When did the Chinese writing system develop?
17524#82
The invention of the first writing systems is roughly contemporary with the beginning of the Bronze Age in the late 4th millennium BC. The Sumerian archaic cuneiform script and the Egyptian hieroglyphs are generally considered to be the earliest writing systems, both emerging out of their ancestral proto-literate symbol systems from 3400–3200 BC with the earliest coherent texts from about 2600 BC. It is generally agreed that Sumerian writing was an independent invention; however, it is debated whether Egyptian writing was developed completely independently of Sumerian, or was a case of cultural diffusion. A similar debate exists for the Chinese script, which developed around 1200 BC. The pre-Columbian Mesoamerican writing systems (including among others Olmec and Maya scripts) are generally believed to have had independent origins.
Language
91225#1
Various current Chinese characters have been traced back to the late Shang Dynasty about 1200–1050 BC, but the process of creating characters is thought to have begun some centuries earlier. After a period of variation and evolution, Chinese characters were standardized under the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC). Over the millennia, these characters have evolved into well-developed styles of Chinese calligraphy. As the varieties of Chinese diverged, a situation of diglossia developed, with speakers of mutually unintelligible varieties able to communicate through writing using Classical Chinese. In the early 20th century, Classical Chinese was replaced in this role by written vernacular Chinese, corresponding to the standard spoken language ("Mandarin"). Although most other varieties of Chinese are not written, there are traditions of written Cantonese, written Shanghainese and written Hokkien, among others.
Written Chinese
39228831#5
Throughout East Asia, Literary Chinese was the language of administration and scholarship.
Although Vietnam, Korea and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, these were limited to popular literature.
Chinese remained the medium of formal writing until it was displaced by vernacular writing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Though they did not use Chinese for spoken communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud, the so-called Sino-Xenic pronunciations, which provide clues to the pronunciation of Middle Chinese.
Chinese words with these pronunciations were also borrowed extensively into the local vernaculars, and today comprise over half their vocabularies.
Adoption of Chinese literary culture
483932#8
In some ways, the lack of native Chinese development of the concept of a unit of sound is surprising, as it had already been developed by Sanskrit grammarians such as Pāṇini by the 4th century BC at the latest, and the phonological analysis of the Yunjing shows a close familiarity with the tradition of Sanskrit grammar. Furthermore, some non-Chinese writing systems within the Chinese cultural orbit, such as the Korean script and especially the Tibetan script, were developed under the close influence of Indian writing systems and have the concept of phoneme directly embedded in them. (Furthermore, the 'Phags-pa script, an alphabetic script of Tibetan origin, had been used to write Chinese itself during the Mongolian Yuan dynasty, c. 1270-1360, although it later fell out of use.) It seems likely, however, that
Historical Chinese phonology
3398337#15
Throughout East Asia, Literary Chinese was the language of administration and scholarship. Although Vietnam, Korea and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, these were limited to popular literature. Chinese remained the medium of formal writing until it was displaced by vernacular writing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Though they did not use Chinese for spoken communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud, the so-called Sino-Xenic pronunciations, which provide clues to the pronunciation of Middle Chinese. Chinese words with these pronunciations were also borrowed extensively into the local vernaculars, and today comprise over half their vocabularies.
East Asian cultural sphere
91231#29
The oracle-bone script is a well-developed writing system, suggesting that the Chinese script's origins may lie earlier than the late second millennium BC. Although these divinatory inscriptions are the earliest surviving evidence of ancient Chinese writing, it is widely believed that writing was used for many other non-official purposes, but that the materials upon which non-divinatory writing was done – likely wood and bamboo – were less durable than bone and shell and have since decayed away.
Chinese characters
39228831#0
Chinese writing, culture and institutions were imported as a whole by Vietnam, Korea, Japan and other neighbouring states over an extended period. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries AD, followed by Confucianism as these countries developed strong central governments modelled on Chinese institutions.
In Vietnam and Korea, and for a shorter time in Japan and the Ryukyus, scholar-officials were selected using examinations on the Confucian classics modelled on the Chinese civil service examinations.
Shared familiarity with the Chinese classics and Confucian values provided a common framework for intellectuals and ruling elites across the region.
All of this was based on the use of Literary Chinese, which became the medium of scholarship and government across the region.
Although each of these countries developed vernacular writing systems and used them for popular literature, they continued to use Chinese for all formal writing until it was swept away by rising nationalism around the end of the 19th century.
Adoption of Chinese literary culture
60709#7
Writing systems developed in East Asia include Chinese and Japanese writing systems. Chinese characters represent whole morphemes rather than individual sounds, and consequently are visually far more complex than European scripts; in some cases their pictographic origins are still visible. The earliest form of Chinese was written on bones and shells (called Jiaguwen) in the fourteenth century BC. Other writing surfaces used during this time included bronze, stone, jade, pottery, and clay, which became more popular after the twelfth century BC. Greater Seal script (Dazhuan) flourished during 1100 BC and 700 BC and appeared mainly in bronze vessels. Lesser Seal script (Xiaozhuan) is the precursor of modern complex Chinese script, which is more stylized than the Greater Seal.
Penmanship
1424155#8
Kublai Khan commissioned Chögyal Phagpa to design a new writing system to unify the writing of the multilingual Yuan China. Phagpa modified the Tibetan alphabet to create his 'Phags-pa script, which was completed in 1268. Kublai Khan decided to use the 'Phags-pa script as the official writing system of the empire, including when he became Emperor of China in 1271, instead of Chinese characters or the Old Uyghur alphabet formerly used for Mongolian. However, he encountered major resistances and difficulties when trying to promote this script and never achieved his original goal. As a result, only a small amount of texts were written in this script, and the majority (including most official documents) were still written in Chinese ideograms or the Uyghur alphabet. The script fell into disuse after the collapse of the Yuan in 1368. The script was used for about a century and is thought to have influenced the development of Hangul.
Drogön Chögyal Phagpa
10997320#9
In the late 1920s and the early 1930s, the Soviet Chinese people, like most sizable ethnic groups in the early USSR, had a writing system based on the Latin alphabet developed for them; it was used to publish a number of periodicals. A separate, different, Latin-based writing system was simultaneously developed for the Dungans, who were already considered a separate ethnic group. This was accompanied by a broader campaign to raise literacy among Chinese workers, estimated at just one-third in 1923. By the 1930s, there were ten state elementary schools, one vocational secondary school, one college, and two evening schools using Chinese as their medium of instruction.
Ethnic Chinese in Russia
42849862#3
The development of Chinese fiction in the 19th and early 20th centuries was one of his most important concerns. The 19th century has often been considered as a relatively stagnant period when compared to the efflorescence of the 17th and 18th century for Chinese fiction. The development of Chinese fiction in this period got much less attention from literary critics for its lack of innovation and creativity. However, in the monograph “Chinese fiction of the Nineteenth and early twenties centuries”, Patrick Hanan proves that this view is misguided by presenting to readers eleven detailed and insightful critical essays. He indicated that Chinese novelists came into much more frequent contact with western fictions and fictional methods in the 19th and early 20th centuries so that the literary works was actually experiencing constant evolution. He was interested in examining writings in this period from an integrated approach of combining Chinese classical literary tradition as well as the western narratological techniques. He was also concerned that how did western missionaries in Chinese society adapt their religious writing to the taste of Chinese reader in this period.
Patrick Hanan