Oracle bone script is considered the earliest form of Chinese character which later developed to the modern Chinese characters. The origin of it's name is due to these characters being carved on the shell to turtles or the animal bones. Then towards the end of Shang dynasty, Bronze script is created. As the name suggest, it is Chinese characters engraved in bronze whereby the characters are first carved in the inner mold before the molten bronze is poured in.
During the Warring states of Qin, Seal script arises and it is further divided into Large Seal Script and Small Seal script. Large Seal script evolved from the Chinese Bronze Script. In Qin dynasty there were different types of word form used in different states in China. Therefore after the unification of China, Qin Shi Huang commanded one of his officials Li Shi to systematize the characters throughout China, thus the formation of Small Seal Scripts. Seal Script is also an ancient form of calligraphy is mostly widely used in seal engraving.
So where does the Chinese characters that we learn today are formed? In actual fact, Traditional Chinese emerge with Clerical script. In Han dynasty, Clerical script was created. As the sides of the Chinese characters are more squarish compared to Seal script, it was faster to write. From the formation of Clerical script, Cursive script, Regular Script and Semi-cursive scripts were created as the different style of calligraphy.
Lastly, the Simplified Chinese characters which is taught in Singapore was first discovered during the Northern and Southern Dynasty of China. In Tang dynasty that there was an increase in Simplified Chinese Characters. However, it was until 1909 that Simplified Chinese Characters were firstly publicized. In 1935, the first table for Simplified Chinese character was introduced and there was an exercise to promote the use of Simplified Chinese. But it was stopped during 1937 due to the Second Sino-Japanese War. Only in 1950s, after the formation of People's Republic of China there were further simplification of Chinese Characters. In 1964, the Chinese government introduced the Simplified Chinese Charaters table which consists 2238 characters formed the standard words that China used now.
Linking back to Singapore, do you actually know that first batch of Simplified Chinese characters was introduced in 1969? After 3 rounds simplification, in 1976 Singapore had the same set of Simplified Chinese characters as China. Imagine if there was o simplification of Chinese Characters, Singapore might be like Taiwan and Hong Kong using simplified Chinese characters isn't it?
Group 5 website: thefivewrite.wordpress.com
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this entry! I'm personally interested in things related to ancient China (developed this interest from watching all those dynasty-era dramas and stuff) so this really caught my attention.
And I also realised how fortunate we are to be able to learn simplified Chinese (for those who take Mandarin as their Mother Tongue) because the strokes for writing Traditional Chinese (which I understand is still used in Taiwan & Hong Kong) are really difficult and complicated!
Just like the advancement of technology/society/economy and the like, our language also needs the same kind of evolution so that we can live in a more comfortable environment. Simplified Chinese really makes it a lot easier for me to understand the Chinese vocabulary! Really glad to have read this entry and also learn more about the different stages of simplification of Chinese characters :)
Group 1 thelostmemberspeaks.wordpress.com Class B
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting such a meaningful post.
I really learned something about how communication have changed in the different eras so as to suit the people in terms of speaking and writing in a comfortable way. This doesn't only occurs in Chinese but also in other languages in terms of the structure of how the sentence have to be spoken as well. Most of the time, we just minimize what we have to say or write. Thats is probably the biggest reason why simplified chinese was introduced.
I know how to read and recognize Traditional Chinese (those in which Taiwan and Hongkong people used) without anybody teaching me how to. Despite some people who mention that they couldn't read traditional text as the words look unfamiliar to them, I could easily recognize them, probably because I used to listen to Taiwanese music and watch Taiwan dramas when I was young where their subtitles are in Traditional chinese. In addition, I read chinese books that are written in traditional text often.
However, I am still used to writing in simplified chinese characters as it is so much easier to express myself. If I was to speak in the traditional olden ways that people used to speak in other dynasty era similar to those dynasty dramas, people might think that I am a weirdo, as the way communication is being expressed is so different in our society.
Interesting post. The evolution of the Chinese word has most definitely made writing, memorizing Chinese characters easier.
ReplyDeleteHowever, in my opinion, this is not very much an evolution in terms of meaning. The old Oracle Bone Script is actually a better representation of the object it is describing, as compared to the Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese we use today. The 'evolution' from Oracle Bone Script to Traditional Chinese, which Taiwanese and Hong Kongers use, and to the Simplified Chinese we use has actually made the character decrease in meaning. If a foreigner was asked to read the character for Tiger, the Oracle Bone Script would have been easier to understand (google to check out the original - it looks like a tiger in strokes). The evolution was just for convenience sake.
Nonetheless, I am grateful for the convenience it brought, especially when there are so many characters to learn and time-restricting exams to complete. We are fortunate it brings us Singaporean Chinese so much convenience, however, it is also unfortunate we could not learn Chinese through understanding the characters, which we could if we learnt Oracle Bone Script.
All in all, the change in the usage of Chinese, to me, is not an evolution but a shortcut, a method of convenience for us to learn Chinese and to prevent the need for teachers to learn how to decipher our hand writing (which i believe is going to be really hard if we used Oracle Bone Script).
Group 6 Li Xuan http://notjusttheverbals.wordpress.com/
wow this post made me realize how fortunate I am to learn simplified chinese in school. Honestly, how many of us singapore students are already struggling with learning the chinese language now? If there was no simplification, it would make the chinese learning experience in singapore more terrifying.
ReplyDeleteIt's also interesting to see how the chinese words evolved with time. Notice how oracle bone scripts look like pictures? I guess people from the past used drawings to portray what they want to say.
But what makes me wonder is that who was the mastermind behind the idea of simplification? And how did the people slowly adapt to the usage of the simplified words
G6
from http://flylikerg6.blogspot.com/ (:
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