as dots and strokes. The whole font is angular and square, and the font changes from oblong to oblate. This change is called "Li Bian". This greatly got rid of the shackles of lines, broke the pictographic system of ancient Chinese characters, and made the pictograms of Chinese characters basically disappear, which laid the foundation for the current writing and turned it into a purely symbolic writing.

B. The gesture flies into the wave potential

"Swallowtail of silkworm head" is the main feature of official script. "Silkworm head" means that the pen is heavy and bald, showing Fiona Fang; "Dovetail" means that the pen tilts slightly upwards, dragging a stiff tail. If there is a horizontal painting and a flat pen, it will be provoked by waves. However, in the official script, it is emphasized that "swallows fly together", that is, in the one-word structure, only the main pen is allowed to show the front and pick out the "dovetail" shape, and all other strokes are bald, mainly square, and they will be collected as soon as they live.

Skimming should also be provoked, forming a trend of flying. The sharp tail bends slowly, and the angle is pushed up, showing wave potential.

In this way, the whole font is tightened up and down and stretched left and right, and the main pen "Silkworm Head Dovetail" runs through the word. During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, Han Li was also called "Eight Points", which meant that the strokes fluctuated from side to side and dispersed from side to side like the shape of eight characters.

Li Shu, whether flat or flying, looks more stable than the scale book because of its flat font. The appearance of official script is a major reform and a turning point in the development of Chinese characters, ending the era of ancient Chinese characters and creating a new era of modern Chinese characters, which is of epoch-making significance.

Six, regular script

Regular script is also called "true script" or "official script". Kaimo means regular, neat and exemplary, which means that this font can be used as French, exemplary, that is, standard font.

1, production

Regular script is evolved from official script. It flourished in the late Han Dynasty and in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. Until now, it is still the standard font of Chinese characters, with a history of nearly 2000 years.

Zhong You, a calligrapher of the Three Kingdoms in the Eastern Han Dynasty and Wei Dynasty, wrote "How to Solve the Table" in small letters, although he still didn't get rid of the official script. But it is the earliest regular script seen today, and it is a typical work of transition from official script to regular script. Its main horizontal painting has lost the characteristics of "swallow-tail of silkworm head", and it has become a sharp trend to brush off the pen, but there is still a legacy of official script. Some paintings are still fluttering like waves. Head-skimming is still flying right in Zuo Fei. Wang Xizhi, a "book sage" in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, wrote Huang Tingjian and Yue Yi Lun in small letters, and changed Zhong You's Han Li into regular script, which still exists today.