The history of Chinese characters dates back to ancient times, with the history of at least several thousand years.
There are many tales and legends about the origin ofhanzi, Chinese characters: there is Cangjie, the legendary inventor of Chinese charater; the ancient practice of knot-tying; the eight trigrams (八卦); and ancient painting legends to name a few. It is generally agreed that
hanzibegan as simple pictures, images that the ancient Chinese people drew, painted or carved to describe nature or their lives. Other ancient cultures developed picture-based writing systems as well, such as the hieroglyphs (象形文字) of ancient Egypt or the script of the ancient Mayan civilization.Hanzi, however, is the only one of these ancient writing systems to survive.
Today, Chinese characters are the oldest continuously used system of writing in the world. Researchers generally agree that the oldest symbols recognizable as Chinese characters are those found on ancient oracle bones (甲骨文). These 3000-year-old symbols, known as,jiaguwen, were carved on turtle shells or bones of animals. Thejiaguwencan give all of us in the modern era insight into how ancient Chinese saw the world around them and into their great creativity in expressing their observations. Take, for example, the modern characterjia, meaning home or family. Thejiaguwencharacter looks like a house with a nice pig inside, originating from the ancient idea that a good family home has plenty of food. Over thousands of years, thishanzievolved into a variety of different forms but finally developed in a more stable manner after the unification of China under Emperor Qinshihuang,
When you first look at Chinese characters, you will most likely feel that they are very complicated. However, if you know just a little about how these characters are formed, you will find that they are not nearly as difficult as they seem.About 80% of Chinese characters are composed of smaller parts, known ns radicals (部首), which are combined in many different ways to form tens of thousands ofhanzi. Fortunately, you need to know only about two or three thousand characters for use in daily life!
As China takes its place in the international community, the Chinese writing system has spread to other countries. Today, many international students are studying Chinese, both the spoken and written language, and are coming to appreciate China's fascinating culture. And, as China's culture and society have continued to develop, the amazingly versatile (多功能的) Chinese characters (hanzi) have been adapted for use in digital format on computers and other devices. And so written Chinese lives on, spreading Chinese culture wherever it goes.
