Chapter 4 The origin and formation of the second section

Pictures are the predecessor of Chinese characters and a new tool for ancient people to exchange ideas.According to archaeologists' research, as early as the Paleolithic Age, our ancestors were able to draw pictures on the walls of their caves.Some paintings are so lifelike that people can tell what they mean at a glance.For example, to make an appointment to hunt together, draw a deer or a cow and a person holding a bow and arrow, and publish it as information, thus achieving the purpose of exchanging ideas and making an appointment to hunt together.So some people call this kind of picture pictorial text.At first, these paintings had to be drawn very complicated, detailed, and realistic, so that people could understand them at a glance.When people are familiar with the meanings represented by certain paintings, the structure and strokes of the paintings begin to be simplified.That is to use a few simple strokes to draw a rough outline, and then the picture begins to evolve into a symbol.For example, for a cow, some outline the whole shape, while others only draw one head and two horns.Even when painting the whole body, the angles and emphasis are not exactly the same.This shows that it takes a long process to evolve from pictures to symbols, and then from symbols to words.

On December 11, 1987, the fifth edition of the overseas edition of "People's Daily" reported that in the Neolithic site of Jiahu in the north of Wuyang County, Henan Province, archaeological excavations had excavated oracle bone inscriptions about 8,000 years ago.These engraved symbols were engraved on the tortoise shells, bone tools and stone tools buried in the tomb.It is one or two thousand years earlier than the inscribed symbols on the pottery of the Yangshao Culture in Banpo, Xi'an and the characters on the pottery of Dawenkou, Shandong.Among them, the shape of some inscribed symbols is very similar to some characters on the oracle bones of the Yin Ruins in Anyang, Henan.This shows that as early as the Neolithic Age 8,000 years ago, Chinese characters may have evolved from pictures to symbols.

On December 25, 1988, the eighth page of "Beijing Evening News" published a report in "Shaanxi Daily", saying that Chinese archaeologists said at an international archaeological conference in Xi'an that Chinese characters appeared in the late Longshan culture era. That is, the Yellow Emperor era and the early Xia Dynasty, and showed more than 10 rubbings and slides depicting animal bones and bone tools to colleagues from China, the United States, Britain, Japan, the Soviet Union, France, Canada, Germany and Hong Kong.These symbols and original characters are as small as a fly's head, with strokes as thin as mosquito's feet, ancient knife skills, and clear handwriting. Many of their shapes and structures are similar to the characters on the oracle bones of the Yin Ruins.This shows that 5,000 years ago, Chinese characters evolved from pictures and engraved symbols.By the time of the Yin and Shang Dynasties, the oracle bone inscriptions were already quite mature Chinese characters.

The ancients had various theories about the appearance and formation of Chinese characters.Some say it was created by a sage; some say it was Fuxi who first drew the gossip and made the calligraphy; and "Xunzi", "Lushi Chunqiu", "Han Feizi" and so on are all said to be Cangjie who invented the characters.It is certainly not in line with historical facts to attribute the credit for the creation of characters to a certain person.Characters must have been jointly created by the working people in ancient times, and it is entirely possible for certain people to organize, standardize and unify them. "Xunzi Jiemu Pian" said: "There are many good books in ancient times, but Cangjie is the only one to pass them on." Can the word list spread?The reason is that Cangjie sorted out and unified the various characters.This statement is more objective and more in line with the facts, so it is more credible.

By the time of King Xuan of Zhou in the 9th century BC, another large-scale sorting of characters was carried out, resulting in "Zi Shu", also known as "Gu Wen", also known as "Da Zhuan".In the 3rd century BC, Qin Shihuang destroyed the six kingdoms and established a unified feudal empire. In order to strengthen the centralized feudal autocratic rule, he unified the writing, weights and measures throughout the country, and realized the so-called "books with the same text, and cars with the same track". situation.This work of sorting out and unifying the text was presided over by Qin Shihuang's Zuo Prime Minister Li Si.The policy of sorting out is to simplify and unify the big seal script in the Zhou Dynasty, which was finalized during the reign of King Xuan of Zhou, based on the fonts prevailing in Qin State.The sorted characters are called "seal script", "Qin seal script" or "small seal script".At the same time, in order to make it easier to write and meet the needs of government and military documents at all levels, reforms were made on the basis of Xiaozhuan.The font was changed from round to square, and the strokes were deleted and simplified, which gave rise to the "official script".In the Han Dynasty, the official script became a common script, and Xiaozhuan gradually withdrew from the historical stage of the current script.By the time of Emperor Yuan of the Western Han Dynasty in the 1st century BC, Shi You also wrote cursive script, which was called "Zhangcao".Later, Liu Desheng created "running script".The Three Kingdoms clock Yao (youyou) created "regular script", thus establishing the basic shape of Chinese characters.Until today, regular script is still the standard currency.

Of course, the production of characters does not mean that books will be produced immediately, but books are composed of characters.Therefore, the "Shangshu" pseudo-Confucian "Preface" said: "The ancient Fuxi, the king of the world, began to draw gossip and make book deeds to replace the government of knotting, so it was the birth of literature." It can be seen that only with writing, Books are made possible by this.