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The evolution of the Chinese character for dragon (long 龍) is illustrated below:

Oracle Bone Inscriptions refers to

the writings inscribed on the
carapaces of tortoises and mammals
during the Shang Dynasty (1600 –
1046 B.C.). This is the earliest form
of Chinese characters. Because Oracle
Bone inscriptions mainly recorded the
art of divination, this script is also
called bu ci (卜辭), divination
writings. Over one thousand of the
over four thousand characters
inscribed on excavated oracle bones
have been deciphered.

Bronze Inscriptions are the

characters inscribed on bronze
objects, such as ritual wine vessels,
made during the Shang (1600 – 1046
B.C.) and Zhou (1046 – 256 B.C.)
dynasties. Over two thousand of the
nearly four thousand collected single
characters from these bronze objects
are now understood.

Small Seal Characters refer to the

written language popular during
the Qin Dynasty (221-207 B.C.). In
the Warring States Period (475-221
B.C.), different scripts were in use in
different parts of the Chinese empire.
Following the conquest and
unification of the country, the first
emperor of the Qin Dynasty
simplified and unified the written
language. This unification of the
written language during
the Qin Dynasty significantly
influenced the eventual
standardization of the Chinese
characters.

Official Script is the formal written

language of the Han Dynasty (206
B.C. – 220 A.D.). Over time, curved
and broken strokes gradually
increased, becoming distinct
characteristics of this style. Official
Script symbolizes a turning point in
the evolution history of Chinese
characters, after which Chinese
characters transitioned into a modern
stage of development.

Regular Script first appeared at the

end of the Han Dynasty. But it was
not until the Southern and Northern
Dynasties (420-589 A.D.) that
Regular Script rose to dominant
status. During that period, regular
script continued evolving stylistically,
reaching full maturity in the
early Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.).
Since that time, although
developments in the art of calligraphy
and in character simplification still
lay ahead, there have been no more
major stages of evolution for the
mainstream script.

Cursive Writing first appeared at the

beginning of the Han Dynasty. The
earliest cursive writings were variants
of the rapid, freestyle form of Official
Script. Cursive Writing is not in
general use, being a purely artistic,
calligraphic style. This form can be
cursive to the point where individual
strokes are no longer differentiable,
and characters are illegible to the
untrained eye. Cursive Writing
remains highly revered for the beauty
and freedom it embodies.
Freehand Cursive (or semi-cursive
writing) appeared and became
popular during the Three Kingdoms
Period (220-280 A.D.) and
the Jin Dynasty (265-420 A.D.).
Because this style is not as
abbreviated as Cursive Writing, most
people who can read Regular Script
can read semi-cursive. Some of the
best examples of semi-cursive are
found in the work of Wang
Xizhi (321-379 A.D.), the most
famous calligrapher in Chinese
history, from the Eastern Jin Dynasty
(316-420 A.D.).
 Simplified Chinese
characters ( Jianti Zi, 简体字) are
standardized Chinese characters used
in Mainland China. The government
of the People’s Republic of China
began promoting this form for
printing use in the 1950s ’60s in an
attempt to increase literacy.
Simplified characters are the official
form of the People’s Republic of
China and in Singapore; traditional
Chinese characters are still used in
Hong Kong, Macau and the Republic
of China (Taiwan). Since 1954, over
2,200 Chinese characters have been
simplified.
Click on the animation below to see the evolution of the character 龙.

The Formation of Chinese Characters

The presumed methods of forming characters was first classified by the Chinese
linguist Xu Shen (許慎), whose etymological dictionary Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)
divides the script into six categories, or liushu ( 六書): pictographic characters,
(xiangxing zi 象形字), self-explanatory characters (zhishi zi 指示字), associative
compounds (huiyi zi 會意字), pictophonetic characters (xingsheng zi 形聲字), mutually
explanatory characters (zhuanzhu zi 轉注字), and phonetic loan characters (jiajie zi 假借
字). The first four categories refer to ways of composing Chinese characters; the last two
categorizes ways of using characters.

It is a popular myth that Chinese writing is pictographic, or that each Chinese character
represents a picture. Some Chinese characters evolved from pictures, many of which are
the earliest characters found on oracle bones, but such pictographic characters comprise
only a small proportion (about 4%) of characters. The vast majority are pictophonetic
 characters consisting of a “radical,” indicating the meaning and a phonetic component
for the original sound, which may be different from modern pronunciation.

Below is an example of how some of the earliest Chinese characters were built.

A woman holding a newborn in her

arms, symbolizing goodness and
happiness.

好 hao

Click on the animation below to see the evolution of the character 龙.

Animated by Xiangjun Shi '13

Text by Yang Wang

Source of the images and the explanations of the images: Leyi Li. 2000. Tracing the
Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases. Beijing: Beijing Languages and Culture
University Press.

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