Chinese family of scripts

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Chinese family of scripts is a family of logographic, syllabic scripts, and semi-syllabic in or was in use in East Asia descended from the Oracle Bone Script.

Examples of them include Seal script, Clerical script, Standard Script, Semi-cursive script, Grass script, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Zhuyin, Kanji, the different Kana, Hanja, Hán tự, Chữ Nôm, Khitan script, Jurchen script, and Tangut script.

Designed for written Chinese in origin, they have been adapted for other East Asian languages. Many of them are obsolete for writing their own languages like Hanja, Hán tự, Chữ Nôm, Khitan script, Jurchen script, and Tangut script, which are Korean, Vietnamese, Khitan, Jurchen, and Tangut. Others still in use are Kanji, Kana, Zhuyin, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese. Most of them are logographic, though Kana is syllabic, and Zhuyin a semi-syllabary.

Left: "Chinese character" in Traditional Chinese (hanzi, kanji, hanja, and hán tự) Right: "Chinese character" in Simplified Chinese

[edit] History

[edit] Precursors

The scripts in this family are all descended from the Chinese Oracle Bone Script, which may have had in origin in the Neolithic signs in China. The Jiahu Script is an example of these Neolothic signs and may have been proto writing, and the ancestor of Oracle Bone script, and due to the maturity of the Oracle Bone Script it must have been developed earlier. It is certain that Shāng-lineage writing underwent a period of development before the Ānyáng oracle bone script, because of its mature^[1] nature; however, no significant quantity of clearly identifiable writing from before or during the early to middle Shāng culture period has been discovered. The few Neolithic symbols which have been found on pottery, jade or bone at a variety of culture sites in China are very controversial^[2], and there is no consensus that any of them are directly related to the Shāng oracle bone script.

Shāng Dynasty Oracle Bone Script on Ox Scapula, Linden-Museum, Stuttgart, Germany. Photo by Dr. Meierhofer. The Oracle Bone Script is the ancestor of all the scripts mentioned in the article, and the beginning of the Chinese family of scripts.

Syllabaries often begin as simplified logograms, as shown here with the Japanese katakana writing system. To the left is the modern letter, with its original Chinese form on the right.

The most prominent among these scripts today is Simplified Chinese, used to write Mandarin. The only other country besides the two Chinese republics that uses Chinese characters is Japan, which also uses Kana which is descended from Chinese characters and part of this family.

[edit] Other scripts

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

[edit] List of scripts by type

Logographic: Oracle Bone Script, Seal script, Clerical script, Standard Script, Semi-cursive script, Grass script, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Khitan script, Jurchen script, Tangut script, Hanja, Chữ Nôm and Kanji.

Syllabary: Kana, Hiragana, Katakana.

Semi-syllabary: Zhuyin

Katakana with man'yōgana equivalents (segments of man'yōgana adapted into katakana shown in red)

Development of hiragana from man'yōgana

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Chinese Characters

• 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 character set
• Chinese Character Test: Online test helps you estimate how many Chinese characters you recognize.
• IRG Page
• IRG working documents—many big size pdfs, some of them with details of CJK extensions
• Welcome To Mojikyo Institute!—big size downloadable Mojikyo program files
• Hanzi Browser: Chinese Character reference searchable by semantic/phonetic component
• Chinese Characters: Suggestions about How to Learn Chinese Character
• Stroke order for Chinese characters: Official website for stroke order for Chinese characters
• Khitan script on Omniglot
• Linguist List - Description of Kitan
• Jurchen Script
• Tangut script at Omniglot
• Tangut coins, with some useful Chinese links
• (Japanese) Sample Tangut characters at Mojikyo