Evolution of ancient and modern Chinese characters

　　In terms of time, the stage of ancient Chinese characters includes Shang Dynasty characters, Western Zhou Spring and Autumn Characters, Six Kingdoms characters and Qin Dynasty characters. At present, the large-scale systematic Oracle Bone Inscriptions we see belongs to the late Shang Dynasty, and it is a kind of writing carved on tortoise shells and animal bones. Due to the limitation of writing tools, Oracle Bone Inscriptions is mostly a thin pen with square folds, but seldom a fat pen with round turns. Oracle Bone Inscriptions’s pictographic composition is not only heavy, but also the structure is not fixed, showing great randomness and flexibility in specific writing. The bronze inscriptions in the early Western Zhou Dynasty also followed the style of bronze inscriptions in the late Shang Dynasty, and then gradually tended to be neat and square. The obvious change was that the curved thick brush was replaced by straight lines. During the Spring and Autumn Period, inscriptions on bronze in various regions gradually formed their own writing characteristics, and artistic fonts with bird-shaped and insect-shaped decorations appeared in inscriptions on bronze in some areas in the East and South. The Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period are the transitional period from slavery to feudalism in our society. The society in China has undergone drastic changes, and the separatist regime of vassals has caused serious abnormal characters among countries and regions. This regional difference of Chinese characters brings a lot of inconvenience to people’s social communication and affects the communication between regions. After Qin Shihuang unified China, he immediately embarked on the reform of "writing with the same language", taking Xiao Zhuan as the unified national writing standard, which made the Chinese characters more regular and symmetrical, and the pictographic degree was further reduced, showing unprecedented stereotypes. Although the strokes of Xiao zhuan are round and beautiful, it is extremely inconvenient to write, so people change the strokes into square folds in practical use and transform the glyphs appropriately.Gradually formed a simple and easy to write new font-Qin Li. Its appearance laid the foundation for the emergence of han li, which is an important transitional stage from ancient Chinese characters to modern Chinese characters.

　　Today’s characters are the Chinese characters in the official script stage, which have continued from Han Dynasty to modern times. At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, the characters inherited the Qin system, and the structure of Qin Li was gradually simplified, the lines were gradually symmetrical, and the brushwork was gradually regular, which gradually formed the han li. Official script is the main popular font in the Han Dynasty, which is used in solemn occasions, while cursive script is often used in people’s drafting documents and communication. In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, running script was formed on the basis of official script and cursive script, and regular script was produced on the basis of running script around the time of Han and Wei Dynasties. After about 200 years in Wei and Jin Dynasties, regular script finally determined its dominant position, and running script also evolved into a font between regular script and cursive script. Running script is fast and not as illegible as cursive script, so it has high practical value. At the same time, cursive script is more simplified and difficult to identify. After the Tang Dynasty, it has completely become a kind of art for appreciation.

　　The evolution of Chinese characters from Oracle Bone Inscriptions to modern regular script, from ancient script to modern script, and the internal changes of ancient and modern scripts can sum up several obvious evolution laws: simplification, phoneticization and standardization.

　　Simplification is the most obvious law in the development and evolution of Chinese characters. Either because of the improvement of writing tools (from knife carving, model casting, writing with brush to block printing), or because of the change of writing carrier (from Oracle bones, bronzes, bamboo slips and silks to paper), and because of the nature of Chinese characters as a tool to record Chinese, font simplification is extremely significant among the major stages of Chinese character development. For example, "Ma" has changed from an early pictographic character to a simplified character today: (inscriptions on bronze in Shang dynasty)— (Oracle Bone Inscriptions)— (Western Zhou Dynasty inscriptions)— (Chunqiu Jinwen)— (Warring States script)— (Xiao Zhuan)-Horse-Horse, it is extremely intuitive that drawings gradually become lines, pictographs gradually weaken and disappear, and strokes become less and less convenient to write. In fact, within each stage of the development of Chinese characters, simplification is also commonplace. For example, Oracle Bone Inscriptions’s word "che" has 、 、 、 、 、 、 、 、 、 Different forms such as complexity and simplicity; The same is true of Jinwen. ：、、、、、、、、, It can be seen that some are extremely pictographic (two wheels, carriages, shafts, shafts and yokes are faithfully described), and some are almost the same as today’s traditional Chinese characters. After Chinese characters entered the regular script stage, although the font has not changed greatly, the simplification of the font has not stopped, and on many occasions, vulgar style and simplification have become popular. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the simplification of Chinese characters was guided by the situation in accordance with the simplification law of Chinese characters. Many simplified characters were used in previous dynasties, and the simplification methods used (such as using ancient styles: from → from, courtesy → ceremony; Local generation of the whole: fly → fly, sound → sound; Changing the simple phonetic symbols: state → state, catfish → turtle, and Jing → Jing) has basically been used throughout the ages.

　　However, Chinese characters are not as simple as possible. Whether the ideographic meaning is clear and whether there is enough difference between glyphs is a sign of whether the symbols of this recording language are easy to use or not. Therefore, there are quite a few complicated phenomena in the general trend of Chinese characters’ development and evolution, including the increase in the number of strokes of individual Chinese characters and the increase in the number of Chinese characters in general. It is well known that the number of characters has increased over the ages, but the increase of the number of strokes in a single word is more complicated. The vast majority of the word multiplication is to add components for the expression needs of "words have special words, and words substitute special words", such as — (its)- (dustpan), -Shu-Qin, Giant-Moment-Yi, -I am-I am; Some add strokes or change writing methods in order to distinguish confusing words, such as month ( )-meat ( )-Angle ( 、 )—个 ( )。 Although this kind of simplification apparently increases the burden of writing, it is necessary, so it has been preserved to this day. Some simplifications don’t just add decorative strokes or components for the sake of improving the ideographic needs, such as "writing with". 、 、 ",it is temporary, and most of them are short-lived, so they are basically eliminated.

　　The relationship between the complexity and simplicity of Chinese characters is dialectical. We should properly handle the relationship between them when formulating Chinese character policies and norms, and find the best combination point between the convenience of writing and the convenience of use. As Mr. Cheng Xianghui, a linguist in Macao, said: "Chinese characters can be simplified and should be simplified, but they cannot be simplified endlessly, and they should not be simplified for the sake of simplicity, thinking that it is easy to master without a stroke." We have also learned a lesson in this respect. The simplified characters in the Second Chinese Character Simplification Scheme (Draft), published in 1977 and abolished in 1986, actually failed to deal with the relationship between simplification and complexity of Chinese characters and blindly pursued the simplification of strokes, which was not convenient to use.

　　The so-called phoneticization means that the proportion of pictophonetic characters is increasing, and a large number of non-pictophonetic characters are transformed into pictophonetic characters. Among all kinds of Chinese characters, pictophonetic characters have the strongest productivity and adaptability to Chinese, so they develop fastest. In the early ancient Chinese characters, pictographs and knowing words accounted for a large proportion. However, these words are often used to express meanings that are far away or irrelevant to their original meanings, such as (Yi) originally meant "water overflows from the vessel" (this meaning was later added with water as "overflow"), which was extended to "benefit, benefit" and other meanings; (Zi) is like "the shape of the nose" (this meaning is followed by the sound of "nose"), which is borrowed as a preposition and a first-person pronoun. Extension and borrowing are both very common and necessary in the use of Chinese characters (many characters are invisible, and borrowing makes up for the poor creation of pictographs). In all Oracle bone inscriptions, loanwords account for about 70%), but too many homonyms, one word with several functions, are bound to cause confusion. Driven by the clarity of Chinese characters’ meanings, most of these words are later added with phonetic symbols or phonetic symbols and become pictophonetic characters (the complexity mentioned above is an important source of pictophonetic characters). Pictophonetic characters came into being in Oracle Bone Inscriptions and developed rapidly in the Warring States Period (according to the laws of pictophonetic characters, a large number of non-pictophonetic characters were transformed into pictophonetic characters, and pictophonetic characters were directly combined with phonetic symbols and meaning symbols), and today they have completely occupied the main body. It accounts for more than 20% of all Chinese characters in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, 50% in inscriptions on bronze, 80% in Xiao Zhuan, and more than 90% today. The trend of phoneticization is extremely obvious, which also marks the gradual maturity of the Chinese character configuration system.

　　If simplification and phoneticization are spontaneous and implicit laws in the evolution of Chinese characters, standardization is intentional and artificial adjustment by users. Although the evolution trend of Chinese characters is very clear, the specific evolution process is extremely complicated. There are many variants and constant errors, which are not conducive to the effective play of Chinese characters in social communication. Therefore, scholars and governments in past dynasties have attached great importance to the standardization and unification of Chinese characters. Oracle Bone Inscriptions’s heteromorphism is extremely complicated, and some of its radicals are not fixed, such as "Zi" which can be written. 、 、 The position of the cow is different; Can also be used 、 、 (changing the ideograph to tapir, sheep or tiger); Some parts are different in complexity, such as "teeth" 、 、 、 、 , "Fu" can be used. 、 、 Wait. The variety of variants and the randomness of writing are very unfavorable to social communication and the implementation of national policies, so the rulers of the Western Zhou Dynasty took measures to standardize the writing. "Zhou Li Chun Guan" records that "the title of the book is in the four directions", and "the title" refers to the words, which is probably the work of unifying the national characters. When he was in Zhou Xuanwang, he also ordered Taishi to write Shi Shuan Pian to standardize Tongmeng characters. After Qin Shihuang unified the whole country, he successfully carried out the work of "writing in the same language", abolished the variant forms that were inconsistent with Qin Wen, and basically ended the phenomenon of "abnormal characters" in the Warring States period; The Final Edition of Five Classics, written by Yan Shigu by Emperor Taizong, the Phonology and Meaning of Kaiyuan Characters, promulgated by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty, and the Ganlu Zishu by scholar Yan Yuansun, etc., have played an important role in the unification of regular script fonts. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the state has actively carried out large-scale Chinese character sorting and standardization, focusing on simplifying glyphs and simplifying variants.

　　Historical experience tells us that the standardization of Chinese characters is not only a necessary language work, but also a national plan. Because Chinese characters often change, new changes will occur after each standardization and collation, so the collation is not once and for all, and Chinese characters should be reorganized and standardized at regular intervals.

　　The writing of this article refers to Wang Fengyang’s Study of Chinese Characters, Zhang Guiguang’s Brief Introduction to Chinese Characters and Dong Kun’s Origin of Chinese Characters in China. Chen Shuangxin, male, born in Wangjiang County, Anhui Province in 1969, is a professor at China Language and Character Standardization Research Center in beijing language and culture university, majoring in ancient Chinese characters and modern Chinese characters. Li Na, female, born in Baoding, Hebei Province in 1982, graduated with a doctorate in Chinese Language and Literature, and is a lecturer at the School of History of Hebei University. He mainly studies ancient philology and pre-Qin archaeology. )