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The Mother of Civilization

The document discusses the history and evolution of Hanzi, the Chinese writing system. It describes the development from early oracle bone script to seal script and the modern regular script. It also categorizes Hanzi into pictograms, ideograms, ideogrammic compounds and phono-semantic compounds based on their composition.

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Atanu Datta
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89 views

The Mother of Civilization

The document discusses the history and evolution of Hanzi, the Chinese writing system. It describes the development from early oracle bone script to seal script and the modern regular script. It also categorizes Hanzi into pictograms, ideograms, ideogrammic compounds and phono-semantic compounds based on their composition.

Uploaded by

Atanu Datta
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The Mother of Civilization


Hanzi is not the synonym of Chinese character, it is only part of it. There are 57 ethnic groups (while the
majorty are Han person who use Han language), some of them have their own language, for example,
Tibetan people and Manchu people.

Fe t e of Han Zi
Every Han Zi contains 3 elements: shape(形), sound(音) and meaning(義).

Every single Han Zi has its own meaning, which is different from English, alphabet itself only has shape,
sound and meaning.

Evo on of Han Zi
(1) Oracle bone script (Jiaguwen)

Ancient Chinese characters which were incised (rarely brush-written) on animal bones or turtle shells,
while such bones and shells are used in divination about 4000 years ago.

(2) Bronze inscriptions (Jinwen)


Ancient Chinese characters written on Chinese bronze artifacts such as Zhong(bells) and Ding(tripodal
cauldrons) from the Shang dynasty(1000BC) to the Zhou dynasty(200BC) and even later.
(3) Seal script (Zhuanshu)
Ancient Chinese characters which had evolved slowly during the Eastern Zhou dynasty(200BC), became
standardized and adopted as the formal script for all of China in the Qin dynasty, and was still widely used
for seals (name chops, or signets) in the Han dynasty onward.

(4) The regular script (Kaishu)


Also known as standard regular (Zhenkai), is the newest of the Chinese calligraphy styles (appearing
around 2nd century), hence most common in modern writings and publications.

Change, change, change...

Simple
Symbolized
Standardized

From picture to text


From drawing to writing
 

The Con r on of Han Zi


(1) Pictograms (Xiangxing)

Pictograms make up only a small portion of Han Zi. While characters in this class derive from pictures
directly, their meanings are relatively simple.

Examples: 日(sun), 月(moon), 水(water), 火(fire), 鳥(bird), 魚(fish)

(2) Ideograms (Zhishi)


Characters derive from the modification of existing pictographs iconically. In comparing with
Pictograms,the meanings of Ideograms are more abstract. This category is extremely small.

Examples: 刃(blade), 本(root), 末(end), 上(up), 下(down)


(3) Ideogrammic compounds (Huiyi)
These characters symbolically combine pictograms or ideograms to create a third character which has a
new meaning.
Characters fall into this category are slightly larger than Pictograms.

Examples: 林(forest), 森(jungle)、休(rest)、淼(flood)、好(good), 旦(dawn)

(4) Phono-semantic compounds (Xingshing)


These characters are composed of two parts: one of a limited set of pictographs (while sometimes is the
simplified form of such pictograph), which suggests the general meaning of the character, and an existing
character pronounced approximately as the new target word.
By far it is the most numerous category.

Examples: 鯨(whale), 鯉(carp), 鯊(shark), 鷺(heron), 鷲(condor), 鶴(crane)

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