Chinese family of scripts - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Chinese family of scripts are writing systems descended from the Chinese Oracle Bone Script

Oracle bone script

Oracle bone script refers to incised ancient Chinese characters found on oracle bones, which are animal bones or turtle shells used in divination in Bronze Age China...

and used for a variety of languages in East Asia. They include logosyllabic systems such as the Chinese script itself (or hanzi, now in two forms, traditional and simplified), and adaptations to other languages, such as kanji

Kanji

Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...

(Japanese), hanja

Hanja

Hanja is the Korean name for the Chinese characters hanzi. More specifically, it refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation...

(Korean), hán tự (Vietnamese), chữ nôm (Vietnamese) and sawndip (Zhuang). More divergent are Tangut

Tangut script

The Tangut script was a logographic writing system, used for writing the extinct Tangut language of the Western Xia Dynasty. According to the latest count, 5863 Tangut characters are known, excluding variants...

, Khitan large script

Khitan large script

The Khitan large script was one of two writing systems used for the now-extinct Khitan language. It was used during the 10th-12th centuries by the Khitan people, who had created the Liao Empire in north-eastern China. In addition to the large script, the Khitans simultaneously also used a...

, and its offspring Jurchen

Jurchen script

Jurchen script was the writing system used to write Jurchen language, the language of the Jurchen people who created the Jin Empire in the northeastern China of the 12th–13th centuries. It was derived from the Khitan script, which in turn was derived from Chinese...

, which were inspired by Chinese although not directly descended from it. The partially deciphered Khitan small script

Khitan small script

The Khitan small script was one of two writing systems used for the now-extinct Khitan language. It was used during the 10th-12th century by the Khitan people, who had created the Liao Empire in north-eastern China. In addition to the small script, the Khitans simultaneously also used a...

may be another. In addition, various phonetic scripts descend from Chinese characters, of which the best known are the various kana

Kana

Kana are the syllabic Japanese scripts, as opposed to the logographic Chinese characters known in Japan as kanji and the Roman alphabet known as rōmaji...

syllabaries, the zhuyin semi-syllabary

Semi-syllabary

A semi-syllabary is a writing system that behaves partly as an alphabet and partly as a syllabary. The term has traditionally been extended to abugidas, but for the purposes of this article it will be restricted to scripts where some letters are alphabetic and others are syllabic.-Iberian...

, and nüshu.

The Chinese scripts are written in various calligraphic hands, principally Seal script

Seal script

Seal script is an ancient style of Chinese calligraphy. It evolved organically out of the Zhōu dynasty script , arising in the Warring State of Qin...

, Clerical script

Clerical script

The clerical script , also formerly chancery script, is an archaic style of Chinese calligraphy which evolved in the Warring States period to the Qin dynasty, was dominant in the Han dynasty, and remained in use through the Wèi-Jìn periods...

, Regular script

Regular script

Regular script , also called 正楷 , 真書 , 楷体 and 正書 , is the newest of the Chinese script styles Regular script , also called 正楷 , 真書 (zhēnshū), 楷体 (kǎitǐ) and 正書 (zhèngshū), is the newest of the Chinese script styles Regular script , also called 正楷 , 真書 (zhēnshū), 楷体 (kǎitǐ) and 正書 (zhèngshū), is...

, Semi-cursive script

Semi-cursive script

Semi-cursive script is a cursive style of Chinese characters. Because it is not as abbreviated as cursive, most people who can read regular script can read semi-cursive....

, and Grass script. (See East Asian calligraphy

East Asian calligraphy

East Asian calligraphy is a form of calligraphy widely practised and revered in the Sinosphere. This most often includes China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. The East Asian calligraphic tradition originated and developed from China. There is a general standardization of the various styles of...

and Chinese script styles.)

Origins

The earliest Chinese writing consists of divinatory texts inscribed on ox scapula

Scapula

In anatomy, the scapula , omo, or shoulder blade, is the bone that connects the humerus with the clavicle ....

e and tortoise plastrons found at the last Shang dynasty

Shang Dynasty

The Shang Dynasty or Yin Dynasty was, according to traditional sources, the second Chinese dynasty, after the Xia. They ruled in the northeastern regions of the area known as "China proper" in the Yellow River valley...

capital near Anyang

Anyang

Anyang is a prefecture-level city in Henan province, People's Republic of China. The northernmost city in Henan, Anyang borders Puyang to the east, Hebi and Xinxiang to the south, and the provinces of Shanxi and Hebei to its west and north respectively....

and dating from 1200 BC.
This Oracle Bone Script

Oracle bone script

Oracle bone script refers to incised ancient Chinese characters found on oracle bones, which are animal bones or turtle shells used in divination in Bronze Age China...

shows extensive simplification and linearization, which most researchers believe indicates an extensive period of development.
Although some Neolithic symbols

Neolithic signs in China

Since the second half of the 20th century, inscriptions have been found on pottery in a variety of locations in China, such as Banpo near Xi'an, as well as on bone and bone marrows at Hualouzi, Chang'an County near Xi'an...

have been found on pottery, jade or bone at a variety of sites in China, there is no consensus that any of them are directly related to the Shang oracle bone script.
Bronze inscriptions from about 1100 BC are written in a developed form of the script and provide a richer body of text.

Each character of the early script represents a word of Old Chinese

Old Chinese

The earliest known written records of the Chinese language were found at a site near modern Anyang identified as Yin, the last capital of the Shang dynasty, and date from about 1200 BC....

, which at that time was uniformly monosyllabic.
The strategies used are traditionally classified into six categories (六書 liùshū "six writings") first recorded in the second century dictionary Shuowen Jiezi
Shuowen Jiezi
The Shuōwén Jiězì was an early 2nd century CE Chinese dictionary from the Han Dynasty. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary , it was still the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give the rationale behind them , as well as the first to use the...

.
Three of these categories involved a representation of the meaning of the word:

Pictograms (象形字 xiàngxíngzì) represent a word by a picture (later stylized) such as rì "sun", rén "person" and mù "tree".
Ideograms (指事字 zhǐshìzì) are abstract symbols such as sān "three" and shàng "up".
Semantic compounds (會意字 huìyìzì) combine simpler elements to indicate the meaning of the word, as in lín "grove" (two trees).

Evolved forms of these characters are still in among the most commonly used today.

Words that could not be represented pictorially, such as abstract terms and grammatical particles, were denoted using characters for similar-sounding words (the rebus

Rebus

A rebus is an allusional device that uses pictures to represent words or parts of words. It was a favourite form of heraldic expression used in the Middle Ages to denote surnames, for example in its basic form 3 salmon fish to denote the name "Salmon"...

strategy).
These phonetic loans (假借字 jiǎjièzì) are thus new uses of existing characters rather than new graphic forms.
An example is lái "come", written with the character for a similar-sounding word meaning "wheat".
Sometimes the borrowed character would be modified slightly to distinguish it from the original, as with wú "don't", a borrowing of mǔ "mother".

Phono-semantic compounds (形聲字 xíngshēngzì) were obtained by adding semantic indicators to disambiguate phonetic loans.
This type was already used extensively on the oracle bones, and has been the main source of new characters since then.
For example, the character originally representing jī "winnowing basket" was also used to write the pronoun and modal particle qí.
Later the less common original word was written with the compound , obtained by adding the symbol zhú "bamboo" to the character.
Sometimes the original phonetic similarity has been obscured by millennia of sound change, as in gé < *krak "go to" and lù < *graks "road".
Many characters often explained as semantic compounds were originally phono-semantic compounds that have been obscured in this way.
Some authors even dispute the validity of the semantic compound category.

The sixth traditional category (轉注字 zhuǎnzhùzì) contained very few characters, and its meaning is uncertain.

Styles

Development and simplification of the script continued during the Western Zhou

Zhou Dynasty

The Zhou Dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that followed the Shang Dynasty and preceded the Qin Dynasty. Although the Zhou Dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty in Chinese history, the actual political and military control of China by the Ji family lasted only until 771 BC, a period known as...

and Spring and Autumn periods, with characters becoming less pictorial and more linear and regular, with rounded strokes being replaced by sharp angles.
During the Warring States period

Warring States Period

The Warring States Period , also known as the Era of Warring States, or the Warring Kingdoms period, covers the Iron Age period from about 475 BC to the reunification of China under the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC...

, writing became more widespread, with further simplification and variation, particularly in the eastern states.
After the western state of Qin

Qin (state)

The State of Qin was a Chinese feudal state that existed during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods of Chinese history...

unified China, its more conservative seal script

Seal script

Seal script is an ancient style of Chinese calligraphy. It evolved organically out of the Zhōu dynasty script , arising in the Warring State of Qin...

became the standard for the whole country.
A simplified form known as the clerical script

Clerical script

became the standard during the Han dynasty

Han Dynasty

The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...

, and later evolved into the regular script

Regular script

still used today.
At the same time semi-cursive

Semi-cursive script

Semi-cursive script is a cursive style of Chinese characters. Because it is not as abbreviated as cursive, most people who can read regular script can read semi-cursive....

and cursive script

Cursive script

Cursive script may refer to* Cursive, handwriting styles* Roman cursive script, a style of Latin calligraphy.* Hebrew cursive script, a style of Hebrew calligraphy.* East Asian cursive script, a style of Chinese calligraphy....

s developed.

The Traditional Chinese script is currently used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.
Mainland China and Singapore use the Simplified Chinese variant.

Dialectal writing

Until the early 20th century, formal writing employed Literary Chinese, based on the vocabulary and syntax of classical works

Four Books and Five Classics

The Four Books and Five Classics are the authoritative books of Confucianism in China written before 300 BC.-Four Books:The Four Books are Chinese classic texts illustrating the core value and belief systems in Confucianism...

.
The script was also used less formally to record local varieties, which had over time diverged from the classical language and each other.
The logographic script easily accommodated differences in pronunciation, meaning and word order, but often new characters were required for words that could not be related to older forms.
Many such characters were created using the traditional methods, particularly phono-semantic compounds.

Adaptations for other languages

The Chinese script was for a long period the only writing system in East Asia, and was also hugely influential as the vehicle of the dominant Chinese culture.
For many centuries, all writing in neighbouring societies was done in Classical Chinese

Classical Chinese

Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of ancient Chinese, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese...

, albeit influenced by the writer's native language.
Although they wrote in Chinese, writing about local subjects required characters to represent names of local people and places.
Later they sought to use the script to write their own languages.
Chinese characters were adapted to represent the words of other languages using a range of strategies, including

representing loans from Chinese using their original characters,
representing words with characters for similar-sounding Chinese words,
representing words with characters for Chinese words with similar meanings, and
creating new characters using the same formation principles as Chinese characters, especially phono-semantic compounds.

The principle of representing one monosyllabic word with one character was readily applied to neighbouring languages to the south with a similar analytic structure to Chinese, such as Vietnamese

Vietnamese language

Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...

and Zhuang.
The script was a poorer fit for the polysyllabic agglutinative languages of the north-east, such as Korean

Korean language

Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...

, Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

and Mongolic

Mongolic languages

The Mongolic languages are a group of languages spoken in East-Central Asia, mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas plus in Kalmykia. The best-known member of this language family, Mongolian, is the primary language of most of the residents of Mongolia and the Mongolian residents of Inner...

and Tungusic

Tungusic languages

The Tungusic languages form a language family spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria by Tungusic peoples. Many Tungusic languages are endangered, and the long-term future of the family is uncertain...

languages.

Korean scripts

Chinese characters adapted to write Korean are known as Hanja.
From the 9th century, Korean

Korean language

was written using a number of systems collectively known as idu, in which Hanja were used to write both Sino-Korean and native Korean roots, and a smaller number of Hanja were used to write Korean grammatical morphemes with similar sounds.
The overlapping uses of Hanja made the system difficult to use, even when reduced forms for grammatical morphemes were introduced in the 13th and 14th centuries.
The Hangul

Hangul

Hangul,Pronounced or ; Korean: 한글 Hangeul/Han'gŭl or 조선글 Chosŏn'gŭl/Joseongeul the Korean alphabet, is the native alphabet of the Korean language. It is a separate script from Hanja, the logographic Chinese characters which are also sometimes used to write Korean...

alphabet introduced in the 15th century was much simpler, and specifically designed for the sounds of Korean.
Although Hangul is unrelated to Chinese characters, its letters are written in syllabic blocks that can be interspersed with Hanja.
Such a Korean mixed script

Korean mixed script

Korean mixed script is a form of writing that uses both Hangul and hanja .The script has never been used for languages other than Korean. In North Korea, writing in mixed script was replaced by writing only in Hangul in the middle of the 20th century and has not been used since...

became the usual way of writing the language, with roots of Chinese origin denoted by Hanja and all other elements rendered in Hangul.
Hanja were abandoned in North Korea in the late 1940s, and their use in the South is rapidly declining.

Japanese scripts

Chinese characters adapted to write Japanese

Japanese language

words are known as Kanji

Kanji

.
Chinese words borrowed into Japanese could be written with the Chinese character, while Japanese words could be written using the character for a Chinese word of similar meaning.
Because there have been multiple layers of borrowing into Japanese, a single Kanji may have several readings in Japanese.

Other systems, known as kana

Kana

Kana are the syllabic Japanese scripts, as opposed to the logographic Chinese characters known in Japan as kanji and the Roman alphabet known as rōmaji...

, used Chinese characters phonetically to transcribe the sounds of Japanese syllables.
An early system of this type was Man'yōgana, as used in the 8th century anthology Man'yōshū.
This system was not quite a syllabary

Syllabary

A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent syllables, which make up words. In a syllabary, there is no systematic similarity between the symbols which represent syllables with the same consonant or vowel...

, because each Japanese syllable could be represented by one of several characters, but from it were derived two syllabaries still in use today.
They differ because they sometimes selected different characters for a syllable, and because they used different strategies to reduce these characters for easy writing: the angular katakana

Katakana

is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...

were obtained by selecting a part of each character, while hiragana

Hiragana

is a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet . Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora...

were derived from the cursive forms of whole characters.
Such classic works as Lady Murasaki's The Tale of Genji
The Tale of Genji
is a classic work of Japanese literature attributed to the Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th century, around the peak of the Heian period. It is sometimes called the world's first novel, the first modern novel, the first psychological novel or the first novel still to be...

were written in hiragana, the only system permitted to women of the time.

Modern Japanese writing uses a composite system, using kanji for word stem

Word stem

In linguistics, a stem is a part of a word. The term is used with slightly different meanings.In one usage, a stem is a form to which affixes can be attached. Thus, in this usage, the English word friendships contains the stem friend, to which the derivational suffix -ship is attached to form a new...

s, hiragana for inflexional endings and grammatical words, and katakana to transcribe non-Chinese loanwords.

Vietnamese Chữ Nôm

Vietnamese

Vietnamese language

was first written from the 13th century, with the Chữ Nôm system using adapted Chinese characters, but is now written using the Latin-based Quốc Ngữ alphabet.

Old Zhuang script

A similar system known as sawndip was used to write the Zhuang languages.
Since 1957 the language has been written using a Latin-based alphabetic script.

Scripts influenced by Chinese

Between the 10th and 13th centuries, northern China was ruled by foreign dynasties that created scripts for their own languages.
The Khitan large script

Khitan large script

and Khitan small script

Khitan small script

, which in turn influenced the Tangut script

Tangut script

and Jurchen script

Jurchen script

, used characters that superficially resemble Chinese characters, but with the exception of a few loans were constructed using quite different principles.
In particular the Khitan small script contained phonetic sub-elements arranged in a square block in a manner similar to the more sophisticated Hangul system devised later for Korean.

Other scripts in China that borrowed or adapted some Chinese characters but are otherwise distinct include Geba script

Geba script

Geba is a syllabic script for the Naxi language. It is called ¹Ggo¹baw in Naxi, adapted as Geba, 哥巴, in Chinese. Some glyphs resemble the Yi script, and some appear to be adaptations of Chinese characters. Geba is only used to transcribe mantras, and there are few texts, though it is sometimes used...

, Sui script, and Yi script

Yi script

The Yi script, also historically known as Cuan Wen or Wei Shu , is used to write the Yi languages.-Classical Yi:Classical Yi is a syllabic logographic system that was reputedly devised during the Tang dynasty by someone called Aki...

List of scripts by type

Logographic: Oracle Bone Script

Oracle bone script

Oracle bone script refers to incised ancient Chinese characters found on oracle bones, which are animal bones or turtle shells used in divination in Bronze Age China...

, Seal script

Seal script

Seal script is an ancient style of Chinese calligraphy. It evolved organically out of the Zhōu dynasty script , arising in the Warring State of Qin...

, Clerical script

Clerical script

, Standard Script, Semi-cursive script

Semi-cursive script

Semi-cursive script is a cursive style of Chinese characters. Because it is not as abbreviated as cursive, most people who can read regular script can read semi-cursive....

, Grass script, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Khitan script

Khitan script

Khitan scripts may refer to one of two mutually exclusive scripts used by the Khitan people during the 10th-12th centuries:*Khitan small script – invented in about 924 or 925 CE by a scholar named Diela...

, Jurchen script

Jurchen script

, Tangut script

Tangut script

, Zhuang

Zhuang logogram

Zhuang characters or Sawndip are logograms derived from Han characters and used by the Zhuang people of Guangxi, China to write the Zhuang languages. In Mandarin Chinese, these are called Gǔ Zhuàngzì or Fāngkuài Zhuàngzì .- History :...

, Hanja

Hanja

, Chữ Nôm and Kanji

Kanji

.

Syllabary
Syllabary
A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent syllables, which make up words. In a syllabary, there is no systematic similarity between the symbols which represent syllables with the same consonant or vowel...

: Hiragana

Hiragana

, Katakana

Katakana

, Man'yōgana

Semi-syllabary
Semi-syllabary
A semi-syllabary is a writing system that behaves partly as an alphabet and partly as a syllabary. The term has traditionally been extended to abugidas, but for the purposes of this article it will be restricted to scripts where some letters are alphabetic and others are syllabic.-Iberian...

: Zhuyin

External links

Evolution of Chinese Characters
History of Chinese writing
Unihan Database: Chinese, Japanese, and Korean references, readings, and meanings for all the Chinese and Chinese-derived characters in the Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

character set
Ideographic Rapporteur Group working documents—many big size pdfs, some of them with details of CJK extensions
Welcome To Mojikyo Institute!—big size downloadable Mojikyo
Mojikyo
is a set of computer software and fonts for enhanced logogram word-processing. , it collected 126,560/142,228 characters . Among them, 101,936/128,573 characters belong to the extended CJKV family...

program files
Khitan script on Omniglot
Linguist List - Description of Kitan
Jurchen Script
Tangut script at Omniglot
Tangut coins, Andrew West
Andrew West
Andrew Christopher West is an English Sinologist. He initially devoted himself to studying Chinese novels of the Ming and Qing dynasties...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Origins

Styles

Dialectal writing

Adaptations for other languages

Korean scripts

Japanese scripts

Vietnamese Chữ Nôm

Old Zhuang script

Scripts influenced by Chinese

List of scripts by type

See also

External links