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 Chinese Character is one of most venerable characters. It has had a history for about 6000 years already.
The development of the Chinese characters has experienced 6 phases:
1. Jia Gu Weng -- Inscriptions on bones of animals or tortoise shells of the Shang Dynasty (16 th -- 11th century B.C). They were used to record something of augury. Jia Gu Weng was discovered since 1899 in Anyan, Henan province first time. Since then, over 1000 Jia Gu Weng have been found. The font of Jia Gu Wen has been very completed at that times.
2. Jin Weng & Da Zhuan -- Jin Weng is inscriptions on Bronze in Zhou Dynasty (11th -- 256 B.C); Da Zhuan is big seal character in the same time. Both of them are very near Jia Gu Weng, but it is brief more than Jian Gu Weng.
3. Xiao Zhuan -- Lesser seal in Qin Dynasty (221 -- 207B. C.). It came from Da Zhuan and be standardized. It is a very important phase of Chinese character developing for it succeeded to the former characters and started be the base of the current characters Li Shu, Kai Shu.
4. Li Shu ? It was started from Qin Dynasty and be the official script in the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.- A.D. 220). Now it is used as one of the modern Chinese calligraphy.
5. Kai Shu ? Regular script and be populated in Wei ( 220-265) and Jin Dynasty (265―316). It was developed from Li Shu and now it is one of the current standard Chinese fonts.
For helping you to have the first impression about the Chinese character’s development track, I have written and painted something as an example. And hope it is a little bit help.
Later, I will introduce something about Chinese characters’ characteristics, constructers. Then, I will show you to write, to read Chinese Characters one by one...
If you have any questions, comments and suggestions, please write to shirley@ebridge.cn , or shirleyz004@yahoo.com, You are welcomed.
Shirley Zhang
Re-Written, Re-edited and Re-recorded on Sun, Oct 7, 2007
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Chinese Characters
