Evolution of the forms of Ancient Chinese Characters
19 min readIf we take the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells as the origin of Chinese characters，it has already had a long history of more than three thousand years.The evolution of Chinese characters experienced two different stages，one was the stage of ancient Chinese characters and the other was the stage of modernChinese characters.Generally speaking，the forms of ancient Chinese characters included the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells，inscriptions on ancient bronze objects，large seal script and small seal script.The forms of modern Chinese characters were official script，running hand，cursive script and regular script.
Evolution of the forms of Ancient Chinese Characters Tang Lan，a renowned Chinese linguist，held that ancient Chinese characters could be divided into four categories，namely characters in the Shang dynasty，characters in the Western Zhou dynasty，characters in the Six States and characters of the Qin system.Another famous scholar，Wang Guowei，divided characters in the Spring and Autumn&the Warring States period into two systems，characters used in the Eastern states and characters used in the Western states.In fact，the extant characters in the Shang dynasty mainly were the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells，and characters in the Western Zhou dynasty mainly were the inscriptions on bronze objects.
Characters in the Western states were the characters of Qin system.Characters in the Eastern states included cahracters used by Six states of Qi，Chu，Yan，Han，Zhao and Wei and other smaller states east of Xiaoshan Mountain，and they were roughly equal to characters in Six states defined by Tang Lan.Basing on the result of our predecessors we take the evolution sequence of the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells，the inscriptions on ancient bronze objects，characters of the Eastern states and characters of the Qin system as the process of form-evolution of ancient Chinese characters.
1）Inscriptions on Bones and Tortoise Shells
Jiaguwen was the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells which were mostly excavated around the sites of the capital of Shang dynasty（now Xiaotuncun village，north-west of Anyang，Henan province）.The contents of most of the inscriptions were about divination practicing，so they were also called the inscriptions of divination practice on bones and tortoise shells.According to statistics there were nearly4，000 single inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells，of which less than 2，000 have been interpreted and the other half of them have not been able to be understood，most of which were the names of ancient clans，people and places.
Characters in middle and later periods of the Shang dynasty could be represented by the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells.They were systematized characters.
They had rather complete character forms and were highly symbolized，which proved that they were characters with long time development.The written forms of the individual inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells were not yet regularly fixed，so the inscriptions often had several variants.There were about twenty percent of pictophonetic characters in the later period of the inscriptions on bones andtortoise shells，and this illustrated that the evolution of Chinese characters toward the direction of expressing sound and reflected that the basic nature of written language was to record and express languages.Such it can be seen thatinscriptions on bones and tortoise shells was a rather mature form of Chinese characters.
The Kings of the Shang dynasty believed in ghosts, deities and gods. They used tortoise shells and beast bones to practice divination before making important decisions. And they carved the results of the divination practice on bones and tortoise shells which were kept as archives by the royal annals recording officials.
Besides the results of the divination practice, some of the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells also recorded important events of that time, which included astronomy, calendar, meteorological phenomena, geography, lateral states, royalfamily trees, families, people, officialdom, wars, law and prisons, agriculture, livestock, farming and hunting, transportation, religions, worship rites, illness, child-bearing, disasters and so on. Therefore the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells are the most important materials for the researching work of social history, culture, language and characters in the Shang dynasty.
In the twenty-fifth year (1899) of Guangxu period, of the Qing dynasty, Wang Yirong discovered the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells incidentally and confirmed the value of them. After that many scholars and researchers for generations have made great efforts to study the inscriptions. Among them Liu Er, Sun Yiran, Luo Zhenyu, Wang Guowei and Ye Yusen collected many inscriptions on bones and tortoise she11s and attained marvelous achievements in their studies and published many treatises and books on them.
Summing up the research achievements of our older generations, the history of the development of inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells could be classifiedinto five different stages: most of the inscriptions in King Wuding’s period were big inscriptions, which were imposing and magnificent. The small and medium sized inscriptions reflected the neat and elegant style. The inscriptions in King Zugeng and King Zujia’s period were neatly inscribed, and characters were regular and their size was appropriate, embodying the style of tidiness and seriousness. In the period of King Binxin and King Kanding the inscriptions were brightly and clearly inscribed alike flowers in full bloom, but they were in the inclination of being cursively written. The inscriptions in King Wuyi and King Wending’s period also could be divided into two sub-stages. In the first sub-stage they were rough and unsophisticated with the primitive simplicity. In the later sub-stage they were neat and elegant. The inscriptions in King Diyi and King Dixin’s period were thin and sma11, but were very carefully and neatly written, meticulously and closely arranged, an art style possessing the natural grace and beauty.
The inscriptions were inscribed on bones and tortoise shells with knives. This traits of writing endowed the inscriptions high art quality. Their strokes were thin and most were vertical. Usually the turning strokes were twice inscribed without turning. The vertical strokes were longer than the horizontal strokes so the characters were long and thin, and but did not have the fixed structures. The formsof the inscriptions were different, some of them were big and some were small, gave people the impression that they were simple and unaffected. Guo Moruo highly appreciated them and held that the extant inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells could be honored the masterpieces of calligraphy of that time. They were not only beautifully and gracefully inscribed, but are also with elegant forms, and different parts of the characters were carefully and orderly arranged, which made them charming even after several thousand years.
2) Inscriptions on Ancient Bronze Objects
Jinwen were the characters inscribed on ancient bronze objects. Due to their connection with metal, they were the unparalleled written language in the history of the development of written languages in the world. Judging from the forms of the inscriptions on the ancient bronze objects, their origin can be traced to the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells. They were uniquely pictographic, and though the forms of them were not definitely fixed, they were much more mature than the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells.
For most bronze objects in the Shang and Zhou dynasties were bells and ding vessels, the inscriptions on ancient bronze objects were also termed the inscriptions on bells and ding vessels. The characters inscribed on bronze objects were termed inscripts, and the characters written on the bronze objects were termed marks. People also generally called the characters inscribed on ancient bronze objects “inscripts and marks”. The history of the inscriptions on ancient bronze objects was more than 1,200 years and they have been regarded as one of the oldes written languages in China. According to the statistics made by Rong Geng in his Collections of Inscriptions on Ancient Bronze Objects, there were 3,722 characters in total, among which 2,420 had been interpreted.
The contents of the inscriptions on ancient bronze objects were termed epigraphy. About 14,000 epigraphs on bonze objects before Qin dynasty have been discovered, among which about 10,000 epigraphs were written in the Shang and Zhou dynasties and about 3,000 were in the Spring and Autumn & the Warring States period.
The longest one of them was on bronze ding vessel of Duke Mao, with 497 characters inscribed on it According to the existent data there were three stages in the development of the inscriptions on ancient bronze objects. Inscriptions on Dayu Ding Vessel representedthe earliest development. The inscriptions on it were similar to the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells. Their characteristics were that the beginning and theending of the strokes were sharp and thin, while the middle parts were thick and forcefully inscribed. The forms of the characters were even. They were elegant whether inscribed uprightly or obliquely, and were quite different in forms, having the unique trait of pictographs. Their typical style was that the strokes were round and elegant. Inscriptions on Shallow Bowl of Qiang, the Historiographer represented the development in the middle stage.
The beginning, the ending, the running and the turning of the strokes were leisure and order, and the strength for the strokes was evenly used, soft and fluent and less adorned. The structures of characters were closely arranged. The strokes were even and straight, and the horizontal and vertical were orderly arranged, forming the writing style of narrow distance between lines and wide distance betweel characters. The later stage was represented by Iscriptions on Bronze Shallow Bowl of San Fiefdom. The line of strokes were evenly distributed and the characters werecarefully and gracefully inscribed, forming an elegant and magnificent structure with characters even and tidy in good order.
The inscriptions on ancient bronze objects were formed when the objects were molded, so some of the strokes were thin and some were thick, but most of them were thick. The pictographic feature of the early inscriptions on bronze objects was muchmore obvious than inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells and this feature greatl changed during the later Western Zhou dynasty, with the strokes changed from thick to thin and then gradually changed to horizontal lines, and the characters had less pictographic traits. They became more symbolized than before and were much more convenient to write.
Because the writing tools and materials were different from that of inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells, the inscriptions on ancient bronze objects had their unique features in structures and strokes. The thinness and thickness of their strokes were well controlled with cutting edge, and the continuous turning strokes appeared. Sometimes the strokes were adorned and had more full strokes. The aesthetic style of simplicity and honesty with vastness were vividly showed. The writing style was intricate and varied while the characters are tending to be tidy and neat, and the distribution was well-proportioned.
3) Six States Characters
The “Six states characters”were also termed “Eastern states characters”. They referred to the characters used in all states except the state of Qin in the Spring and Autumn & the Warring States period.
During the Spring and Autumn & the Warring States period, the states were independent and separated themselves from each other. The characters used were very different from each other which caused the historical period when”the pronunciation and the forms of characters were different”. The nobilieties at the time could not monopoly the use of written words any more. The common people also had the right and freedom to use characters. Chinese characters gradually prevailed among different social stratum.This was the beginning of the great time of various schools of thought contended for attention in the history of China.
Compared with the inscriptions on ancient bronze objects，though the six-states characters had their distinct local features，their strokes were casual and simple and the structures and forms of characters were extremely confused.Their structures，compared with the inscriptions on bronze objects in the Western Zhou dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period，characters in the states of Chu，Yan and Qi were much more confused than those in the states of Han，Zhao and Wei，and with more local features and the styles were quite different either.Characters in the states of Han，Zhao and Wei were relatively upright and adorned，refined and smooth，but in the characters in the state of Chu the horizontal strokes often took the shape of roundness and curve，and the strokes were fluent and free，full of vigor and with great easy.Characters in the state of Yan were inflexible，most turning strokes were vertically shaped，which made the characters neat but stereotyped.The strokes used in characters in the state of Qi were evenly arranged，and characters were thin，long and well adorned.
The by-products of the different written forms of characters in different statesand places were many variant characters.Some strokes were omitted in some places and the mistaken change of the forms of the characters was not uncommon.Under the circumstances the forms of characters in the Warring States period were in great confusion.For example，the character（year）was an associative compounds character，combined（man）with（grain），but in the state of Yan the radical（man）was mistakenly changed to（earth）.The written forms of the same characters also differed greatly.For example，in the character of （horse），the radical of pictographic part of a sided horse was omitted.The position of radicals in characters was unfixed and the variants of the same characters were too many：they were not only written differently among different states，but were also written differently in the same state.Such as characters of （charge and seal）.
Characters created to represent homophones or created by combining two or more characters to form a new character were popular at the time.Such as in the character，the variant form of the character was loaned to represent the preposition，and was loaned to represent the pronoun .They were nonexistent characters before they were created to represent homophones and combine components.
was borrowed to be，and were used as ，they were the homophones characters borrowed.The combinations of characters were much more complicated than those in the Shang and Zhou dynasties，and characters of，andexhibited the case.
In the states of Wu，Yue and Chu in the Yangtse River valley characters were heavily painted and adorned.The strokes of characters were added with dots or deliberated waving turnings，or tails，and the forms of characters were added with shapes of birds and insects.For example，the characters on the precious sword of the king of the state of Yue were all added with the shape of birds，and these characters were elegant and beautiful，having a very good effect of ornament.During the Warring and States period the carriers of Chinese characters wereenlarged.Bamboo and wooden slips，silk，weapons，coins，seals，jade and stone all became the carriers of characters，and characters on potteries，on silks，on bamboo and wooden slips，on coins and on seals appeared.Characters of the six states were collected mostly on the excavated bamboo slips and silks and contained in Analytical Dictionary of Characters，the dominant part of which were on silks.
Jianboshu was the term for characters written on bamboo and wooden slips，as we11 as on silks.It is the collective name of characters written on them.
Because bamboo and wooden slips are easily rotten，we have found few slips withcharacters.Some of them were found in Emperor Wudi’s period of Han dynasty，the fifth year of Xianning in Emperor Wudi’s period，Jin dynasty and the first year of Jianyuan period and the third year of Yongming period in Qi of the Southern dynasties，but most of them no longer existed except a very small percentage might be included in ancient characters in Analytical Dictionary of Characters and Stone Classics in Three Characteristic Categories of Zhengshi Period，Kingdomn of Wei.
Archeologists have excavated three batches of bamboo and wooden slips in ancient tombs of later Warring and States period in Changsha in Hunan province，Xinyang in Henan province，Jiangling in Hubei province.There are about 4，200 characters on them，including variant characters.Characters on bamboo and wooden slips were written with ink-brush，the handwritings of them are cursive and the forms are flat and squat-shaped，very similar to official script.
The only existent characters written on silk were excavated in 1942 in a weapon storehouse in the suburb of Changsha in Hunan province，on which 948 characters were written with ink-brush.The forms of the characters were the same with the characters written on bamboo and wooden slips in the state of Chu.They are squat-shaped and the forms are simple，close to official script.
Characters used in the six states included in Analytical Dictionary of Characters came mostly from the”books in the walls”.They were the books concealed by the descendants of Confucius during the time Qinshihuang（the First Emperor of Qin）burnt books and ancient classics.In Emperor Jingdi’s period of the Han dynasty，Prince of Lugong in Qufu pulled down the old house of Confucius and found Book of History，Analects of Confucius，Filial Piety Classic and other ancient booksconcealed in the walls.He presented them to Emperor Wudi of Han dynasty.Characters used in these books were characters prevailed in the six states，different from seal characters in the Qin dynasty and official script in the Han dynasty.Analytical Dictionary of Characters included these ancient characters，including variant characters and standard characters.It was assured that among the variant characters there were 429 ancient characters and among standard characters there only a few ancient characters.Adding the characters in the explanation in Analytical Dictionary of Characters，Jade Chapters and Bamboo and Wooden Slips of Han Dynasty there were about 510 ancient characters.
According to Mo Youzhi’s Annotation to Radical木（Wood）of Tang Dynasty Handwritten Copy of Analytical Dictionary of Characters，the forms of the”ancien characters”did not have much difference with those of seal characters.All the direct of strokes were in the shape of suspending needle，different from the stroke direction of the”ancient characters”annotated by Xu Xuan in the Song dynasty in his annotations to Analytical Dictionary of Characters.This indicated that Analytical Dictionary of Characters had been repeatedly copied and the forms of “ancient characters”had changed and lost their feature of the Warring and States period，and their original forms can not be traced any more.
4）Characters of Qin System
The characters of Qin system referred to the characters used in the state of Qin，which included large seal script and small seal script.The large seal script referred to characters used in the state of Qin before its unification of the six states.Small seal script referred to the regulatory characters used in Qin dynasty after the unification of the six states.
For the limitation of archeological data，there are few extant large seal script.The typical characters of them are the following:seal script of Zhou dynasty，inscriptions on Ten Drum-like Stones，Qin State stone inscription entitled Cursing the State of Chu，and inscriptions on the bell and the gui vessel of Duke of Qin.They are all included in Analytical Dictionary of Characters.
Large seal script referred to the characters used in Chapters of Zhou，the Historian by the royal annals official in King Xuanwang’s period of the Zhou dynasty，Which originally had 15 chapters，six of them were lost in Eastern Han dynasty and all other chapters were lost in the Jin dynasty.Wang Guowei held that they were written in the state of Qin，Spring and Autumn&Warring and States perioas the textbook for children.Analytical Dictionary of Characters included only 223 characters which were from Chapters of Zhou，the Historian.Characters on Ten Drum-like Stones were the characters inscribed in the state of Qin，Eastern Zhou dynasty.The textual research has proved that the drum-like stones were made in the state of Qin during the Spring and Autumn&Warring and States period.Originally there were more than six hundred characters on the drum-like stones but as it has been worn and corroded by weathering，it became incomplete.The complete characters in the rubbings in the Song dynasty numbered only 465, and characters on drum-like stonesat present numbered only 321. Judging from the structures of the characters on the drum-like stones, though they were heavy and complicated, they were simpler than large seal script included in Analytical Dictionary of Characters and closer to the forms of small seal script. This indicated that characters on the drum-like stones were in the category of large seal script and were the transitional form from large seal script to small seal script.
Cursing the State of Chu are the characters inscribed on stone in King Huiwen’s period of Qin state which are basically the same with the characters on the drum-like stones and large seal script. There are 869 characters in total. The text by the king of Qin state was cursing the king of the state of Chu for his attacking of Qin. In the article the king prayed to the three gods for their assistance to fight the army of the state of Chu and to restore the occupied land. Hence the title of the article. There were 53 characters on the cover of gui vessel of Duke of Qin and 51characters on the body of the vessel, totalling 104 characters. According to Guo Moruo’s studies, characters on the vessel were written in Duke Jing’s period of Qin state, and the forms of characters on it were the same as or similar to many characters on the drum-like stones-typical ancient character inscriptions of Qin Compared with the inscriptions on ancient bronze objects in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the stroke lines of large seal script were even, smooth and straight, theforms of them were closer to square, and the shape had broken away from the nature of pictographs and evolved toward small seal script. The strokes, forms and radicalsof large seal script were gradually fixed, and casual adding or omitting of strokes was not permitted. The structures of them were carefully and neatly arranged and the square forms were gradually tidy and unified. Radicals in the characters were not allowed to be moved or changed, and the variant form of characters characteristic of mingling their upper and lower structures with the left and right structures were unified. Large seal script was in the transitional form between the inscriptions on bronze objects in the Western Zhou dynasty and small seal script. The three different characters forms can be traced back to the same origin. The state of Qin rose from Qi, the former small fiefdom of Zhou in Shaanxi, so it inherited the culture and characters of the previous Zhou dynasty. Because of that the inscriptions on bronze objects in the Western Zhou dynasty changed to large seal script. Some of them even did not change at all and some only had very little changes with omitted strokes or mistakenly changed. The variant characters were much less than those of the six states characters.
In 221 BC Qinshihuang(the First Emperor of Qin) unified the six states under his empire and established Qin dynasty. After the establishment of the Qin dynasty, for consolidating his rule, Qinshihuang enforced his cultural policy of “standardization of the written language”to end the chaos of Chinese characters in the Warring States period. He ordered his Prime Minister Li Si to systematically collate the characters used in the Qin dynasty, and promulgated that a kind of new and uniform written characters be used all over the country, and all characters used in the former six-states different from those of Qin system be completely abolished.
These new characters were small seal script. They were also termed seal characters of Qin, referring to the uniform characters used in the Qin dynasty after Qinshihuang unified the six states. The government of the Qin dynasty alsopromulgated rigid and cruel laws to popularize the new small seal script.
Sma1l seal script was the general term of the uniform characters used in the Qin dynasty. It was not the new creation by Li Si or a few others in the regime of Qinshihuang. Before Li Si, in the eighteenth year (344 BC) of Duke Xiaogong’s period, Shang Yang wrote 34 characters in inscriptions, the structures and writitingmethods of which were almost the same as the later small seal script. Among the 318 inscriptions in one epigraph of Cursing the State of Chu,95% are the same as smal seal script, only 15 characters are different from seal script or are not seen in the collections in the modern versioned Analytical Dictionary of Characters. One bronze tiger-shaped tally was made twenty or thirty years before the unification of the Qin dynasty and has 40 inscriptions on its epigraph，the contents and the forms of which are almost the same as small seal script.
Thus it can be seen that most of small seal script originated from seal characters prevailing in Qin state during the Warring and States period.Few wereseal characters used in Qin state after omitting and reforming of strokes，as wel as absorbing ancient characters used in the six states.The extant Inscriptions on the Rock in Taishan Mountain and Inscriptions on the Rock in Yishan Mountain written by Li Si are the masterpieces of small seal script，which are upright and graceful，and the lines and characters are well arranged.People of the later generations commented that the characters were written as hard as iron and rock，and as heavy as the strongest bows.
Small seal script is the first standardized characters successfully initiated by the government in the history of the development of Chinese characters.Its structures are unprecedentedly uniform so the same radicals keep their fixed forms in any part of different characters.Compared with large seal script，small seal script is regulated to an uniform written form，which exclude the irregular forms and positions of radicals in the combined characters，therefore eliminating many old variant characters in ancient characters.In the process of sorting out characters they also eliminated many variant forms of characters whose character structureswere too complicate，and omitted and simplified radicals of some characters.Since then small seal script developed toward the direction of simplified，even and tidy characters.
The pictographic feature was weakened and the mark feature was strengthened.
Sma1l seal script started to break itself from the mere nature of pictographs and began to create characters by the combination of shape and sound.The shape of characters were formed with evenly straight flat curve and lines，the size were even，tidy and dignified.Pictographic characters，pictographic radicals and associative compounds characters had changed so it was difficult for people to know the meaning of characters when they see the shape of them.More and more combined characters with sound components began to take the majority in Chinese characters.
For example，when the character lchanged from large seal script to small seal script，it changed its original form from trees in a garden（a pictophonetic character）to a form of sound component character:a character（to have）within a radical口（mouth）.
In conclusion，during the evolution process of thousands of years，Chinese characters gradually became mature and their written forms have been more and more abstracted and lined.At the same time，with the development of social life，Chinese characters also have changed themselves，especially when official script appeared the forms of Chinese characters were greatly and basically changed.
