What are kanji and how old are they?

Created about 4,000 years ago, Chinese characters are the most spoken script in the world, and have had an important impact on the writing of Japan, Korea and other countries. Chinese calligraphy is a unique art. Throughout the ages, many famous calligraphers have emerged in our country, and their calligraphy works are treasures of art!

Chinese characters are the written language that records the Chinese language, which has a history of more than 6,000 years, and is the most spoken language in the world and one of the oldest scripts in the world. It is an ideographic syllabic script, and there are 4,000 to 8,000 characters commonly used in modern times, most of which are morphophonetic characters. The fonts of modern Chinese characters are all evolved from oracle bone scripts, golden scripts, small seals, and official scripts.

In the long practice, mankind has not only created a glorious history, but also accumulated a wealth of cultural knowledge, thanks to which the written word has been preserved to this day. As a tool for recording, preserving and disseminating knowledge, writing has made an indispensable contribution to the progress of human civilization and the progress and development of society.

From the ancient legend of Cangjie to the discovery of the oracle bone inscription more than 100 years ago, Chinese scholars have been committed to unraveling the mystery of the origin of Chinese characters. Regarding the origin of Chinese characters, there are various sayings in ancient Chinese literature, such as "knotted rope", "gossip", "pictures", "book deeds", etc., and the legend of the Yellow Emperor's historian Cangjie making characters is also widely recorded in ancient books. Modern scholars believe that a systematic writing tool cannot be created entirely by a single person, and that Cangjie, if there is one, should be the compiler or promulgator of the text.

Chinese characters have a history of more than 6,000 years, and Chinese characters are one of the oldest characters in the world. In the principle of word making, from the form, ideogram to shape and sound. Except for a very few Chinese characters (such as 瓩, 兛, 兣, 呎, 嗧, etc.), they are all one Chinese character and one syllable.

Chinese characters are by far the longest continuously used script, and they are the only ones of the major writing systems in antiquity that have been passed down to the present day, and Chinese characters have been used as the main official script in all Chinese dynasties. Modern Chinese characters refer to the regular block shape of Chinese characters after italization, including traditional and simplified characters. Modern Chinese characters have evolved from oracle bone scripts, golden scripts, large seals (籀文), small seals, to official scripts, cursive scripts, regular scripts, and line scripts.

Chinese characters were invented, created and improved by the ancestors of the Han nationality, and are an indispensable link to maintain the dialect areas of the Han nationality. The earliest surviving Chinese characters are the oracle bone inscription of the Yin Shang dynasty in about 1300 BC and the later Jin inscription, which evolved into the Zhou script in the Western Zhou Dynasty, then to the small seal and official script of the Qin Dynasty, to the prevalence of the official script of the Han and Wei dynasties, and to the end of the Han Dynasty. Regular script prevailed in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and is still in use.

The first runes were discovered about 8,000 years ago, and they began to appear seven or eight thousand years ago. However, more words appear in the period from Fuxi to Shennong, five or six thousand years. Then the Yellow Emperor made a word for the first time, and the surrounding tribes were inducted into a period of maturity.

For more than 6,000 years, Chinese characters are one of the ancient characters, from pictograms to symbols, from complex to simple, phonetic and ideographic.

Chinese characters were invented and improved by the Han ancestors in ancient times, and the exact history can be traced back to the oracle bone inscriptions, Zhou scripts, and Jin inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty in about 1300 BC. Then to the small seal of the Qin Dynasty, to the Han Dynasty, to the Tang Dynasty, to the Tang Dynasty Kaihua into today's handwritten font standard - block letters.

The Chinese archaeological community has released a series of excavated materials related to the origin of writing earlier than the oracle bone inscriptions in Yinxu. The Jiahu inscription has been physically determined by carbon 14 and is about 7762 years (128 years) old; There are also 7,000 years ago Shuangdun inscriptions, 6,000 years ago Banpo pottery symbols, more than 5,000 years ago Qingdun ruins inscriptions, Zhuangqiao tomb ruins text with words into sentences, Dawenkou pottery symbols, Yaoshun era Tao Temple ruins Zhu Wen, Xia Ruin water calligraphy.

The early bone inscriptions are rich writing systems, and the later ones belong to the initial maturity stage. These archaeological discoveries may be important clues to the origin of Chinese characters, or they may be different sources of the development of various scripts.

The later evolution of Chinese characters has gone through a long process of thousands of years, going through the stages of oracle bone script, golden script, seal script, official script, regular script, cursive script, and line script, and the regular script is still commonly used, but it is still not completely finalized.

Chinese characters from the paleographic stage, pre-Han scripts. More visual.

Warring States text: "The princes are in power, not under the king, and the evil rites and pleasures are harmful to themselves and their classics are removed." "The fields are different, the cars are painted on different tracks, the laws are different, the clothes are different, the words are different, and the words are different.

It has a strong regional character. The Qin script was the mainstream of the development of Chinese characters. The six languages have large regional differences, do not reflect the development trajectory of Chinese characters, and are tributaries.

Chinese characters have a history of two or three thousand years, and it is a developing script.

Three or four thousand years of history, there are gold inscriptions and oracle bone inscriptions...

China is 5,000 years old.

How many years does it take to get Chinese characters, it is necessary to say that it is 5,000 years up and down. There are 5,000 people left, but not much, that is, 5,000 + 5,000. Equal to 10,000 years. This subtracts 2,000 years and that's 8,000 years of history.

The ancient text is oracle, so it is 8000

Mainly,

Chinese characters have a long history, they were created about 4,000 years ago. There are many kinds of Chinese characters, such as: oracle bone script, golden script, small seal, cursive script, line script, regular script and other ......In addition, Chinese characters are used in the world, and they are considered to be the world's most common characters.

I see that many countries such as Japan and South Korea have invented by learning some of our liquid core Chinese characters. However, more and more people are learning kanji. Chinese characters are so famous, let alone Chinese calligraphy works.

For example, Wang Xizhi's calligraphy work "Orchid Pavilion Preface" and Liu Gongquan's "Mysterious Tower Tablet" are both internationally famous!

I think you may ask, how did the Chinese characters come from? Hehe, let me tell you! It turned out to be a character made by Cangjie, because there were many people at that time, and they had to fight often, so it was difficult to deal with the method of using knotted ropes to record things and carving wood as the number.

One night there was a heavy snowfall, Cangjie got up early in the morning and went to the mountains to hunt, only to see that the mountains were covered with snow, and the mountains and rivers and trees were all covered with heavy snow. Cangjie turned a mountain, but did not see a single prey. Just as he was about to go down the mountain, two pheasants suddenly came out of the woods and foraged for food in the snow.

After the pheasant walked by, it left two long rows of paw prints on the snow. Then, two more fawns also ran out of the woods, and when they found the man, they ran away, leaving their hoof prints on the snow. Cangjie could see that he had forgotten all about hunting.

He compared the paw prints of the pheasant with the hoof prints of the fawn and found that the shape was different. So he thought that if he drew the chicken paw print, he would call it a chicken, and if he drew the deer hoof print, he would call it a deer. Anything in the world, as long as it is drawn in pictograms, doesn't it become a word!

Since then, Cangjie has looked up at the sun, moon and stars every day, looked down on birds, beasts, mountains and rivers, and created hieroglyphs. Soon, the words man, hand, sun, moon, star, ox, sheep, horse, reed, chicken, and dog were created. Testimonials from questioners:

You are. Thank you!

Chinese characters, also known as Chinese characters, Chinese characters, and national characters, is a script widely used in the Chinese character cultural circle, belonging to the ideogram morpheme syllabic script, invented and created and improved by the Chinese people in ancient times, and the current exact history can be traced back to the oracle bone script of the Shang Dynasty about 1300 BC. Then to the small seal of the Qin Dynasty, it was named "Chinese characters" in the Han Dynasty, and it was not until the Tang Dynasty that Kaihua became the handwritten font standard used today - Kaishu. Some scholars believe that Chinese characters are one of the key elements that have maintained the long-term unification of the north and south of China, and some scholars list Chinese characters as the fifth greatest invention in China.

Chinese characters have been the main official language in all Chinese dynasties. Regarding the history of Chinese characters, based on the existing ancient documents and archaeological discoveries that have been confirmed, it has a history of at least 5,000 years, and the history of the origin of Chinese characters is the beginning of ancient Chinese civilization, so we usually say that the Han people have a history of 5,000 years of civilization.

Archaeological and documentary records show that Chinese characters originated in the Yangshao culture period of the Neolithic Age, about 4000 BC, and began to enter the stage of character accumulation in 2000 BC, and a fairly systematic writing system has been formed in the Shang Dynasty.

Simplified and traditional characters.

The name Chinese character, named after the Han and Han dynasties, is the most spoken script in the world, and it is also the most widely circulated script.

In the course of the evolution of Chinese characters over thousands of years, there have been many divergences. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, in the 50s of the 20th century, special institutions were organized to standardize the morphological and phonetic meanings of Chinese characters, commonly known as "simplified characters" (Chinese characters before the 50s were commonly known as "traditional characters"), and popularized and popularized reference books such as "Xinhua Dictionary" and "Modern Chinese Dictionary". At present, simplified Chinese characters are used in Southeast Asian regions such as Chinese mainland, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, while "traditional characters" are still used in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.