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the earliest form of Chinese characters appeared
in the Shang Dynasty with examples dating back
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to around 1200 BC these characters were mostly
pictographs that blur the lines between picture
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and writing Scholars called them Oracle bone
inscriptions or 甲骨文 (jiǎ gǔ wén) in Chinese
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because they were carved onto tortoise shells
and animal bones and used in divination they
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would have been heated in a fire until the bones
cracked and depending on where the crack happened
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the fortune tellers would form an interpretation
on what was to come yet despite how old they are
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there are many Oracle bone inscriptions that show
direct ties to modern Chinese characters which
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is why they are the earliest form of writing
that are still considered Chinese characters
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there are still so many fascinating things
about Oracle bone inscriptions but first I
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want to introduce you to the next six stages
in the evolution of Chinese characters
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directly after Oracle bone inscriptions came a
form called bronze script or 金文 (jīn wén) the
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name comes from the bronze cauldrons and pots that
they were carved or casted on after the Bronze Age
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in China bronze script actually encompasses
four different major types of script and many
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regional variations with a possible date range
as wide as 1300 BC to 200 AD but most of what
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people recognize as bronze script are from the
Zhou Dynasty between around 1000 BC to 200 BC
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stylistically bronze script is thicker than
Oracle bone inscriptions due to the process
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of casting into metal they were also a bit more
structured and less picturesque the development
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of pictographic characters basically came to
a halt during this era as new ideographs and
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semantic phonetic characters began to dominate
check out my video on the construction of Chinese
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characters to learn more during the Zhou Dynasty
as early as 800 to 700 BC another style of Chinese
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characters began appearing called the Seal
script 篆书 (zhuàn shū) which were symmetrical
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and circular with more uniform strokes this
category is further subdivided into large Seal
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script 大篆 (dà zhuàn) and the later small Seal
script 小篆 (xiǎo zhuàn) the name comes from the
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fact that they were used in official seals
even after other scripts rose to prominence
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in the year 221 BC a powerful and ruthless leader
had united China under his rule his name was Qin
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Shi Huang proclaiming himself the first emperor
of China Qin Shi Huang took extreme measures to
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cement his control over the Middle Kingdom
this included building the largest man-made
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wall in the history of the world eradicating the
feudal system to disperse local powers banning
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the thoughts of great Chinese philosophers
including Confucius ordering the first mass
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book burning in recorded history standardizing
all weights currencies and measurements and
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finally initiating the first language reform
and simplification of Chinese characters
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up until now Chinese writing had developed
organically with many regional variations and time
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overlaps between the different styles of Chinese
characters but Qin Shi Huang changed all that when
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he ordered a standardization of the writing system on a scale
previously unheard of all variations of characters
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and radicals were consolidated into one standard
form overly complex characters were simplified
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there was a focus on symmetry this collection of
reformed characters became known as the small Seal
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script and ensured that writing would be uniform
across his entire empire this didn't mean variant
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characters were completely eradicated but they
would never again be as prolific as they once were
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the rules and order set forth by the small
Seal script would usher in the modern era for
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Chinese writing and just as Chinese writing
has evolved over the years so has the modern
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check it out today with the link down below the
next evolution of Chinese characters would quickly
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come in the form of 隶书 (lì shū) Clerical script
as the first of the modern Chinese characters
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Clerical script became popular in the Han
Dynasty and can still be seen to this day
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it originated in the Qin Dynasty as a form of
handwriting and eventually became its own style
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you see the problem with small Seal script and
its obsession with circles and symmetry is that
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it wasn't very intuitive to write so Clerical
script may have evolved from ordinary people
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who couldn't be bothered to write properly
thus some people consider Clerical script a
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form of simplification since all of the changes
focused on ease of writing you'll notice the
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overall shape of Clerical script is a lot more
square just like modern Chinese characters the
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next two styles of Chinese characters were also
born out of a need to write fast and the first is
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Grass script 草书 (cǎo shū) which was developed in
the Han Dynasty and based off of Clerical script
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the term Grass script is actually kind of a bad
translation since the Chinese word for sloppy and
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grass share the same character but it sounds
cool so I'm gonna use it anyways some people
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consider it this cursive script but it's probably
worse than what you'd imagine in fact this writing
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is so reduced that most native Chinese speakers
can't read it at all without being trained in it
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the second is Running script 行书 (xíng shū) and
this was developed slightly later in the Han
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Dynasty and based on a new type of writing called
Regular script which we'll talk about in a second
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Running script is also considered semi-cursive
writing although in my opinion it's closer to
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what I'd imagine cursive writing look like in this
character 亞 (yà) you can see how the individual
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strokes get connected into a few continuous
strokes both of these styles are continuously
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practiced in calligraphy until the present day and
another cool thing about these cursive styles is
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that a lot of simplified Chinese characters
were actually inspired by these forms if you
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want to learn more about how Chinese characters
became simplified I made a video on that too
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finally we reach the modern form of Chinese
characters with Regular script 楷书 (kǎi shū)
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surprisingly this form also began in the Han
Dynasty around 200 AD but would not reach full
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maturity until the 7th Century in addition
to being easy to write Regular script also
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focused on being easier to read compared to the
Clerical script it replaced Regular script had
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more variations in the weight of the strokes
in other words the strokes got really thick
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and also really thin it is also taller than the
slightly flat looking Clerical characters all in
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all Regular script has enjoyed a reign of at least
1500 years considering how quickly languages can
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change that's an insanely long time but what
if there's another even more impressive stage
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in the evolution of Chinese characters and I'm
not talking about the future I'm talking about
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the past Oracle bone inscriptions are considered
the oldest Chinese characters but there is still
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so much we don't know they were only discovered in
1899 and the story goes that a man named Wang Yi
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Rong was sick one day and his servant brought
him a Chinese medicine that uses animal bones
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when he inspected them Wang Yi Rong noticed
some weird symbols scratched on the bones and
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as a hobbyist on calligraphy and geology he
realized that the symbols may be some form
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of writing so he went to the shop and bought all
of the bones with symbols on them to investigate
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and it turns out he was indeed correct and had
just uncovered Chinese writing even older than
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Bronze script imagine almost eating historical
artifacts though to date we have uncovered some
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4,000 unique Oracle bone characters but yet we
only know the meaning to around 1600 of them so
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here's your chance to shine the National Museum
of Chinese Writing in An Yang has offered 100,000
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RMB to anyone who can decipher just one of these
undeciphered Oracle bone characters and if I'm
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mathing correctly that's a total prize pool
of 35 million US Dollars good luck everyone
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and despite how old they already are scholars
have noted that something may have come even
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before them the reasoning is simple Oracle bone
inscriptions are a complete writing system with
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characters in various parts of speech it's simply
too advanced of a writing system to be the first
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and the artifacts we have today are only written
on turtle shells and animal bones because those
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are the only things that can survive for 3,000
plus years it's possible that these characters
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were written on other mediums as well like bamboo
strips but those examples would all be long gone
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a validation of sorts came in 1987 when 14
artifacts were unearthed in Jiahu archaeological
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site in Henan Province etched on them were 17
symbols that were dated to around 6,000 BC with
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these symbols we can see remarkable resemblance
to several Oracle bone characters especially the
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"eye" character but with such a long time gap
and not enough examples many people doubt that
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this was a true writing system like the study of
evolution in science it's impossible to know where
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Chinese characters will go in the future and even
more impossible to pinpoint exactly where it began
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there is a legend that the Yellow Emperor who
founded China had a wise advisor by the name of
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Cangjie who had four eyes when tasked to create a
system to record information he observed the world
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around him and formed the first Chinese characters
by drawing the shapes of the natural world when he
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completed his creation the gods mourned and
demons cried because they knew it would make
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humans more cunning and more cunning it did the
ancient Chinese civilization was one of the great
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ancient civilizations bringing many scientific
advancements and cultural influences to the
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world paper gunpowder printing the compass silk
tea Confucianism Kung Fu and the lunar calendar
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were all aided by an advanced writing system even
though I've bashed this very writing system in
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the past for its inefficiencies in the modern
world there's no denying that Chinese writing
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itself is one of the great inventions of ancient
China and for that it deserves to be celebrated
