A Brief History of Hanzi

a journal review by Claudyne Li

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Writing, the carrier of culture and the symbol of human civilization, first appeared in Sumer (Sumer language, a language isolate that was spoken in Mesopotamia). Like other ancient languages of Egypt and India, ancient Sumerian symbols have been lost in the process of history, but only Chinese characters still remain in use today. They have played a significant role in the development of Chinese language and culture.

Chinese characters from the earliest Chinese hieroglyphs to today’s simple characters have undergone through a very long process of development which can be divided into two periods: ancient writing and modern writing. Associated with these two periods, Chinese characters had experienced several times of evolution into many different script forms. Oracle bone script of the Shang Dynasty (1711–1066 BC) is the earliest systematic form of Chinese characters inscribed on animal bones and tortoise shells. Then Chinese characters evolved through bronze script of the Zhou Dynasty (1066–256 century BC), seal script in the late Zhou Dynasty and Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC), official script in the Qin Dynasty and the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) and regular script. Based on pictographs, Chinese characters gradually developed from the form of drawings to strokes and from complex to simple ones.

Earliest Character in China

Oracle bone script (Chinese: 甲骨文, Pinyin: jiăgŭwén) is the inscription on animal bones and tortoise shells of the Shang Dynasty (1711–1066 BC). It was first excavated by the local farmers in Xiaotun Village, Anyang, Henan Province and was sold as a kind of traditional Chinese medicine called “longgu” (dragon bones). In 1899, Wang Yirong, epigraphist of Qing Dynasty (1616–1911), who had a great interest in ancient characters, found many inscriptions on longgu when he bought traditional Chinese medicine, and he thought these inscriptions were ancient characters. Now 150,000 pieces of animal bones and tortoise shells have been unearthed from the ruins of Yin and other places, including more than 4,500 distinctive characters. As the oracle bone script had the strong features of pictograph and ideograph, some characters could still be recognized by people, although in an early stage of development. The oracle bone script from the ruins of Yin consisting of phrases and simple sentences, shows that a well-structured script with a complete system of written signs has been formed in the early age.

Ancient Chinese Characters

The following phase in the evolution of Chinese characters is represented by symbols inscribed on bronze bells and vessels from Zhou Dynasty (1066–256 BC), a writing known as “bronze script”. In addition, the characters casted in bronze ware are also called 金文 or 钟鼎文 in Chinese (Pinyin: jīnwén or zhōngdĭngwén, respectively) with “wén” meaning “inscription”, because bronze was called “jīn” at that time, Zhōng meant bell and Dĭng (tripodal vessels used for sacrifice) were the symbols of power and position. In the “Age of Bronze Ware” of China during the period of Shang and Zhou Dynasties, bronze ware was casted as a container, and most often as the sacrificial vessels to inscribe great events such as sacrifice, battle results, trade of slaves, etc. in a style just like the oracle bone script. The bronze inscriptions, looked like drawings, but had made a significant progress from pictographic forms to block-shaped linear words we use today.

Toward the end of the Zhou Dynasty, a new script called the “seal script” (Chinese: 篆書, Pinyin: zhuànshū) begun to be used in Qin State. This script was usually written on bamboo slips and pieces of silk or inscribed on rocks and stones. Owing to the regular and symmetric structure, rounded and graceful lines, it is deemed to be the most beautiful style of characters in ancient China by calligraphers. It is still used for inscribing names on a seal today. There are two kinds of seal script: large or great seal script (Chinese: 大篆, Pinyin: dàzhuàn) and lesser or small seal script (Chinese: 小篆, Pinyin: xiǎozhuàn).

The large seal script is a traditional reference to all types of Chinese writing systems used before the Qin Dynasty. However, due to the lack of research achievements and precision, scholars often avoid the large seal script, instead of using more specified terms to the examples of writing. The large seal script was widely used in many vassal states in the Spring and Autumn Period (770–476 BC). It was more regular and symmetrical than bronze inscription in writing system. From some unearthed artworks, the large seal script is generally represented by the stone drum inscription (in about 770–325 BC).

During the new era – the Warring States Period (457–221 BC), Chinese characters used by seven states had different ways of writing. After the Qin State conquered the other six states and established the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC), Emperor Qin Shihuang unified characters in order to strengthen his control. Based on the Large Seal script and rearranging the variant forms of characters in each state, the unified characters were decreed, called lesser or small seal script which was the official style of characters in Qin Dynasty used for all the documents of the government. It was the result of the first extensive simplification and standardization of Chinese characters.

Modern Chinese Characters

After the unification of China, the seal script was still popular, but could not satisfy the needs of people because of its lengthened and curved lines being written were quite time-consuming, so another faster and convenient style of writing called “clerical script” (Chinese: 隶书, Pinyin: lìshū) appeared during the late of the Qin Dynasty and the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD). “Lì” meant a slave or prisoner in servitude, thus some scholars inferred that the new style of character was created by the slaves or prisoners serving the state which dealt with a large number of relatively official documents.

Toward the end of the Han Dynasty, the strokes with the wavy endings and some thick curvy lines seen in the clerical script became smooth and straight. This change is known as “regularization” after which the characters called the regular script (Chinese: 楷书, Pinyin: kăishū) appeared at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty and replaced the clerical script to be the major font of daily writing. The regular script could serve as an example for learning by the people generation after generation even up to present days because it is much simpler and easier to be written than the clerical script. It has been the standard and formal writing style for more than 1,800 years with the widest and longest usage.

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Reform of Modern Chinese Characters

The Chinese characters abandoned complicated and difficult forms and adopted simpler and easier forms. In this way the same character has not only changed the shape in various ways but also simplified the pattern although its rudimental meaning stayed relatively unchanged. However, many characters still remained complicated and were difficult to learn. Some have variations caused by many centuries of use, others arose from a lack of uniformity.

Draft script or grass script (Chinese: 草书, Pinyin: cǎoshū) a cursive variant of the standard Chinese scripts lishu and kaishu and their semicursive derivative xingshu. The script developed during the Han Dynasty (206 BC– 220 AD), and it had its period of greatest growth during the Tang Dynasty (618–907). In draft script, the number of strokes in characters are reduced to single scrawls or abstract abbreviations of curves and dots. Strokes of varying thickness and modulation show a great variety of shapes. Draft script is not bound by rules for even spacing, and characters need not be of the same approximate size; the calligrapher thus has the fullest freedom of expressive movement of line.

Running script (Chinese: 行书, Pinyin: xíngshū) a semicursive Chinese script that developed out of the Han Dynasty lishu script at the same time that the standard kaishu script was evolving (1st–3rd century AD). The characters of xingshu are not abbreviated or connected, but strokes within the characters are often run together. It is derived from clerical scipt,, and was for a long time after its development in the 1st centuries AD, become the usual style of handwriting. The best-known example of early surviving Chinese calligraphy, Lanting Xu (“Essay on the Orchid Pavilion”), written in 353 by Wang Xizhi but surviving only in several fine tracing copies and other forms of duplication such as rubbings, is written in this script.

Simplified Chinese Characters

Simplified script (Chinese: 简化字, Pinyin: jiǎnhuàzì) are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, they are one of the two standard character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the People's Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s to encourage literacy. They are officially used in the People's Republic in China, Malaysia, and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are officially used in Hongkong, Macau, the Republic of China (Taiwan) and occasionally in the Chinese community of Malaysia and Singapore. Other overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters.

Simplified script may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. In its broadest sense, the latter term refers to all characters that have undergone simplifications of character "structure" or "body", some of which have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, more complicated forms. Simplified character forms were created by reducing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms. Some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the same pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character, usually the simplest amongst all variants in form. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification and are thus identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies.

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Reference

Wei, B. 2014. The Origin and Evolvement of Chinese Characters. GDAŃSKIE STUDIA AZJI WSCHODNIEJ, 5:33-43.