Seven stages of the evolution of Chinese characters

The seven stages of Chinese character evolution are as follows:

Evolution of Chinese Character Fonts

Chinese characters came into being at the end of primitive society and have a history of five or six thousand years. It has a history of more than 3,000 years since the mature Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Since the appearance of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the development of Chinese characters has gone through two stages: ancient Chinese characters and modern Chinese characters. The stage of ancient Chinese characters can be divided into four stages: Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Jinwen, Dazhuan and Xiaozhuan. Modern writing stage can be divided into official script, cursive script and regular script.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Oracle Bone Inscriptions were popular characters in the Yin and Shang Dynasties more than 3,000 years ago. Oracle Bone Inscriptions mainly recorded the divination activities of the royal nobles in Shang Dynasty. Because it is carved on the bones of tortoise shells, people call it Oracle Bone Inscriptions. The main features of Oracle Bone Inscriptions are: the picture features are obvious, because it is carved on tortoise shells and animal bones with a knife, so the strokes are thin and the font sizes are different.

Jinwen Jinwen, also known as Zhong Dingwen, was written on bronzes-Zhong Ding, articles for daily use, weapons, etc. In ancient times, bronze was called gold, so later generations called it bronze inscription. The Jinwen mainly records the rulers' achievements in offering sacrifices, enfeoffing princes, conquering and using weapons. Its main features are: thick strokes, neat structural lines, obvious restoration of picture features, and words.