Crazy grass joke

Chinese characters (pinyin: hàn zì, phonetic notation: ㄢˋˋ), also known as Chinese characters, Chinese characters and square characters, belong to morpheme syllables of ideographic characters. Chinese characters are written Chinese characters and borrowed from Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and other languages. They are widely used in the cultural circle of Chinese characters, and they are also the only highly developed characters that are still widely used in the world.

Chinese characters in a broad sense refer to characters from Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Dazhuan, Jinwen, Xiewen and Xiaozhuan to official script, cursive script, regular script (and derived running script), while Chinese characters in a narrow sense with block letters as the standard writing method are also widely used today. Chinese characters were invented and improved by ancient Han ancestors. At present, the exact history can be traced back to Oracle Bone Inscriptions of Zhang Wen and Jin Wen, about 65438 BC+0300 BC Shang Dynasty. Then it came to Xiao Zhuan in the Qin Dynasty, and it developed into Li Bian in the Han Dynasty, which became the standard of handwritten fonts used today in the Tang Dynasty-block letters.

Chinese characters have been used continuously for the longest time up to now, and they are also the only characters in various ghost writing systems in ancient times. Chinese characters have always been the main official language in China. Chinese characters have developed to a highly complete level in ancient times. They are not only used in China, but also used as the only international communication language in East Asia for a long time. Before the 20th century, they were the official written and standardized characters of Japan, Korean Peninsula, Vietnam, Ryukyu and other countries, and all East Asian countries created their own Chinese characters to some extent.

origin

archaeological finds

Archaeologists in China have published a series of unearthed materials about the origin of characters earlier than Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin Ruins. Jia Hu's woodcut has a history of about 7762 years (128) after the physical determination of carbon 14. There are double pier sculptures 7,000 years ago, Banpo pottery sculptures 6,000 years ago, Qingdun site sculptures 5,000 years ago, tomb site couplets, Dawenkou pottery symbols, Taosi site Zhu Wen in Yao and Shun times, and Xia site water calligraphy. The early Oracle Bone Inscriptions is rich in writing system, and the later one belongs to the initial mature stage. These archaeological discoveries may be important clues to the origin of Chinese characters, or they may be different origins of the development of various characters.

In the early 1980s, more complete characters were found on the pottery unearthed from the Xia cultural site in Dengfeng, Henan. This is the earliest written language with exact time confirmed by scholars in China so far.

From the ancient legend of Cangjie's word-making to the discovery of Oracle Bone Inscriptions more than 65,438,000 years ago, China scholars have been trying to uncover the mystery of the origin of Chinese characters. There are five old theories about the origin of Chinese characters, namely, knot rope theory, gossip theory, Hutuluo theory, Cangjie word-making theory and picture theory.

Knot rope said: "The History of the Northern Wei Dynasty" said: The ancestors of the Northern Wei Dynasty "hunted for a career, and simplicity was vulgar, and simplicity was changeable; Not for words, but for wood carving. " Recorded some tribes in primitive society. Before writing appeared, events such as wars, hunting, alliances, elections, celebrations, marriages, births, diseases and disasters were recorded by tying knots.

In the past, according to the Book of Changes, some scholars said, "The ancient rule of law was based on knotting ropes, and the later sages used calligraphy easily, and the rule of hundreds of officials was observed by all the people." Infer that "words originated from knots".

Bagua said: Kong Anguo's Preface to Shangshu (forged, but very old) said: "The ancients sacrificed Wang Yushi to the world and began to draw gossip and make a book contract instead of tying the rope, so it was a document."

The Book of Changes: the river is drawn, Luo is written, and the sage is written. "Jade Edition of River Map": Cang Xie is the emperor, and he hunts in the south, so that the mountain has a Yang Que, and the water near the Yuan Dynasty, Gui Ling is a book, and Jia Danwen is clear, so as to teach it.

Unveiling the mystery of this theory, it is not difficult to find that its real core is arithmetic, which can be compared with the "Jiugong" algorithm. The so-called "Nine Palaces", for Chen Weijia, is the Eight Diagrams plus the Central Committee, and it becomes nine ("Five" is located in the Central Committee and can also be associated with the Five Elements); In the eyes of astrologers, the horizontal, vertical, oblique and additive numbers are always 15. [2]

Word-making in Cangjie: According to legend, Cang Xie was the historian of the Yellow Emperor, who was the leader of the tribal alliance in ancient Central Plains. With the society entering the stage of large-scale tribal alliances, the external affairs between the alliances are becoming more and more frequent, and it is urgent to establish a set of communication symbols shared by the alliances, so the work of collecting and sorting out the common characters was handed over to historian Cang Xie.

"Cang Xie's Theory of Word Creation" was popular in the Warring States Period. "Lv Chunqiu JUNSHOU" said: "Cang Xie is a book and Hou Ji is a crop." In the Qin and Han Dynasties, this legend became more popular. Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi Xu: "Cang Xie's first book, Gai Yi is like pictograph."

Modern scholars believe that systematic writing tools cannot be completely created by one person. If Cang Xie really exists, he should be a text organizer or publisher.

Picture theory: Modern scholars believe that Chinese characters really originated from original pictures. Some figures carved on unearthed cultural relics are probably related to words.

Wang, a doctoral supervisor at Zhengzhou University, believes that the earliest symbol of China appeared in the Jiahu site in Wuyang, Henan, more than 8,000 years ago. These original materials are comprehensively sorted out in order to compare the occurrence and development of Chinese characters before Shang Dynasty. However, the situation is not so simple. Except the existing small-scale data of Zhengzhou Shangcheng site and Xiaoshuangqiao site (more than one case of Zhu Shutao's character 10 has been found in the early Shang Dynasty), other symbols before the Shang Dynasty were scattered and lacked many rings, and most of them were inconsistent with the Shang Dynasty characters. There are also some symbols with heavy regional colors and complex backgrounds.

Wang believes that the formal formation of the Chinese character system should be in the Central Plains. Chinese characters are a writing system of independent origin, independent of any foreign language. However, its origin is not single. After many times and long-term running-in, probably in the early summer, our ancestors creatively invented the writing symbol system of recording language on the basis of extensively absorbing and using early symbols. At that time, the Chinese character system matured rapidly.

It is reported that according to the written materials unearthed from archaeological excavations, China had formal written materials at least in the Xia Dynasty. For example, archaeologists once found the word "Wen" in writing brush and calligraphy on a flat pottery jar unearthed from the Taosi site in Xiangfen, Shanxi. These symbols belong to the basic configuration in the early writing system, but unfortunately such unearthed writing materials are still rare.

About 6000 years ago, there were more than 50 kinds of carved symbols on the outer wall of pottery in Yangshao cultural sites such as Banpo site. They are well-planned, regular and have the characteristics of simplified Chinese characters, which may be the bud of Chinese characters.

In the pottery of the late Dawenkou cultural site and Liangzhu cultural site about four or five thousand years ago, relatively regular graphic descriptions were found, which were early graphic characters.

brief introduction

Chinese characters are one of the oldest characters in the world, with a history of at least 4000 years. The earliest recognizable mature Chinese character system was Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty. Chinese characters gradually change from graphics to strokes, from pictographs to symbols, and from complexity to simplicity. In the principle of word formation, from ideographic, ideographic to phonological. With few exceptions, they are all one Chinese character and one syllable.

Chinese characters are linguistic signs, and a Chinese character usually represents a word or a morpheme in Chinese, which forms the characteristics of unity of sound, form and meaning. Chinese characters are square characters composed of strokes, so they are also called square characters. Such as "che", "Shang" and "Ming", directly express the meaning of language in the form of words; "Question" can refer to both meaning and sound, "door" refers to sound, and "mouth" refers to meaning.

Chinese characters have formed "seven styles of Chinese characters" in the evolution of thousands of years, namely: Oracle Bone Inscriptions, inscriptions on bronze, seal script, official script, cursive script, regular script and running script.

Legend has it that Cang Xie created Chinese characters. Cang Xie inspired, classified, collected, arranged and utilized the footprints of birds and animals recorded in Shuo Wen Jie Zi, which played an important role in the creation of Chinese characters and was known as the "sage of word creation".

Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the earliest known mature Chinese character, appeared in Shang Dynasty, and Zhong Dingwen appeared later. Although the number of words increased, it did not change much.

Due to the vast territory of the Zhou Dynasty and the long-term separatist regime, Chinese characters obviously showed abnormal characters among vassal States at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, especially during the Warring States Period. In order to consolidate the rule after the unification of Qin Dynasty, Qin Shihuang ordered Prime Ministers Lisi, CZ Zhao Gao and Taishi Hu Wujing to sort out the characters, and based on the big seal script of Qin State, made the small seal script as the national standard font. Later, according to the popular fonts at that time, a simpler font official script was compiled, which was widely circulated throughout the country as a common word.

At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, regular script appeared and the evolution of Chinese characters was perfect. Not only that, the first calligraphy monograph "cursive script" appeared in the Eastern Han Dynasty.

It used to be said that Chinese characters began in Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty, but in fact, Oracle Bone Inscriptions is already a mature writing. Before this, Chinese characters should have a development process from generation to maturity, so some people advocate pushing it to the end of summer; Others think that we have our own opinions before promoting Zhixia. Guo Moruo pointed out in Dialectical Development of Ancient Chinese Characters: "When did Chinese characters originate? I think this can be seen from the age of Xi' an banpo village site. " "Banpo site is about 6000 years old." "Banpo site is a typical Yangshao culture in Neolithic age", "Banpo painted pottery often has some simple descriptions with similar words, which are quite different from the patterns on the utensils." "Although the meaning of the description is not clear, it is undoubtedly a literal symbol." "Absolutely can be said to be the origin of China characters, or the Jie legacy of China's original characters. "On this basis, China civilization should be nearly 6000 years. When did China's writing begin? When did the oldest writing appear? What do they mean? No agreement has been reached so far, and a lot of materials are needed to explain it.

develop

The later evolution of Chinese characters has gone through thousands of years, including Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, seal script, official script, regular script, cursive script, running script and so on. Regular script is still widely used, but it has not been fully finalized.

Chinese characters were written in ancient times, before the Han Dynasty. More vivid.

Warring States period text: "The princes are in power, not unified with the monarch, and evil rituals and music harm themselves, all of which go to their classics." "Different fields, different car paintings, different methods, different clothes and different words." It has a strong regional character. Qin characters are the mainstream of the development of Chinese characters. There are great regional differences in the characters of the six countries, which do not reflect the development track of Chinese characters and are tributaries.

oracle bone script

It refers to Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin Ruins, which was written by the royal family on tortoise shells and animal bones in the late Shang Dynasty (14 ~1century) in China.

About 654.38+05,000 pieces of Oracle bones were found, with more than 4500 words. These Oracle Bone Inscriptions records are extremely rich in content, involving many aspects of social life in Shang Dynasty, including not only politics, military affairs, culture and social customs, but also astronomy, calendars, medicine and other science and technology. Judging from about 1500 characters identified in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the methods of "pictographic, comprehending, pictophonetic, referring to things, transferring notes and borrowing words" have been developed, which shows the unique charm of China characters. Documents based on tortoise shells and animal bones in Shang Dynasty and early Western Zhou Dynasty in China (about 16 BC-0/0 BC).

Ancient bronze inscriptions

Bronze inscriptions refer to characters cast on bronze wares of Yin and Zhou Dynasties, also known as Zhong Dingwen. Shang and Zhou Dynasties were the bronze age, with the tripod as the representative ritual vessel and the bell as the representative musical instrument. "Zhong Ding" was synonymous with bronze ware. Therefore, Zhong Dingwen or inscriptions on bronze refers to inscriptions cast or carved on bronzes.

Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. China entered the Bronze Age in the Xia Dynasty, and the smelting of copper and the manufacture of bronzes were very developed. Because copper was also called gold a week ago, the inscriptions on bronzes were called "bronze inscriptions" or "auspicious words"; This bronze ware was called "Zhong Dingwen" in the past because it had the largest number of characters on Zhong Ding.

The application time of bronze inscriptions is about 1200 years, from the early Shang Dynasty to the Qin Dynasty's destruction of the Six Kingdoms. According to Rong Geng's Jin Wen Bian, there are 3,722 words in Jin Wen, of which 2,420 words can be identified.

There are different words in the inscriptions on bronzes. The content of memory is also very different. Its main content is mostly to praise the achievements of ancestors and princes, but also to record major historical events. For example, the famous Mao has 497 words, covering a wide range, reflecting the social life at that time.

big seal character

Dazhuan originated in the late Western Zhou Dynasty and traveled in Qin during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. The fonts are similar to those of Qin Zhuan, but the configurations of glyphs overlap. Representing the present Shi Guwen, it was named after a book written by Tai Shihuan of Zhou Xuanwang. On the basis of the original text, he transformed it and got his name because it was engraved on the stone drum. It is the earliest stone carving text that has been circulated so far, and it is the ancestor of stone carving.

Small/small seal characters

Xiao Zhuan is also called "Qin Zhuan". During the Qin Dynasty, Li Si was ordered to unify the characters, which was called Xiao Zhuan. It was popular in the Qin Dynasty. The shape is long, even and neat, and it evolved from Da Zhuan. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Xu Shen's "Shuo Wen Jie Zi Xu" [2] said: "Qin Shihuang is the first emperor in the world ... but he is not in harmony with Qin Wen." Reese wrote Cang Xie, CZ ordered Zhao Gao to write Calendar, and a surname ordered Hu Wujing to write Xueji. "They all took the master's big seal, or changed a lot, the so-called small seal." Today, there are remnants of "Engraving Stones in Langyatai" and "Engraving Stones in Taishan", which are the representative works of Xiao Zhuan. It is said that after Qin Shihuang unified China, Reese carried out the policy of "writing with the same language, cars with the same track" and was responsible for unified measurement. On the basis of the original seal script used by Qin, Li Si simplified it, canceled the variant characters of other six countries and created a unified writing form of Chinese characters. It was popular in China until the end of the Western Han Dynasty, and was gradually replaced by official script. But because of its beautiful font, it has always been favored by calligraphers. Because of its complex strokes and simple form, it is possible to add twists and turns and seal cutting at will, especially the official seal that needs anti-counterfeiting. Seal script was always used until the collapse of feudal dynasty and the emergence of modern new anti-counterfeiting technology. All the words in Kangxi Dictionary are also marked with seal script writing.

official script

Official script is basically evolved from seal script, mainly changing the round strokes of seal script into square folds, which makes writing faster, and it is difficult to draw round strokes when writing with pigments on wooden slips.

Official script is also called "official character" and "ancient book". On the basis of seal script, in order to meet the needs of convenient writing, the font of seal script is simplified, and the flat and round lines of seal script are changed into straight strokes, which is convenient for writing. It is divided into Li Qin (Guli) and Han Li (Jinli). The appearance of official script is a great change in ancient writing and calligraphy. Official script is a common solemn font in Chinese characters, with a slightly flat writing effect, long horizontal drawing and short straight drawing, and pays attention to "swallow tail of silkworm head" and "twists and turns". It originated in the Qin Dynasty and reached its peak in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Calligraphy is known as "Han Li Tang Kai". It is also said that official script originated in the Warring States period.

Official script is relative to seal script, and its name originated from the Eastern Han Dynasty. The appearance of official script is another great change of China characters, which brings China's calligraphy art into a new realm, is a turning point in the development history of Chinese characters, and lays the foundation for regular script. Official script is flat, neat and exquisite. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, stippling such as skimming was beautified as upward provocation, with different degrees of severity and artistic beauty of calligraphy. Styles also tend to be diversified, which is of great artistic appreciation value.

According to legend, the official script was compiled by Cheng Miao who was not in the prison of Qin Dynasty. By eliminating complexity and simplifying, the font becomes round and square, and the strokes become straight. Change "Lian Bi" to "broken pen" and change from line to stroke, which is more convenient for writing. "Li Ben" is not a prisoner, but a petty official, that is, a small official in charge of documents, so in ancient times, official script was called "Zuo Shu". Lishu prevailed in Han Dynasty and became the main style of calligraphy. As a start-up Qin Li, seal script has many meanings, and it has been continuously developed and processed. It broke the writing tradition since the Zhou and Qin Dynasties and gradually laid the foundation for regular script. Under the unification of the thought of "ousting a hundred schools of thought and respecting Confucianism alone", the official script of the Han Dynasty gradually developed into the dominant script, and at the same time, cursive script, regular script and running script were derived, laying the foundation for art.

regular script

Regular script, also known as official script, or original script, began in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Its characteristics are: square shape, straight strokes, can be used as a model, hence the name. There are many famous calligraphers who have created many representative fonts, such as Ou Ti (Tang), Yu Ti (Tang Yu Shinan), Yan Ti (Tang Yan Zhen Qing), Liu Ti (Liu Tang Gong Quan) and Zhao Ti (Song Yuan Zhao Mengfu). At the beginning, there were not many official scripts left in regular script, which were slightly wider in structure, longer in horizontal drawing and shorter in straight drawing. In the Wei and Jin dynasties handed down from ancient times, such as Zhong You's Epiphany Table, Ji Zhi Table, Wang Xizhi's Le Yi Lun and Huang Ting Jing, they can all be regarded as representative works. Look at its characteristics, as Weng Fanggang said: "Change the wave painting of official script, pick it up, and still keep the vertical of official script."

After the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the north and the south were divided, and calligraphy was also divided into two factions. The calligraphy style of the Northern School has inherited the legacy of Han Li. Its brushwork is simple and rigorous, but its style is simple and rigorous, so it is called "Weibei". Southern calligraphy is more sparse and beautiful than letters. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, because of regional differences, personal habits and book styles were very different. The books in the North are strong and the books in the South are rich, each of which is wonderful and inseparable, while Bao and Kang Youwei highly admire the books of the two dynasties, especially the epitaphs of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Kang cited ten beauties to emphasize the advantages of Weibei.

Regular script in the Tang Dynasty, like the prosperity of the national situation in the Tang Dynasty, is really unprecedented. Calligraphy style is mature, and calligraphers come forth in large numbers. In terms of regular script, Yu Shinan, Ou Yangxun, Chu Suiliang in the early Tang Dynasty, Yan Zhenqing in the middle Tang Dynasty and Liu Gongquan in the late Tang Dynasty all regarded his regular script works as models of calligraphy. Regular script is a common standard in modern times.

cursive script

The cursive script was formed in the Han Dynasty, and it evolved from the official script for simplicity. There are Cao Zhang, Cao Jin and Crazy Grass. Cursive script is a font produced for the convenience of writing. It began in the early Han Dynasty. At that time, it was "Cao Li", that is, scribbled official script, which gradually developed into a kind of "Cao Zhang" with artistic value. At the end of the Han Dynasty, Zhang Zhi changed "Cao Zhang" to "modern grass", and the character style was formed in one fell swoop. In the Tang Dynasty, Zhang Xu and Huai Su developed into "weeds", with continuous strokes and changeable glyphs. Cursive script is commonly used by calligraphers.

Cao Zhang's rescue rod has rules to follow. Representative works, such as the Songjiang version of Urgent Chapter by Emperor Dongwu in the Three Kingdoms Period.

This grass is informal and the brushwork is smooth. Representative works such as "The First Moon" and "Getting Time" by Wang Xizhi in Jin Dynasty.

Mad grass appeared in the Tang Dynasty, represented by Zhang Xu and Huai Su, and became an artistic creation completely divorced from practicality. Since then, cursive script has only been copied by calligraphers. Representative works include Zhang Xu's epigastric post and Huai Su's autobiographical post.

Semi-cursive/running/calligraphy (China's calligraphy)

Calligraphy came into being in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, and it is a font between regular script and cursive script, which can be said to be cursive script or cursive script. It is to make up for the shortcomings of slow writing in regular script and illegible cursive script. The brushwork is not as sloppy as cursive script, and it is not required to be as correct as regular script. There are more methods of mold opening than cursive writing, which is called "mold opening". Cursive calligraphy is more than modular method, which is called "cursive calligraphy". Representative figures: "Two Kings": Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi.

trait

Chinese characters are one of the oldest characters in the world and have a great influence on the surrounding areas. They are letters of other characters. It is a written symbol for recording events. Formally, it has gradually changed from a figure to a square symbol composed of strokes, so Chinese characters are generally called "square characters". It has developed from hieroglyphics (ideographs) to phonetic symbols with both sound and meaning, but the overall system is still ideographs. Therefore, Chinese characters have the characteristics of integrating image, sound and meaning. This feature is unique in world writing, so it has unique charm. Chinese characters are the treasures of China's culture for thousands of years, and they are also our lifelong teachers and friends.

Everyone's spiritual home. Chinese characters can often arouse our wonderful and bold associations and give people beautiful enjoyment.

Chinese characters are the bond of national soul. Making a living in a foreign country, Chinese characters are a kind of sustenance. Even a plaque, a piece of paper, and the square characters on it will attract you like a magnet and make you feel the kindness from your motherland. Because China people's feelings are condensed into the simplest. Every stroke is written in Chinese. Overseas, whether successful or wandering, as long as there are Chinese characters, there will be much comfort and sustenance, because every word has a far-reaching origin, whether pictographic or ideographic, whether knowing or speaking, every China person is the soul of Chinese characters.

Compared with the advantages of pinyin characters

There are two types of characters used in the world, namely, non-pinyin characters (Chinese characters and calligraphy) and pinyin characters (other characters). Among the characters used in the world today, Chinese characters and Shuishu belong to non-pinyin characters.

In today's writing, Chinese characters have been used since the Shang Dynasty and have evolved to this day. Legend has it that the Sanskrit alphabet was created by Brahma, the god who created the universe, and given to mankind ("Records of the Western Regions of Datang"). Many other characters borrowed the four-letter system. Sanskrit alphabet, Latin alphabet, Slavic alphabet and Arabic alphabet are called the four major alphabet systems in the world. Sanskrit letters are used in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, China and Tibet. Latin letters are used in English, French, Italian, etc. Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, etc. With kirill letters (or Slavic letters), converted from Greek letters; Latin letters are also transformed from Greek letters. The ancestors of Aramaic alphabet-Alama alphabet and Greek alphabet-Canaanite alphabet were not directly created by their ancestors, but were transformed from Semitic characters. This kind of writing draws lessons from Samui cuneiform and has been reformed. Cuneiform characters were created by Sumerians, holy script characters were created by Egyptians, Chinese characters were created by China, and Shui scripts created by China Shui people were not pinyin characters. Of the four, only Chinese characters and Shuishu are left, and the other two have died out.

Another peculiar feature of Chinese is its super-dialect and super-language. Linguists divide China dialect into eight major dialect areas. Some people say that without Chinese characters, China would have split into dozens of countries. The differences between Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian in Europe are much smaller than those in Chinese dialects, but they are never willing to admit that their languages are different dialects of "Romans" because they are all independent countries.

In the history of the world, Chinese characters, as the mother characters of other later invented languages, such as Vietnam, Korea and Japan, have all recorded languages with Chinese characters. The Japanese still use a mixture of Chinese characters and pseudonyms, and use Chinese characters. Another great invention is to write Chinese characters and read Japanese. As long as other countries are willing, they can do the same. If this is really done, Chinese characters will become a common international language symbol, just like mathematical symbols, which only express meaning, not sound.

Chinese characters are the most widely used characters in the world. According to statistics, the number of people who use Chinese characters and Chinese has reached more than 654.38+06 billion.

At the beginning of the 20th century, with the introduction of western culture, some people thought that Chinese characters were the chief culprit of China's backwardness and advocated the abolition of Chinese characters. In the second half of the 20th century, computer science developed rapidly. Some people thought that Chinese characters hindered the development of science, and Chinese characters could not be input into computers, which led to the upsurge of abolishing Chinese characters. Later, when the problem was solved, the doubts dissipated.

Chinese characters are the oldest characters still in use. The earliest Chinese characters that can be seen and read now are Oracle Bone Inscriptions more than 3,000 years ago. This is a fairly mature system of Chinese characters. There is no writing in the world that has gone through many vicissitudes like Chinese characters and is still young. The sacred script of ancient Egypt 5000 years ago is one of the earliest scripts of human beings. But then it died out, and the recorded ancient Egyptian culture was buried deep. Sumerian cuneiform also has a history of 5000 years. But after 330 AD, it also died out. Famous figures who have declined in history include Maya and Boulami. Chinese characters not only have a long history, but also have a growing influence.