Quick Facts
Type Logographic
Genealogy Sinitic
Location East Asia > China
Time 1500 BCE to Present
Direction Top to Bottom
The Chinese writing system is an unique phenomenon in the modern world of alphabet scripts. Instead of a few dozen letters, it has developed thousands of complex signs or "characters" that represent morphemes and words. Even related writing systems such as Japanese and Korean, while sharing many of the same characters, can fully function as purely phonetic scripts. And while it is not the only living logographic writing system in the modern world, it is the only one serving as the primary writing system for hundreds of millions of people. The first recognisable form of Chinese writing dates from 3,500 years ago, but many argue that its origins lie much deeper in the past. Regardless of its actual age, Chinese has evolved substantially over time yet has retained its ancient core, making it one of the longest continuously used writing system in the world.
Origin
The common consensus is that writing in China evolved from earlier non-linguistic symbolic systems. During the Late Neolithic period, at the latter half of the 3rd millenum BCE, many symbols or "pictograms" started to be incised on pottery and jades. These symbols are thought to be family or clan emblems that identify the ownership or provenance of the pottery or jades.
The Earliest Chinese Writing
Whatever the obscure initial phase of written Chinese was, its appearance during the Shang dynasty already exhibited sign of a very complex system. The earliest form of Chinese writing is called the oracle bone script, used from 1500 to 1000 BCE. This script was etched onto turtle shells and animals bones, which were then heated until cracks would appear. By interpretating the pattern of the cracks, Shang court officials would make divinations of future events, hence giving the name "oracle bones" to these animal bones. An example of an oracle bone is illustrated in the following example.
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