Compliment of the Chinese Writing System
Writing is an essential way of expressing some feelings that a person may have. In the ancient world, a writing system of an individual community varied from another because people had limited contact that resulted in fewer interactions, hence, was not able to exchange ideas and develop new systems. China has had a unique culture, and this is evident in the writing system they use. In the current world, there have been interactions between China and other nations, and this has brought some changes in the writing system due to the exchange of ideas. The main reason for changes in the Chinese writing system is because of the new generation that has interacted with people from the other parts of the world. The interactions through latest technology such as the internet have made China writing system to lose its uniqueness and gain some aspects of other communities.
Background
The Chinese system is a distinctive aspect of the recent world of the writing system scripts. Chinese writing system is unique from other systems because while others use few dozen letters, this system has thousands of complex characters and signs (Bauer, 2000) that are used to represent words and morphemes in the Zhuang language.
The first Chinese writing that could be recognized dates more than three thousand five hundred years, but there are some arguments that it may date older. With the new technology and changes in life, Chinese system has had an evolution as time moves on, but contrary to other writing systems, it has retained its old core and makes it rank as one of the major systems to be used continuously all over the world.
Ancient Times
Chinese writing evolved from the old non-linguistic symbols. At a time when the Neolithic period was ending and in the 3rd millennium BCE, multiple pictograms were being incised on jades and pottery. The symbols had their origin from certain clans and families, and the reason for their use was as a unique way to know the owners of a particular pottery work. In the ancient culture, there were minimal exchanges (Shu, 2003), and this influenced the nature of the pictograms and may be evident because the symbols are not entirely Chinese characters though they have a considerable resemblance. In the ancient times, the symbols were used in representing objects, but changed with time and was later used in representing the words of those objects. The symbols were given linguistic values though the exact time of this transition is not stated. The only conclusion that can be obtained is that symbols were the precursors to the Chinese writing system.
In old days such as the time when Shang dynasty existed, the writing pattern in China appeared complex, and the earliest form of the writing is known as oracle bone script that was in use between 1500 and 1000 BCE. To make the script, there was the need to etch animal bones and turtle shells, which were passed through extreme temperatures so that cracks could appear. The Shang court used to interpret the cracks when making divinations of the future events. Translations of the cracks on the bones of the text were done in such a way that if an event occurred on a day that a given mark was made on the bone, there was the likelihood of it repeating itself on the same day in the future. An example is of a sign that was done on a rainy day; hence, there was a likelihood of it raining on such day in the future, and this made the occurrence be referred using the symbol found on the bone. An improvement in the bone script was achieved using rebus writing. While using rebus, a sign of a given word was utilized in writing other words that had a similar sound. An example of the use of rebus in English is the use of the symbol 4 to represent the word four.
The Chinese symbols had much different meaning when it came to using rebus, and this led to ambiguity because it resulted to texts being wrongly interpreted. There was a need to deal with the uncertainty, which led to the scribes attaching additional symbols to the polyvalent signs to have a difference when a symbol was utilized and had multiple meanings. This use resulted in the emergence of compound signs because it led to semantic determinatives as the signs gave related meaning or approximation to the new signs. The emergence category of signs is crucial in distinguishing signs that can be used to represent words that have similar pronunciations.
In the new setup, semantic determinatives are stilled used in China and are called radicals since they are the core of characters though this may be argued that they are not the root, just decorations of the ancient signs that were in existence (Shu, 2003). With time, there was a need to standardize the radicals and are used to represent the systematic format that is used when organizing signs. An example of the radicals is in the Chinese dictionary that has words grouped by their different radicals and sorted using the number of strokes that are used when writing their character.
Phonetic values can be used in distinguishing signs that have similar or close meaning but with different pronunciations. The phonetic complements give a rough guide when using words because the pronunciation gives the reader a way to set apart the significance from another.
The Agrarian Time
Chinese culture has had significant changes with time, and the writing system was not left behind. In the Agrarian era, Shang dynasty existed and facilitated in the evolution of the scheme. The bone script was evolved, and visually it transformed to a more linear, stylized, and had a minimal resemblance to the natural objects that existed. There was complexity in the Chinese writing system because there was a combination of phonetic and radicals that helped form new words that did not previously exist.
In the late stages of Shang dynasty, there was the Dazhuan or greater seal system. This duration was from 1100 to 700 BCE and moved from the use of bones to bronze vessels. There were no significant differences between the greater seal and oracle bone since the script was similar with the only variance visible on the differentiated materials since they brought varying visual styles due to the quality of surfaces used. After the greater seal, there came lesser seal. This writing era is very close to the current system in use because it used radicals and continues to be utilized in the present seals and calligraphy. Government officials used clerkly script in 500 BCE. Qin and Han's dynasties used the system as a fast and efficient way of handling the state matters. The difference between the Clerkly script and its predecessor is that the used characters had minimal strokes and a flowing style and were very simple for painters to adapt and use using pens and brushes. Use of clerkly script is an important issue and mainly utilized in the modern era. The modern Chinese characters primarily borrow from the clerkly script but had to be standardized for removal of regional variations that led to standard characters used universally in the modern China. Clerkly script defined the maturity of the Chinese writing system and existed through the 20th century until the current setup.
Kaisha or standard script is a traditional script but used in the current setup in China. Kaisha has some similarities to Lishu, but is cursive with anchor-like elements at the end of strokes. Running script is the cursive version to Kaisha with multiple strokes that are merged into one. Essentially the system has two strokes or sequential dots that are perpendicular to each other. The most cursive script in China is Caoshu or Grass script that emerged in the Qin dynasty. Shapes of the characters in this system have a significant difference between Kaisha and Lishu characters since some of the strokes merge into one while others are eliminated.
Current Writing System in China
In the mid-20th century, there was a significant change in Chinese writing. The change was the most evident since the standardization process during Qin dynasty. In 1949, China introduced a simplified system with simple characters as a replacement to the traditional Kaisha characters that was known as Jiantizi. The simplification did not affect all the characters because most of them had already been simplified with minimal strokes. The final simplified script was adopted in China and Singapore, but some of the Chinese-speaking communities such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, and parts of Southern Asia and Americans did not accept the change and continued to follow the traditional script. Some of the communities against the new script cited the main reason to be that the clear one had a lot of political undertones.
Influences on the Chinese Writing System
Chinese writing system has been influenced by different occurrences over time though it is the oldest and indigenous system in East Asia. The system was an inspiration, and a basis for the other East Asian writing systems and some communities still use it, while in others it has faded and not currently in use. Initially, Japanese entirely used Chinese as a way to represent various Japanese grammar, words, and syntax. The system had three scripts; kanji with all essential Chinese characters while hiragana and katkana had simplified Chinese characters for sound representation. Korea adopted Chinese script to fit their language and hanja, which are Chinese characters were used in representing sounds and words (YimYoungCheol, 2007). YI script found in Yunnan province in China resembles Chinese writing system since it adopted visual style and idea of writing, but have new inventions.
Disadvantages of Chinese Writing System over other Systems
Contrary to other systems such as the one for the west, Chinese system has practical phonetics hard to master and may need more time. Chinese characters are involving since some may be made of over twenty-five strokes. It becomes difficult for a person to understand Chinese compared to other writing systems because for an individual to read simple language texts, there is a need to memorize at least three thousand characters. In the modern setup, integration has been made possible using technology, but people with an interest in Chinese face a challenge of understanding the characters. Printing was invented in China, but it is still difficult to print their characters compared to those of western countries.
Advantages of the Chinese Writing System over other Systems
On the other hand, the Chinese writing system has some advantages compared to the writing systems of the west. The Chinese system has characters complex but with enough graphic qualities that lacks in the Latin alphabet. Learning the characters takes long duration, but once understood, it is not simple to forget because of their uniqueness (Wei, 2012). Chinese characters have vividness in prose and poetry, which is not attainable in the writing systems that are phonetically bound. The Chinese system is a uniting one because Chinese from the different location may speak unintelligible dialects, but read similar books that make them have a feeling that their language is Classical Chinese. If the system were phonetic, there could be no uniting-feeling and the country could have broken into separate national groups as it happened with Spanish, Italians, Portuguese, and French.
Chinese system helped in East Asian civilization. The people had love for the Chinese characters and endorsed them, which brought an exchange of ideas among various countries. In the East Asia countries such as Korea, Vietnam, and Japan had their books written in Chinese, and this made the nations work as a unit towards a common goal that is civilization.
Reasons for a Change in the Chinese Writing System
Globalization around the world has brought significant shifts in the writing systems. In China, technology is endorsed and most of the people use the internet and mobile phones. The two technologies have led to an exchange of ideas between China and other West countries. With new ideas, changes are made to the existing writing system since the state has taken some aspects of the phonetic systems of the West as a way to simplify the language (Shu, 2003). When Chinese people move to other countries, they learn new culture and writing and at times, it is confusing when writing and this causes a mix-up that has resulted in writing with phonetic elements.
Conclusion
Sound systems complement the culture of a country. In China, the Writing system has had a significant cultural influence because it determines how people understand the language. The writing system has evolved with time because every day there is new life needs that bring people together. Contact among individuals in different communities bring a room for interaction, and this has played a role in helping the Chinese have their system spread all over the world. The reason the Chinese writing culture has grown to high levels is because of the compliment it receives from the citizens and other nations that use the language. For any system to be acceptable to multiple communities there is the need for it to have components that are readily acceptable and learned. Chinese defies the aspect of simple in learning because the characters are not easy, but its strong point is that its uniqueness makes more people feel attracted towards learning it. In the current world, Chinese culture is all over the world due to its economic domination; hence, it makes it necessary for people to accept their writing system to keep abreast with the changing world needs.
References
Bauer, R. (2000). The Chinese-based writing system of the Zhuang language. Clao, 29(2), 223- 253. http://dx.doi.org/10.3406/clao.2000.1573
Boyle, J. (2005). Hong Kong's educational system: English or Chinese?. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 8(3), 291-304. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07908319509525210
Shu, H. (2003). Chinese writing system and learning to read. International Journal of Psychology, 38(5), 274-285. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207590344000060
Wei, L. (2012). Researching Chinese learners: skills, perceptions and intercultural adaptations. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 25(2), 211-214. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2012.693355
YimYoungCheol,. (2007). Aspect of Japanese Language in Korea: a Comparison with Chinese Language. Journal of Japanese Language and Culture, null(11), 107-128. http://dx.doi.org/10.17314/jjlc.2007..11.006
