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Taiwanese characters. Chinese characters or how complex these strokes are. Negative sentences with 不

Chinese is the most widely spoken modern language in the world. It is spoken by more than 1.3 billion people, most of whom live in the PRC (more than 980 million), Hong Kong (now part of the PRC) and Taiwan (19 million). Significant numbers of Chinese speakers are also found throughout Southeast Asia, especially in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. There are large Chinese-speaking communities in many other parts of the world, especially in Europe, North and South America, Australia and the Hawaiian Islands.

What we commonly call the general expression “Chinese” is actually one of many Chinese languages ​​- namely, Northern Chinese dialect. This dialect is common in the north and west of mainland China and is the official language of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (on the island of Taiwan). Officially it is called Mandarin(普通话 pǔtōng huà, literally: " common speech"). In the West, the Chinese language is called “Mandarin,” but in Russian it sounds incorrect and ridiculous, so it is advisable to use the word “Mandarin” or simply “Chinese.”

Back at the end of the 19th century, a problem arose with the excessive complexity of Chinese characters - efforts to increase universal literacy were frustrated by the ornateness of traditional Chinese writing. Even then, many people used simplified versions of hieroglyphs with a reduced number of strokes, which later became part of the project to simplify Chinese writing. Many years later, in 1964, the People's Republic of China officially established the images of 2238 new, simplified characters. They tried to simplify further, but confusion arose, and they settled on the 1964 model (moreover, the three options were then returned to their traditional look). In total, 2,235 hieroglyphs were changed as part of the reform. From now on we decided to be more careful with simplification.

Please note that it was the People's Republic of China that simplified the hieroglyphs. The rest of the countries did not do this, which ultimately resulted in the division of hieroglyphs into simple and “complex” (that is, traditional ones that existed before simplification).

Thus, now we, or rather the Chinese, have two types of Chinese writing: traditional (繁体字 fán tǐ zì, fantizi) and simplified (简体字 jiǎn tǐ zì, jiantizi). The first is still used in Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong (where it is warmly supported), the second is the official script of the People's Republic of China, Malaysia and Singapore, widely represented on our website.

The simplified Chinese writing system differs from the traditional one in only two aspects:

• a reduced number of strokes in a hieroglyph (for example, 觀 → 观);
• reduced number of characters used (two different words are now written with the same hieroglyph).

An example of simplifying a hieroglyph:
書 → 书 ( book); 長 → 长 ( long); 馬 → 马 (horse).

Thus, a beginner learning Chinese may have a question: which system to choose? The traditional one looks too complicated, which is clearly not in its favor, but at the same time, it is extremely in demand in large economically developed regions such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau. Their residents everywhere use traditional characters and are in no hurry to switch to the PRC standard. And in Hong Kong, they also speak Cantonese, so those who want to work there will have to learn that too. But the competition here is less than among Mandarin speakers.

Simplified writing is used in the vast and powerful mainland China, so after studying it, you will be able to put your knowledge into practice in modern megacities: Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen - or at home translate the instructions for the next product "Made in China" - in most cases they are written in simplified hieroglyphs.

So, the main thing is to decide on the purpose of your training and then not deviate from the path. Both writing systems are in demand in the world, the main thing is to manage your time and skills so that knowledge bears the greatest possible fruit.

Chinese is considered one of the most difficult languages ​​to learn in the world. There are thousands and thousands of characters in the Chinese language. I wonder what a Chinese keyboard looks like then? And what is "pinyin"? Let's take a short excursion into the history of Chinese writing - from antiquity to the present day.

This is what, according to many ordinary people, a Chinese keyboard should look like. And in truth, there are thousands of hieroglyphs! Poor people in China have to spend a lot of time typing simple text on a computer!

Wait, how do they, for example, type SMS on their phone? Modern voice dialing technologies?.. In fact, everything is much simpler. The Chinese keyboard is a custom keyboard with Latin letters, as well as some additional characters used in different typing systems. Hieroglyphs are typed using their " pinyin", i.e. pronunciation using Latin letters. Has it become clearer?

If not, then I propose to take a short excursion into the history of the origin and development of Chinese writing in order to understand how the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire came from this (see picture below) to the modern system of typing hieroglyphs.

To do this, let's go back to basics...

This photograph was taken in a place with the unusual name "Forest of Steles".

Forest of stelae (Chinese) Bei Lin) is a real reserve of Chinese hieroglyphs, located in the ancient capital of China, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. With more than 900 years of history, this amazing museum contains about 3 thousand steles with various inscriptions: these are mainly calligraphic works, paintings and chronological records.

For a foreign guest, all these hieroglyphs are nothing more than strange drawings, comparable to scribbles in a psychologist’s office, behind which everyone sees their own meaning. Meanwhile, unlike the written languages ​​of other peoples, for the Chinese hieroglyphs are a means of communication, art, sacred knowledge, a thin thread connecting generations, and, of course, a subject of national pride.

The history of Chinese characters goes back more than three thousand years!

The earliest written monuments found in China are very unusual. These were fortune-telling inscriptions on turtle shells, which were made as follows: the shell was burned with a hot tip, after which cracks appeared on it, based on the nature of which predictions were made. Later, a note was made next to the crack, recording the question and answer, and sometimes also a note about whether the prediction came true.

A typical text of a fortune-telling inscription: “[On the day of] gui-si fortune-telling, Que asked the question: “Will there be any misfortune in the next decade?” Van read the answer: “There will be evil, there will be danger.” On the fifth day, danger really came from the west. Xi Zhen reported: “The Tu tribe attacked our eastern outskirts [and] destroyed two cities. The Gong tribe also invaded the fields of our western outskirts.”

As you can see in the picture above, early Chinese inscriptions look more like drawings than modern characters. These drawings are called pictograms, in ancient times they depicted specific objects, and only over time were modified into hieroglyphic writing.

The addition of hieroglyphs denoting objects led to the emergence of hieroglyphs-concepts. For example, if you write the hieroglyphs “woman” and “child” together, you get the hieroglyph “good.” Indeed, when a woman is with a child, then what’s wrong with that!

Spelling "man" and "tree" together means "to rest" (a person under a tree).

And the hieroglyph, consisting of the parts “woman” and “roof,” means “calm.” It's good to have a woman in the house!

Over time, the Chinese written language developed into a very complex writing system, where one word could already consist of several individual characters (the statement that each Chinese word consists of only one character is a myth). Here are some modern examples of such combinations: “gold” + “merger” = finance; "fire" + "cart" = "train"; "electricity" + "speech" = "telephone".

In addition, the hieroglyphs themselves numbered from one to several dozen features! For example, below is the spelling of the hieroglyph "one".

Here's a funnier example: the character for a traditional Chinese noodle dish contains more than 50 strokes. How many features can you count?

Another important feature of the Chinese language (which has survived to this day) is that there is practically no relationship between writing and reading a word (i.e. written and spoken language). Each hieroglyph has its own individual spelling and reading, both of which just need to be learned! This is the main difference between a “hieroglyphic” language and an “alphabetic” one. Thus, if you are studying Chinese and see an unfamiliar character, then without looking in the dictionary, you can only try to guess how it will sound!

Well, the biggest difficulty in China was that there was no unified system for either writing or reading hieroglyphs. Roughly speaking, in different provinces and even localities, the same word could be spelled differently and often had differences in reading. It got to the point that people from different provinces were forced to correspond in order to understand each other!

It is easy to conclude that due to all these features, literacy in China was the lot of the nobility, who had the time and opportunity to learn to write and read. The proportion of the illiterate population in China was extremely high.

To date, China has already implemented a number of long-term measures to combat illiteracy. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2010 the overall percentage of the illiterate population fell to a record low of 4.08%, with the largest number of illiterates living in Tibet (37.77%). This is truly a great achievement for China.

To achieve such results, in the 20th century, reforms of the Chinese language were carried out in the following areas: written and spoken. The reform of the written language consisted of simplifying the writing of most hieroglyphs. Today there are two main types of Chinese writing: simplified And traditional hieroglyphics. Below are some examples.

In addition, in the fight against numerous local dialects, a single spoken language was introduced Mandarin(“common language”), as well as a unified system for reading characters in Putonghua. Nowadays this language is compulsory for study in all Chinese schools; Chinese politicians and the media speak this language.

The third element of Chinese language reform is the introduction of a phonetic system pinyin("connection of sounds"). Pinyin is not an alphabet, it is a transcription of the pronunciation of hieroglyphs using the Latin alphabet. Each hieroglyph is read with a corresponding syllable consisting of a consonant and vowels (for example, ma, tao, gou). At the same time, the Chinese language has a huge number of homonym words (with the same pronunciation). The meaning of a word is revealed, firstly, by the context, and also depending on the tone in which it is pronounced.

Thus, over the history of its existence, the Chinese character has gone from a simple drawing, comparable to cave painting, to a complete written system, where one word can consist of several elements (such as “good” or “rest”) and even several hieroglyphs ( the joint spelling of the hieroglyphs "electricity" and "brain" means "computer"), where there are uniform rules for reading and writing, and where, in the end, the traditions and culture of the Far East are intertwined with the mobility and internationalization of the West.

P.S. This is what the character typing system looks like in modern China.

When entering the phonetics qing (“qing”), the system prompts us to select the hieroglyph we need from a list of words with the following pronunciation (from left to right: “please”, “feelings”, “transparent”, “light”, “light green”, etc.) . The choice can be made by clicking the mouse or using a number. Modern typing systems are quite intelligent and can independently select hieroglyphs depending on the context.

This is the secret of the Chinese keyboard!

Want to learn more about the Chinese language? Here is a list of some recommended books and articles

Many students and non-students of Chinese consider characters to be the main stumbling block. Perhaps this is so, but we must not forget that hieroglyphs are a writing system that the Chinese themselves have been studying since childhood, and for them this learning looks the same as learning the alphabet and calligraphy for us. That is, the conclusion is this: you can learn everything, you just need to understand the features.

A hieroglyph is a symbolic-pictographic representation of a concept, so it itself is a picture, with its own writing rules, which are quite simple.

Writing rules:
. Horizontal is written from left to right.
. Vertical and inclined from top to bottom.
. The hieroglyph is written from top to bottom.
. The vertical that intersects the horizontals is written after them (however, the lower horizontal, if it does not intersect, is written after the vertical).
. The dot on the right is written last.

Top to bottom, left to right

First horizontal, then vertical line

First the flap to the left, then the flap to the right

First the external, then the internal, and finally the closure of the external

First the middle, then the sides

Also, all the features of hieroglyphs are strictly structured and highlighted in so-called keys, which are the main components of the hieroglyph, have their own meaning and, thus, give a hint in the hieroglyph to its meaning.

Basic graphic elements of Chinese characters

Also, the main thing in hieroglyphs is symmetry or an even ratio of all elements, that is, the hieroglyph must fit into an imaginary square, so copybooks for students are often compiled in the form of sheets with lined squares for ease of practice.

And now the main question is, what is easier to learn, simplified or traditional hieroglyphs?

Traditional and simplified hieroglyphs

Most materials in Chinese today are written in simplified script, as it has been used throughout Mainland China since the beginning of the reform to simplify writing in the early 20th century.

Simplification of hieroglyphic writing was proposed at the beginning of the 20th century, since complex writing was seen as one of the reasons for China's economic backwardness, however, in fact, simplified hieroglyphs already existed. They appeared, among other things, thanks to cursive writing.

The systematic simplification project began in the 30s and 40s, during the years of Japanese occupation, in parallel with the simplification of Japanese characters (see Shinjitai). Simplified characters in China are called whale. ex. 简体字, pinyin: jiăntĭzì, translation: jiantizi.

In the PRC, an official proposal for the simplification of hieroglyphs (Chinese: 汉字简化方案, pinyin: hànzì jiǎnhuà fāng"àn) was published in 1956. The list of simplified hieroglyphs only partially coincided with Japanese Shinjitai, but the PRC government proposed a much wider list. The official status of simplified hieroglyphs was secured by the “Summary Table of Simplification of hieroglyphs” released in 1964 (Chinese: 简化字总表, pinyin: jiǎnhuàzì zǒngbiǎo), which contained a list of 2238 hieroglyphs replaced by simplified versions.

As you can see, the main goal of the reform to simplify hieroglyphs was achieved; they became more accessible to people.

But there is one trick here: in fact, complete, that is, complex, hieroglyphs are easier to study and memorize, which is confirmed by repeated personal and not only practice in studying traditional hieroglyphs. Moreover, this is no longer a subjective conclusion, but an actual result of the practice of many people who have experience in studying both writing systems.

Traditional characters are officially accepted in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, and are also widely used in overseas Chinese communities (with the exception of Singapore and Malaysia). Simplified hieroglyphs are used in China, Malaysia and Singapore. There has been a long discussion among Chinese communities regarding the writing system.

Chinese living outside Taiwan call traditional characters "complex" (Chinese: 繁體字, Chinese: 繁体字, Pinyin: fántǐzì). In addition, people who use simplified characters sometimes call traditional characters “old” (Chinese: 老字, pinyin: lǎozì), and people who use traditional characters call them “full” (Chinese: 全體字, pinyin: 全体字, pinyin: quántǐzì).

Many Chinese who use traditional characters believe that traditional characters cannot be considered “complex” because they are the original form of Chinese writing and have never been specifically complicated, and simplified characters cannot be recognized as standard due to the fact that they are not used by everyone native Chinese speakers.

In fact, hieroglyphs in traditional writing represent a more holistic image, both from the point of view of the picture and from the point of view of understanding its meaning, since we remember that the keys themselves speak about the meaning. It’s quite easy to learn and get used to writing them, but the most interesting thing is that it’s much more difficult to unlearn them. Although, of course, most users of simplified writing will argue the opposite, which is natural. However, studying the traditional writing of hieroglyphs has a deeper meaning than just ease of use, since they contain history, culture and other deep meanings.

In general, this story is similar to the simplification of the Russian alphabet, namely the removal of “extra” letters from it and the reduction of the original word forms to a single letter spelling. Roughly speaking, this is a simple cutting of the roots.

So for everyone who dares to know more, there is a direct path to learning traditional Chinese writing!

Comparison table of hieroglyphs:

Traditional	Simplified in China	Translation
		electricity
		buy
		open
		East
		car, vehicle
		red, scarlet
		absence
		bird
		hot
		time
		language, speech
		listen
		certificate, proof
		the Dragon
		sell
		turtle
		age, year
		art
		war, battle
		close
		iron, metal
		map, picture
		group
		turn
		wide
		bad, evil
		abundant
		brain
		various
		pressure, compression
		chicken
		price

Traditional and simplified hieroglyphsTRADITIONAL AND
SIMPLIFIED HIEROGLYPHS

Traditional characters are used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as in Japanese

TRADITIONAL HIEROGLYPHS
USED ​​IN TAIWAN AND IN
HONG KONG AND ALSO IN JAPANESE

Our first hieroglyphs

OUR FIRST HIEROGLYPHS
你
好
女
男
妈
爸
大
家
老
早
天
白
晚
ni3 you
hao3ok
nv3 woman
nan2 man
ma1mom
ba4 dad
da4 big
jia1 family
lao3 old
zao3 early/early
tian1 day
bai2 white
wan3 late / late

Rules for writing hieroglyphs

WRITING RULES
HIEROGLYPHS
1. The hieroglyph must be written from top to bottom.
2. The hieroglyph must be written from left to right.
3. First you need to write horizontal lines, then
vertical and folding. BUT lower horizontal
the line is written last if it is not
intersects
4. First you need to write the elements of the outer contour,
then - the elements of the internal contour, and the closing
the horizontal line comes last.
5. First you need to write a slash to the left, then
flap to the right.
6. First you need to write a vertical line in the center
(if available), and then the rest of the features
7. The right point should be written last.

What are hieroglyphs made of and why are they light?

WHAT ARE HIEROGLYPHS CONSISTED OF AND
WHY ARE THEY LIGHT?
1.Features
Only 5 main features
2. Keys
Hieroglyphs are
various combinations of traits
and keys
If you know the keys, learn
hieroglyphs are not difficult

Phonetics

PHONETICS
Pinyin - transcription of Chinese characters
Finals
Initials
Tones

Combination of finals and initials

COMBINATION OF FINALS AND
INITIALS

Tones

TONE

Expressions for greeting

EXPRESSIONS FOR GREETING
你好 ni3hao3 Hello
大家好 da4jia1hao3 Good afternoon everyone
老师好 lao3shi1hao3 Teacher, hello
早上好 zao3shang0 hao3 Good morning
白天好 bai2tian1hao3 Good afternoon
晚上好 wan3shang0hao3 Good evening

Lesson 2 Chinese is not too difficult 汉语不太难

LESSON 2
CHINESE IS NOT TOO DIFFICULT
汉语不太难

Words

WORDS
汉语 han4yu3 Chinese
忙 mang2 busy
很 hen3 very
难 nan2 complex
吗 ma interrogative particle
太 tai4 too
我 wo 3 i
他ta1 he
她ta1 she
们 men plural suffix
哥哥 ge1ge older brother
弟弟 di4di younger brother
妹妹 mei4meiyounger sister
叫 jiao4 call
名字 min2zi name
不 bu4 particle of negation

Expressions

EXPRESSIONS
你叫什么名字
我叫。。。
What is your name?
My name is...
你好吗
How are you?
你忙吗
Are you busy?

Grammar

GRAMMAR
Order of words in a sentence
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Direct order: subject predicate
Circumstance of time that responds to
the question “when” is before or after
subject
The definition always comes before
defined by a word
Before a qualitative adjective
an adverb of degree is required
The particles 吗、呢、吧、 are placed at the end

Types of offers

TYPES OF OFFERS
Affirmative
他是老师
He's a teacher
Negative
他不是老师
He's not a teacher
Interrogative
他是老师吗
Is he a teacher?

Sentences with a qualitative predicate

OFFERS WITH QUALITY
Predicate
In such sentences the adjective is
predicate
汉语不太难
Chinese is not too difficult
Affirmative
Subject + adverb
degrees 很、太 +
adjective
汉语很难
Chinese very
difficult
Negative
Subject +
particle
negatives 不 +
adjective
汉语不难
Chinese is not
difficult
Interrogative
Subject +
adjective +
interrogative
particle 吗
汉语难吗
Chinese
difficult
In negative and interrogative sentences, adverbs of degree are not used,
Except 太 in a negative sentence (汉语不太难)

General question with 吗

GENERAL QUESTION WITH 吗
汉语难吗 Han4yu3 nan2 ma Chinese
difficult?
你忙吗 Ni3 mang2 ma
Are you busy?
衣服白吗 Yi1fu bai2 ma
Are the clothes white?
Ma1ma piao4liang ma
Mom is pretty
你去食堂吗 Ni3 qu4 shi2tang2 ma
Are you going to the dining room?
你学习汉语吗 Ni3 xue2xi2 han4yu3 ma
Are you learning Chinese?

Negative sentences with 不

NEGATIVE
OFFERS WITH 不
Placed before a verb or
adjective
Can be used with an adverb
degree 太
1. 我不去食堂。 I won’t go to the canteen
2. 我不学习汉语。 I don’t learn Chinese
3. 我不喜欢听音乐。 I don’t like
listen to music
4. 我不忙。 I'm not busy
5. 汉字不难。 The hieroglyphs are not complicated

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Chinese writing is hieroglyphic. Thanks to it, different peoples inhabiting and speaking different dialects can understand each other. Chinese characters are an integral part of Chinese culture. Apart from China, Chinese hieroglyphic writing was widespread in the Asian region.

“Book of Songs” (Shi Jing), edition of the Ming era (1368-1644). ,

Based on historical and geographical characteristics, linguists identify seven main dialect groups in China: Northern dialects, Gan, Hakka, Wu, Xiang, Yue, Min. Sometimes they are also supplemented by the Anhui dialects, Jin and Pinghua. In turn, individual dialects are distinguished within dialect groups.

Sometimes dialects differ so much that their representatives do not understand each other at all. Oral Chinese Mandarin普通话 (literally “common language”), created on the basis of northern dialects and, in particular, the Beijing dialect, is the official language, but not all Chinese speak it fully and, accordingly, understand it.

Therefore, the only means of interethnic communication remains a written language that is not tied to phonetic reading. If you have watched Chinese television, or seen Chinese films or video clips, you may have noticed that there is often hieroglyphic text at the bottom of the screen.

Hieroglyphics also allows you to quite freely read texts written several centuries ago. In addition, Chinese written language wenyan文言 was widely used throughout the Asian region: Japan, Korea, Vietnam and other countries. And although now they use their own writing, nevertheless, knowing wenyan, you can read and understand ancient texts. And the texts in Japanese are understandable to some extent even now.

Legendary Cang Jie

In Chinese traditional historiography, it is believed that the oldest form of Chinese writing was knotted writing, which was later replaced by hieroglyphics. Its founder was 仓颉, who, “observing the outlines of mountains and seas, the traces of dragons and snakes, birds and animals, as well as the shadows cast by objects,” created 540 simple signs - wen文. They became the oldest system of classification of objects and phenomena in the world.

According to tradition, Tsang Jie was the court historiographer of the legendary Emperor Huang Di (XXVII-XXVI centuries BC). He is usually depicted with four eyes, which symbolize his special insight. In the treatise “Xun Tzu” (III century BC) it is said about him: “There were numerous experiments in creating writing, but only the signs created by Tsang Jie were accepted and exist to this day.”

Neolithic signs and Yin pictograms

Hieroglyphs go back to images - pictograms, which over time became more and more complex and formalized, gradually transforming into a system of signs. However, even with minimal knowledge, a hieroglyph can be “read” and see various meanings in it.

The earliest pictographs in China were discovered in the Jiahu settlement of the Neolithic Peiligan culture, located on the Yellow River (Henan Province). 16 artifacts date back to the 6th millennium BC. It turns out that Jiahu writing is older than Sumerian cuneiform. However, now most researchers believe that although some signs from Jiahu superficially resemble modern Chinese characters for “eye” and “sun,” this similarity is deceptive, and the signs found cannot be considered the ancestor of Chinese writing.

Other examples of early Chinese writing have been discovered at the Neolithic sites of Banpo (east of Xi'an, Shaanxi Province) and Jiangzhai (Lintong District, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province). However, they also appear to have no genetic connection to Chinese hieroglyphic writing.

The first examples of Chinese hieroglyphic writing itself date back to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. The earliest ones are from the 17th century. BC. These are Yin* divinatory inscriptions on animal bones (often buffalo) and turtle shells. They are called 甲骨文 Jiaguwen(literally “inscriptions on shells and bones”), “fortune-telling inscriptions from the capital of Yin” 殷契卜辭 yinqi butsi and “inscriptions from Yin ruins” 殷墟文字 yinxu wenzi.

The symbols, which were applied with pointed sticks, turned out to be angular. Basically, these were simple pictograms - schematic images of the most universal concepts: parts of the human body, natural phenomena, household supplies, etc. A single, standard writing of hieroglyphs did not yet exist; several variants of writing the same sign were in circulation. However, due to the small number of people who were literate, this did not cause any particular problems. To date, out of more than 5,000 signs, about 1.5 thousand have been identified.

* Yin (Shang-Yin dynasty) XVII century. BC. 1045 BC is the earliest confirmed dynasty in Chinese history.

The first inscriptions on bones and shells were discovered in 1899 near the city of Anyang (Henan Province). However, as it turned out, local residents had been familiar with them for a long time and called them “dragon bones.” They handed over the “bones” to pharmacies, where they were ground into a powder that supposedly had medicinal properties. It is difficult to calculate how many Yin inscriptions were destroyed in this way.

The Yin believed that hieroglyphs provided a connection between people and their ancestors who had gone to Heaven, primarily between the ruler and the supreme ancestor Shang Di 上帝. Three people took part in the fortune-telling ritual: the ruler himself, the priest and the scribe. The ruler asked questions, which the scribe carved into bones with a chisel: whether the hunt would be successful, whether the harvest would be rich, whether to start a war, whether to marry, whether an heir would be born, etc. Then the bone was burned with hot sticks and the answer was guessed from the cracks that appeared.

Thus, in the Shang-Yin era, writing had a sacred character. The ritual-magical attitude towards the text was preserved in later eras: even a century ago in China one could meet people who collected paper covered with hieroglyphs in order to burn it in ovens specially designed for this purpose.

Hieroglyphic writing in the Zhou era

During the Zhou era (1045-221 BC), Chinese hieroglyphic writing was already quite developed. With the advent of bronze casting technology, “writing on metal” 金文 appeared Jinwen— inscriptions on ritual bronze vessels. Sometimes called "tripod and bell writing" 鐘鼎文 zhongdingwen. Zhou script is found on meat tripods, grain vessels, bells, bronze wine and water vessels, as well as steles, stone drums, slabs and ceramics.

The hieroglyphs of the Zhou era became significantly more complex compared to the Yin script. Phonoideograms appeared - hieroglyphs consisting of two parts: a phonetic, which conveys an approximate reading, and a key, indicating belonging to a certain class of objects, phenomena or properties. Now more than 90% of all Chinese characters are ideograms.

At the beginning of the 8th century. BC. The court historiographer Shi Zhou compiled a list of hieroglyphs. The style in which these characters were written is called 大篆 da zhuan— “The Great Seal.”

Sample letter "da zhuan"

During the Zhanguo period (475-221 BC), China found itself divided into various kingdoms. Xu Shen in the preface to 說文解字 (“Explanation of simple signs and interpretation of complex ones”, turn of the 1st-2nd centuries) noted: “Statements and speeches began to sound differently.” Several regional variants of writing were formed, among which the three largest stood out:

• writing system of the Qin kingdom based on the Zhou script da zhuan;
• writing of the six major kingdoms "ancient writings" 古文 Guwen based on Yin and Zhou script;
• written language of the southern Chinese kingdom of Chu.

Reform of Chinese writing during the Qin era

With the coming to power of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, who united the country under the rule of a single centralized Qin Empire (221-206 BC), a reform of writing began: “all chariots with an axle of the same length, all hieroglyphs of standard writing.” Based on Qin script da zhuan the letter 小篆 appeared xiao zhuan(“small seal”) The “official letter” 隸書 has also become widespread li shu, which, with some modifications, formed the basis of modern writing.

Sample letter "li shu"

Xu Shen in the preface to the dictionary “Shuo Wen Jie Zi” describes this time as follows:

At that time, Qin […] raised subjects and soldiers on a large scale and developed military service and forced labor. Job responsibilities in departments and courts became more complex, and the style of “formal writing” appeared for the first time, as standardization and simplicity were sought.

During the Qin era, the official list numbered 3,300 characters. At the same time, there was a process of unification of pronunciation.

Chinese characters from Han to Song periods

During the reign of the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD), a list of 540 keys was formed. Since ancient times, text was written on bamboo tablets. This is probably partly why the Chinese wrote in columns from top to bottom and from right to left until the 20th century.

Sun Tzu's treatise "The Art of War", written on bamboo tablets, Han era. Copy. National Museum, Beijing

In the first centuries of our era, paper appeared, which replaced the bamboo strips on which texts had previously been written. Now the brush, which has been known since the Yin Dynasty, has become increasingly used to write down hieroglyphs. The “Four Treasures of the Cabinet” appeared 文房四宝 wen fan si bao: brush 笔 bi, mascara 墨 mo, paper 纸 zhi and ink 砚 yang.

At the end of the Han Dynasty, Liu Deshan based on the "official letter" li shu created a semi-cursive "running letter" 行書 xing shu, in which the features of the hieroglyph were partially written without lifting the brush from the paper.

Sample letter "xing shu"

Liu Deshan's students created a "charter letter" 楷書 kai shu, which was distinguished by the absence of characteristic thickenings inherent in Han official writing. Around the same time, the cursive “herbal letter” 草書 appeared cao shu, which was widely used in Chinese calligraphy.