Chinese Characters

Chinese characters were initially meant to be simple pictures used to help people remember things. After a long period of development, it finally became a unique character system that embodies phonetic sound, image, idea, and rhyme at the same time. The writing system, which was extremely advanced in ancient times, began with inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells, and these are regarded as the original forms of Chinese characters. Afterwards, Chinese characters went through numerous calligraphic styles: bronze inscriptions, official script, regular script, cursive script, running script, etc. Chinese characters are usually round outside and square inside, which is rooted in ancient Chinese beliefs of an orbicular sky and a rectangular Earth. The five basic strokes of Chinese characters are “---“ (the horizontal stroke) “│” (the vertical stroke), “/”( the left-falling stroke), “” (the right-falling stroke), and “乙” (the turning stroke).

汉字是从原始人用以记事的简单图画，经过不断演变发展最终成为一种兼具音、形、意韵的独特文字。现存中国古代最早成熟的文字是甲骨文，被认为是现代汉字的初形。此后，汉字又经历了金文、隶书、楷书、草书、行书等不同的阶段。汉字结构“外圆内方“， 源于古人”天圆地方“的观念。汉字有五种基本笔画，即：横、竖、撇、捺、折。