学进去

China is widely known for its ancient civilisation (文明) which has continued all the way through into modern times, in the fact of many ups and downs in its history. There are many reasons, why this has been possible, but one of the main factors has been the Chinese writing system.

At the beginning, written Chinese was a picture based language. It dates back several thousand years to the use of longgu-animal bones and shells on which marks were cared (雕刻) by ancient Chinese people. In ancient China, characters began as simple drawings of natural objects—trees, rivers, mountains and hill, horses and oxen, human beings themselves, etc. The earliest character-like drawings are “pictographic” in quality. Compared with other scripts (字体) in the world, Chinese characters appeared much earlier with the first evidence of the characters around 5, 000 or more years old. More than 50 kinds of carved marks appeared around the Banpo Site and other nearby places. They were shaped and ordered in a certain rule and they have the same characteristics as today’s simple characters—scientists judge them to be the original Chinese characters.

By the Shang Dynasty (around 1600—1046 BCE), these marks had become a well-developed writing system. Over the years, the systems developed into different forms, as it was a time when people were divided geographically, leading to many kinds of dialects (方言) and characters. This, however, changed under Emperor Qin Shi Huang of the Qin Dynasty (221—207 BCE).

Emperor Qin Shi Huang united the six major states into one country where the Chinese writing system began to develop in one direction. That writing method was of great importance in uniting the Chinese people and culture.

Written Chinese has also become an important means by which China’s present is connected with its past. People in modern times can read the classic works which were written by Chinese in ancient times. Chinese character, therefore, is a bridge between the present and the past.

Today, the Chinese writing system is still an important part of Chinese culture. As China plays a greater role in the world, an increasing number of international students are beginning to show their love to China’s culture and history through this amazing language.