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The earliest historical linguistic evidence of the spoken Chinese language dates back approximately 4500 years, [1] while examples of the writing system that would become written Chinese are attested in a body of inscriptions made on bronze vessels and oracle bones during the Late Shang period (c. 1250 – 1050 BCE), [2] [3] with the very ...
Léon Vandermeersch believes Chinese writing was invented independently from the spoken language in the thirteenth century BCE for the purpose of recording divination and argues that it was only much later that an “ideographic” writing system for the spoken language was devised out of this existing graphic recording (Bottèro 2004 ...
- Oracle Bones
- Evolution of Script
- Legacy
Oracle bones were the shoulder blades of oxen or the plastrons of turtles, scraped and cleaned, which were inscribed with marks for divination. The ancient Chinese were very concerned with knowing the future and would go to diviners for guidance on making decisions. The diviner (someone who today would be called a 'psychic' or a 'medium') would car...
From these early beginnings, Chinese script evolved. These scripts were: Jiaguwen - the earliest form of writing on Oracle bones used c. 1600-1000 BCE. This script was pictographic, meaning the inscription represented an object linked to a concept. Example: if one wanted to write "Should the king go hunting tomorrow?" one would carve an image of th...
As one can see, Chinese writing developed from pictures of objects which represented concepts to signs representing the concepts themselves. This development changed Chinese society and culture dramatically and also affected the way it would develop in the future. Ebrey explains: On the positive side, this meant that as Chinese writing became more ...
- Emily Mark
This chapter explores recently proposed theories of writing and assesses the nature of this phenomenon in a global perspective to show that writing did not originate for the purpose of language recording and is not a straightforward representation of speech.
This chapter highlights the peculiarities of Chinese writing arguing that although the script records efficiently the underlying language, it operates differently from alphabetic or syllabic systems.
Mar 28, 2008 · The present chapter describes the structure, history, and setting of the Chinese language, as well as the first appearance and subsequent development of its script, over the millennium from 1200 B.C., the time of the earliest known written record of Chinese, down to the beginning of the imperial era, ca. 200 B.C.
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The history of Chinese writing extends back more than 6000 years and the Chinese writing system remains unique among all writing systems. In this paper, the origin and evolution of Chinese writing systems will be discussed.
