A History of Chinese Writing

Chinese writing has its origins in ancient history and its evolution can be associated with the need for China's emperors to conduct their affairs. They needed some way to express and record their achievements, successes and triumphs, not to mention the more mundane matters of state, so requested a method of writing be developed to document these feats. The writing was changed to the more flowing script of modern China so that it would be easier and faster to write. The earliest written symbols were discovered on pieces of shell and bone, called the Oracle Bone Inscriptions, and date from about ca. 1200 B.C., the Shang Dynasty. Since the writing at this time was already established, it indicates that the language was already well developed and probably dated many at least a thousand years prior. With the discoveries of the bone and shell inscriptions, scientists have been able to reconstruct some of the lost Shang civilization.

Inscriptions on bronze materials have been found and date from ca. 1150-771 B.C. when the Eastern Zhou dynasty was in power. Containers had the writing cast directly to their surface or carved onto them after production. This writing is similar in style to the Oracle Bone Inscriptions and is thought to have been used on ritualistic vessels. The stylistic representations probably arrived from ideograms or pictures that stand for an idea or thing that the depiction suggests. Some tombs dating about 4,500 ago have been unearthed and contain wine vessels with a pictographic symbol inscribed on them. These inscriptions are also very similar to the Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Over time, the pictures became more abstract until they changed into the Chinese characters we see today. Even some of these symbols hold a slight resemblance to the ancient picture characters, even though its less obvious.