For example, the character 其 originally representing jī "winnowing basket" was also used to write the pronoun and modal particle qí. This type was already used extensively on the oracle bones, and has been the main source of new characters since then. Phono-semantic compounds (形聲字 xíngshēngzì) were obtained by adding semantic indicators to disambiguate phonetic loans. Sometimes the borrowed character would be modified slightly to distinguish it from the original, as with 毋 wú "don't", a borrowing of 母 mǔ "mother".
An example is 來 lái "come", written with the character for a similar-sounding word meaning "wheat". These phonetic loans (假借字 jiǎjièzì) are thus new uses of existing characters rather than new graphic forms. Words that could not be represented pictorially, such as abstract terms and grammatical particles, were denoted using characters for similar-sounding words (the rebus strategy). Semantic compounds (會意字 huìyìzì) combine simpler elements to indicate the meaning of the word, as in 林 lín "grove" (two trees).Įvolved forms of these characters are still in among the most commonly used today.Ideograms (指事字 zhǐshìzì) are abstract symbols such as 三 sān "three" and 上 shàng "up".Pictograms (象形字 xiàngxíngzì) represent a word by a picture (later stylized) such as 日 rì "sun", 人 rén "person" and 木 mù "tree".Three of these categories involved a representation of the meaning of the word: The strategies used are traditionally classified into six categories (六書 liùshū "six writings") first recorded in the second century dictionary Shuowen Jiezi. Įach character of the early script represents a word of Old Chinese, which at that time was uniformly monosyllabic. Bronze inscriptions from about 1100 BC are written in a developed form of the script and provide a richer body of text. Although some Neolithic symbols have been found on pottery, jade or bone at a variety of sites in China, there is no consensus that any of them are directly related to the Shang oracle bone script. This Oracle Bone Script shows extensive simplification and linearization, which most researchers believe indicates an extensive period of prior development of the script. The earliest known Chinese writing consists of divinatory texts inscribed on ox scapulae and tortoise plastrons found at the last Shang dynasty capital near Anyang and dating from 1200 BC. (See Chinese calligraphy and Chinese script styles.) Adaptations range from the conservative, as in Korean, which used Chinese characters in their standard form with only a few local coinages, and relatively conservative Japanese, which has coined a few hundred new characters and used traditional character forms until the mid-20th century, to the extensive adaptations of Zhuang and Vietnamese, each coining over 10,000 new characters by Chinese formation principles, to the highly divergent Tangut script, which formed over 5,000 new characters by its own principles.Īn example of Chinese bronze inscriptions, on a bronze vessel dated to the early Western Zhou period, 11th century BC The Chinese scripts are written in various calligraphic hands, principally seal script, clerical script, regular script, semi-cursive script, and cursive script. In addition, various phonetic scripts descend from Chinese characters, of which the best known are the various kana syllabaries, the zhuyin semi-syllabary, nüshu, and some influence on hangul. The partially deciphered Khitan small script may be another. More divergent are Tangut, Khitan large script, and its offspring Jurchen, as well as the Yi script, which were inspired by Chinese although not directly descended from it.
They include logosyllabic systems such as the Chinese script itself (or hanzi, now in two forms, traditional and simplified), and adaptations to other languages, such as Kanji ( Japanese), Hanja ( Korean), Chữ Hán and Chữ Nôm ( Vietnamese) and Sawndip ( Zhuang). The Chinese family of scripts are writing systems descended from the Chinese Oracle Bone Script and used for a variety of languages in East Asia. Right: "Chinese character" in Simplified Chinese Left: "Chinese character" in Traditional Chinese.
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