The Origin of Chinese Characters

In the late Yin and Shang Dynasties (about the 14th century BC), the Chinese began to use simple and vivid graphics to record life. For example, a round sun is represented by a circle, and a curved moon is depicted by an arc. These initial figures are the prototype of Chinese characters. With time, people's observation of things is more detailed, and the demand for expression is increasingly rich, so these simple graphics gradually combined, evolved, became more and more complex, began to have the function of ideography, and then formed pictograms. For example, the word "mountain（山）" stands like three peaks, and the word "water（水）" is like a flowing wave of water.

From oracle bone script(甲骨文) to gold script(金文), Chinese characters have undergone a magnificent transformation. Oracle bone inscriptions are mainly engraved on tortoise shells and animal bones. Due to the hard material, the strokes are mostly straight lines, and the shape is slender and long. While the gold text is cast on the bronze, the lines become more robust and rounded, and the font is more regular and beautiful. In this process, the form and meaning of Chinese characters are constantly enriched and deepened. For example, the word "ren（人）" in the oracle bone inscriptions is a human figure bent over to work, to the Jin text, the lines are more smooth, and the form is more abstract, but still retains the basic characteristics of people, at the same time, its meaning is also from the simple expression of the human image, to cover a variety of human behavior, attributes, and other broader concepts.