Origin And History of Chinese Writing.

One of the oldest languages, but one that is still used today, is Chinese. There are many researchers who try to date and explain how Chinese writing originated, since for many it is a mystery that has no explanation. In this article we wanted to collect the theory on which the main studies are based and that can come closest to what really originated it.

When did Chinese originate?

Unlike other writings, which have a lot of information about their origin and creation, making it possible to date approximately when it occurred, the opposite is true with Chinese, since there is no date, although there is a more or less close estimate.

The latest studies show that it could have occurred more than 4,300 years ago, since in 1992 a discovery was made that would change the course of the history of Chinese writing, having found buried remains of baked clay, in the form of small tablets. which had different written spellings that resemble certain forms used today in modern Chinese. These fragments were found in a small town called Dinggong in Shandong, where one of the first known Chinese civilizations began, that of Longshan.

Before these discoveries:

According to the data currently available, it is thought that the origin of Chinese writing had a pictorial character, that is, it represented animals or figures of daily life, very similar to what happened with Egyptian writing, with The difference is that the oriental one was much faster than the one that occurred in Egypt, since they were created with small strokes.

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Among the first discoveries that have been made are some inscriptions made on animal bones, rocks and turtle shells, this writing being related to divinatory arts and ancient magic. Today it is one of the oldest forms of this type of writing known today, having deciphered thousands of characters, many of which are still used today. These finds relate to the Shang dynasty .

Among the elements of writing that are present today and that are also found at this stage, we can find pictograms, phonograms and finally ideograms, having a great relationship between these elements and the evolution that the alphabet has had . Chinese .

Origin of the Chinese writing system:

Despite everything previously said, language scholars attribute the creation of Chinese to Cang Jie. This character was a very important official within the Huangdi empire, with the emperor himself asking him to create a system with which he could communicate. Cang Jie got to work, finding inspiration in the birds, which left footprints in the form of small marks with their paws in the ground. This created system was passed from generation to generation and currently little has changed since then.

It is known that once this system was carried out, writing began on bamboo wooden tablets, however, the emperors and most important leaders began to request them on silk, which cost much more work, but its appearance was much more beautiful and It was more resistant.

What completely changed Chinese writing and its expansion was the invention of paper that arose from the hands of counselor Cai Lun , making it possible to begin creating different documents with the history of that time, improving calligraphy and also beginning to emerge. books and other series of writings, many of them having been preserved today.

It should be noted that the writing orientation of traditional Chinese was from top to bottom, since tablets or silks were often placed hanging on the wall or on walls to be able to write on them, but little by little, it was modernized and adopted. some of the characteristics of Western writing, which is why they ended up writing horizontally and from left to right.

Conclusion of the origin of Chinese writing:

As a summary, we are going to conclude this section by saying that the reason why Chinese writing originated was to perform rituals and another series of ceremonies in which divination was sought through these lines. Generally, they were requested by emperors who wanted to know their future and that of their people, either to check if they were going to be successful in their future battles or to know if they were going to have a good harvest.

All of this evolved to become more precise and generalized among different shamans, going from writing on turtle shells to other means such as utensils or talismans. Seeing the potential that these writings had, it became widespread thanks to Cang Jie so that all the nobles began to use it to communicate either on the battlefield or in their palaces, moving over time to a much more routine language, reaching to all inhabitants.

Despite the years, the invasions and the incursion of Westerners into these eastern lands, the Chinese continued to conserve their way of expressing themselves and today Chinese writing continues to be used throughout the world with characters very similar to those of ago. more than 4000 years.