The evolution of the Chinese script: from pictographs to characters The Chinese writing system is rather well known as, instead of using an alphabet, characters are used, and has been used for thousands of years. Before the invention of the alphabet, civilisations used pictograms for writing, not splitting words into their phonemes. For example, a well-known pictographic writing system is the writing system of Ancient Egypt – hieroglyphs. Just like hieroglyphs, the Chinese script began with a very pictographic writing system that evolved to become more the simplified script of the modern age. Some characters in the simplified Chinese script used in the modern age, such as ‘口’ (kǒu) for mouth, or ‘ 人’ (rén) for person, obviously look similar to the words they represent. However, others are not so clear. The earliest known Chinese script is the Oracle-Bone script, called so as it appeared on oracle bones (animal bones used for divination), from Shang Dynasty (1700-1027 BCE). As the writing system developed, it became less pictographic and more stylistic. Cursive script (sometimes translated as grass script as A table of the evolution of the Chinese the character ‘草’ (cǎo) can mean grass, as well as script rough or sloppy) is from the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE). It may first seem like a deviation from the evolution of the writing system, however the reason for this is it served as a shorthand method of writing, so it was quite difficult to read. Regular script originated around 200 CE, between the Eastern Han and Cao Wei dynasties, and is used in the modern age as traditional characters. Traditional characters are used in the Japanese writing system, kanji, as well as in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. Simplified Chinese characters are used in Mainland China and Singapore and is extremely new compared to the still used traditional script and has been in use since the 1950s in order to increase literacy. Apart from the simplification of characters, simplified Chinese also reduced the number of standardised Chinese characters by combining already known characters to make new words. Therefore, not only has this made it much easier for foreigners to learn to the language, but it has also helped improve literacy rates in China. Picture: https://www.chinatravel.com/facts/evolution-of-the-chinese-script.htm Mary Qurban
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