How were Chinese characters invented, and how were Chinese characters invented?

Chinese characters evolved from the earliest hieroglyphs.

Chinese characters were invented by Cangjie, who went through many setbacks.

Chinese characters were not invented by Cangjie, but he improved them little by little.

Chinese characters are the crystallization of the wisdom of the ancient people of our country, and the words invented by Cangjie are only part of it.

The earliest Chinese characters were invented by Cangjie. Cangjie, formerly surnamed Hou Gang, named Jie, commonly known as Cangjie Ancestor, also known as Shi Huang. "Shuowen Jie Zi" records that Cangjie was the left historian of the Yellow Emperor's period, and he was inspired by the footprints of birds and beasts, divided them into different categories, searched, sorted out and used, and played an important role in the process of creating Chinese characters.

Here's the oracle writing:

How Chinese characters came about: Chinese characters originated from the pictorial forms that primitive people used to express themselves in life, and later primitive drawings became a kind of ideogram. The systematic writing was formed in the Shang Dynasty in the 16th century BC, and the ideograms evolved into the stereotyped oracle bone inscription, an ancient script engraved on tortoise shells and animal bones, which is the direct ancestor of modern Chinese characters.

The earliest origin is, of course, the "knotted rope record", and then gradually from simple to complex, from concrete things to abstract symbols, about 1300 BC Yin Shang appeared oracle bone inscription, and then appeared Jin Wen, in the Western Zhou Dynasty evolved into Zhouwen, and then to the Qin Dynasty of the small seal and Lishu, to the Han and Wei Lishu prevailed, to the end of the Han Dynasty Lishu Kai into the positive letter. Regular script prevailed in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and is still in use.

It can be said that Chinese characters are one of the oldest scripts in the world, and their influence on the surrounding area is also very huge, and it is the mother character of other scripts. It is a written symbol that records events. In terms of form, it gradually changes from a figure to a square-shaped symbol composed of strokes, so Chinese characters are generally called "square characters".

It evolved from pictographs (ideographs) to phonetic ideographs, but the general system is still ideograms.

The earliest Chinese characters were invented by Cangjie. Cangjie, formerly surnamed Hou Gang, is known as Cangjie Ancestor, also known as Shi Huang. "Shuowen Jie Zi" records that Cangjie was the left historian of the Yellow Emperor's period, and was inspired by the footprints of birds and beasts, divided into different categories, collected, sorted out and used, played an important role in the process of creating Chinese characters, and was respected as the "saint of character creation".

According to the records of "Hetu Jade Edition" and "Zen Tongji", Cangjie once established himself as an emperor, called Cangdi, and was the leader of a tribe in ancient times. During the reign of Cangjie, he once worshipped Luo Shu in Luozhishui.

Chinese characters have a historical process of development and evolution that has lasted for thousands of years, roughly as follows: before the Shang Dynasty is the history of origin, and the Yin Shang oracle bone inscription is the mature period.

Since then, there has been a series of evolutions, especially in the Han Dynasty, Lishu replaced Xiao Seal as the main font, and the history of the development of Chinese characters has been separated from the ancient script stage and entered the Likai stage.

The regular script to the Sui and Tang dynasties was basically finalized, and in the books engraved in the Song Dynasty, it was artistically transformed into Song characters, and then there were imitations of Song characters, which are generally the fonts we use today.

There are many languages spoken and written by ethnic minorities, and the types of development are different. Over the years, the people of all nationalities have jointly created the motherland's outstanding written culture.

Extended Information: Historically Used Text:

1. Oracle.

The oracle bone inscription is the earliest and relatively complete ancient script found in China. The oracle bone inscription mainly refers to the Yinxu oracle bone inscription, also known as "Yinxu script" and "Yin Qi", which is the text engraved on the tortoiseshell animal bone in the Yin Shang era.

At the end of the 19th century, it was discovered at the site of the capital of the Yin Dynasty by Xiaotun in present-day Anyang, Henan, inheriting the method of Taowen, which was used by the royal family in the late Shang Dynasty (14th and 11th centuries BC) to engrave (or write) on tortoise shells and animal bones for divination.

After the fall of the Yin Shang dynasty and the rise of the Zhou Dynasty, the oracle bone inscription was also used for a period of time.

2. Jin Wen. Jin Wen refers to the inscription engraved on the Yin Zhou bronzes, also called Zhong Dingwen. The Shang and Zhou dynasties were the age of bronze, and the ritual vessels of bronze were represented by tripods, and musical instruments were represented by bells, and "bells and tripods" were synonymous with bronze. The so-called bronze is an alloy of copper and tin.

China had already entered the Bronze Age in the Xia Dynasty, and the smelting of copper and the manufacturing of copper tools were very developed. Because copper was also called gold before the Zhou Dynasty, the inscriptions on the bronze ware were called "Jinwen" or "Jijin Script"; And because this kind of bronze ware has the largest number of words on the bell, it was also called "Zhongdingwen" in the past.

The age of the application of Jin Wen is about 1,200 years from the early Shang Dynasty to the destruction of the Six Kingdoms by Qin. The number of words in Jin Wen, according to Rong Geng's "Jin Wen Compilation", is 3,722 in total, of which 2,420 can be recognized.

3. Small seal. After Qin Shi Huang unified China (221 BC), the small seal implemented the policy of "the same book and the same track" and unified weights and measures.

It remained popular in China until the end of the Western Han Dynasty (about 8 AD), when it was gradually replaced by Lishu. However, due to its beautiful font, it has always been favored by calligraphers.

And because of its complex strokes, the form is ancient, and can be added at will, the seal engraving, especially the official seal that needs to be anti-counterfeiting, has been using the seal script until the fall of the feudal dynasty, and the emergence of new anti-counterfeiting technology in modern times.

The historical information of Chinese characters is as follows:

1. From the oracle bone inscriptions engraved on tortoise shells and animal bones in the Shang Dynasty, to the golden inscriptions carved on bronzes in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, to the large seals that evolved in the later years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and then to the small seals that appeared in the writing reform after Qin Shi Huang unified the six countries.

2. Later, the small seal was gradually replaced by the more convenient and simplified official script, which later evolved into cursive script, and the regular script and cursive script that appeared at the same time. At this point, Chinese characters have been shaped in the form of a complete circle, and it is presented in front of the world together with the dazzling civilization of China.

3. Since ancient times, China has a saying that "calligraphy and painting have the same origin", this is because the earliest text is pictures, and calligraphy and painting are like brothers, born from the same root, and there are many internal connections. The origin of Chinese characters is the primitive picture, the form of "picture" that primitive people used to express themselves in life. Slowly, it changed from a primitive picture to an "ideogram".

4. Chinese characters are one of the oldest scripts in the world and a symbol of Chinese cultural inheritance, and the Yinxu oracle bone inscription is more than 3,000 years old.

Precautions: 1. Three stages of the development history of Chinese characters.

The first stage is the pictorial writing stage. Writings before the Shang Dynasty all belong to this stage. The second stage is the phonetic writing stage based on the ideographic script and with the phonetic script as the main body.

Writings from the oracle bone inscription to the early Qin dynasty belong to this stage. The third stage is the stage of morphophonetic characters with the main body and some morphophonetic characters and phonetic characters remaining, from the Qin and Han dynasties to modern Chinese characters.

2. About the advantages of Chinese characters:

Advantages of kanji. The greatest advantage of Chinese characters is their super-dialectal nature. China is a country with a vast territory and complex dialects. In ancient times, it was impossible to standardize the language, and even if the promotion of Mandarin is now, it cannot be completed in a short period of time.

However, Chinese characters are a national tool for communication in the written language. The language is different, and the words are written orally with a pen, but they are exactly the same. If the characters are pinyinized, Cantonese, Hokkien, Shanghainese, Beijing, etc., will appear, hindering people's exchange of ideas.