The Evolution of Chinese Characters汉字五千年之高天长河

The Evolution of Chinese Characters

Where is the source of Chinese characters?The question is asked at the beginning of the second part of the documentary series and also asked by so many people.People have been wondering where is the source from past time to modern time!

In ancient time,people held the idea that the Chinese characters were created by Cangjie,a sage who was an official historian in the Yellow Emperor period according to Words and Expressions by Xushen.But it was just a mythology and not true.In recent time,archaeologists have found four cultural relics:Dawenkou culture in the lower reach of the Yellow River,Yangshao culture in the middle reach of the Yellow River,Liangchu culture in the lower reach of the Changjiang River and Daxi culture in the middle reach of the Changjiang River.The four cultural relics were regarded as the source of the Chinese characters by academic field for a long time.However,Jiahu relic was found in the upper reach of the Huai He River in 1987,which made the source of Chinese characters complicated and confusing again.Some archaeologists think it may be the earliest word in the world.But until now nobody can be sure weather it is or not!

No exact answer responds to the question;no one can give the answer e ven we’ve found a lot of ancient symbols and remarks.Even though,we can get something significant from the ancient

remarks.Archaeologists said that these ancient remarks and symbols found in known four cultural relics have connection with the oracle bone script.We can assume that the oracle bone script were developed at the basis of these ancient remarks.

In 1920s,more than 17000 oracle bone scripts were found in Xiaotun Anyang Henan province,which is the only time so many oracle bone scripts were foun d.After years’ research,archaeologists found the ancient divination by which Shang Emperor used to rule the whole country and the patriarchal tradition.These words sculptured on oracle bones and tortoise shells gave us insights into the early stage of Chinese characters and evolution into other forms of Chinese characters.

The next stage of Chinese characters was the bronze scripts which were sculptured on the bronzes during Shang and Zhou dynasties.At that period,the bronze scripts were mainly used by the royal family and nobles,because the materials of bronzes were rare.And it may also the reason why Shang dynasty changed its capital frequently.But this situation that only royal family and nobles mastered knowledge was changed by Confucius during the Warring States period.Confucius started the private schools called Xintan and provided education for all people without discrimination.It indicated the beginning that the Chinese characters went to the folk.It also arose the phenomenon of a hundred schools.