Chinese characters and Related Topics

Old Chinese

3 links

Oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese.

Shang dynasty oracle bone script on an ox scapula

Seal script on bamboo strips from the Warring States period

Old Chinese was written with several early forms of Chinese characters, including Oracle Bone, Bronze, and Seal scripts.

Oracle bone fragment, Shang dynasty (ca. 1600–1046 B.C.)

Chinese calligraphy

8 links

An example of the Chinese character 木 (a tree) written in Seal script

Memorial to Yueyang Tower by Fan Zhongyan, Song Dynasty

Poems of The four treasures in a scholar's study (Qing dynasty)

A Chinese calligraphy set, Gurgaon, near Delhi, India

Brush-washers for removing excess ink are essential tools in the traditional art of Chinese calligraphy.

Water calligraphy or ground calligraphy is a popular pastime in China.

Bronze script (Spring and Autumn period)

A copy of Wang Xizhi's Lantingji Xu, the most famous Chinese calligraphic work.

Part of a stone rubbing of 黄庭经 by Wang Xizhi

A Tang Dynasty copy of 新婦地黃湯帖 by Wang Xianzhi

Part of a stone rubbing of 九成宮醴泉銘 by Ouyang Xun

Part of a stone rubbing of 雁塔聖教序 by Chu Suiliang

Part of a stone rubbing of 顏勤禮碑 by Yan Zhenqing

A work of semi-cursive and cursive by Mi Fu

Chinese calligraphy is the writing of Chinese characters as an art form, combining purely visual art and interpretation of the literary meaning.

"I speak Vietnamese" (Tôi nói tiếng Việt Nam - 碎呐㗂越南) in chữ Quốc ngữ and chữ Nôm in and chữ Hán in.

Spoken and written Vietnamese today uses the Latin script-based Vietnamese alphabet, the lexicon altogether containing native Vietnamese words derived from the Latin script, Sino-Vietnamese words (Hán-Việt), native Vietnamese words (thuần Việt), and other adapted foreign words.

Current and past writing systems for Vietnamese in the Vietnamese alphabet and in chữ Hán Nôm.

Bronze cash coin, 1st century AD with ancient Seal script

Vietnamese birth certificate in 1938 showing different competing scripts in descending frequency: chữ Quốc ngữ, chữ Nôm, chữ Nho, French

A calligrapher writing the Chinese character 祿 "good fortune" (Sino-Vietnamese reading: lộc) in preparation for Tết, at the Temple of Literature, Hanoi (2011)

Vietnamese Mixed Script in the Ho Chi Minh Museum in 2016

From 111 BC up to the 20th century, Vietnamese literature was written in Văn ngôn (Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese), using Chữ Hán (Chinese characters) and then also Nôm from the 10th century to 20th century (Chinese characters adapted for vernacular Vietnamese).

The empire during the reign of Wu Zetian, circa 700

Tang dynasty

6 links

Imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705.

Portrait painting of Emperor Gaozu (born Li Yuan, 566–635), the first Tang Emperor.

Empress Wu (Wu Zetian), the sole officially recognized empress regnant of China in more than two millennia. She first ruled through her husband and sons for almost three decades, then became emperor herself and ruled in her own right for another fifteen years.

The Leshan Giant Buddha, 71 m high; begun in 713, completed in 803

Nanchan Temple (Wutai), built during the late 8th century

A late Tang mural commemorating the victory of General Zhang Yichao over the Tibetans in 848 AD, from Mogao cave 156

Emperor Xuanzong of Tang wearing the robes and hat of a scholar

Tang tomb figure of an official dressed in Hanfu, with a tall hat, wide-sleeved belted outer garment, and rectangular "kerchief" in front. A white inner gown hangs over his square shoes. He holds a tablet to his chest, a report to his superiors.

Civil service exam candidates gather around the wall where results had been posted. Artwork by Qiu Ying.

Emperor Xuanzong of Tang giving audience to Zhang Guo, by Ren Renfa (1254–1327)

Emperor Taizong (r. 626–649) receives Gar Tongtsen Yülsung, ambassador of the Tibetan Empire, at his court; later copy of an original painted in 641 by Yan Liben (600–673)

The Chinese Tang dynasty during its greatest extension, controlling large parts of Central Asia.

Chinese officer of the Guard of Honour. Tomb of Princess Chang-le (长乐公主墓), Zhao Mausoleum, Shaanxi province. Tang Zhenguan year 17, i.e. 644 CE

A 10th-century mural painting in the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang showing monastic architecture from Mount Wutai, Tang dynasty; Japanese architecture of this period was influenced by Tang Chinese architecture

Tomb figure of mounted warrior similar to the one unearthed from the tomb of Crown Prince Li Chongrun

Tomb guardian (wushi yong), early 8th century

A bas relief of a soldier and the emperor's horse, Autumn Dew, with elaborate saddle and stirrups, designed by Yan Liben, from the tomb of Emperor Taizong c. 650

Illustration of Byzantine embassy to Tang Taizong 643 CE

Tang dynasty Kai Yuan Tong Bao (開元通寳) coin, first minted in 621 in Chang'an, a model for the Japanese 8th-century Wadōkaichin

Tomb figure of a horse with a carefully sculpted saddle, decorated with leather straps and ornamental fastenings featuring eight-petalled flowers and apricot leaves.

A contract from the Tang dynasty that records the purchase of a 15-year-old slave for six bolts of plain silk and five Chinese coins. Found in the Astana Cemetery in Turfan.

Tomb Figure of a Sogdian merchant, 7th-century

A mural depicting a corner tower, most likely one of Chang'an, from the tomb of Prince Yide (d. 701) at the Qianling Mausoleum, dated 706

The bronze Jingyun Bell cast 711, height 247 cm high, weight 6,500 kg, now in the Xi'an Bell Tower

A Tang dynasty era copy of the preface to the Lantingji Xu poems composed at the Orchid Pavilion Gathering, originally attributed to Wang Xizhi (303–361 AD) of the Jin dynasty

A poem by Li Bai (701–762 AD), the only surviving example of Li Bai's calligraphy, housed in the Palace Museum in Beijing.

Calligraphy of Emperor Taizong on a Tang stele

A Tang dynasty sculpture of a Bodhisattva

An 8th-century silk wall scroll from Dunhuang, showing the paradise of Amitabha

A timber hall built in 857, located at the Buddhist Foguang Temple of Mount Wutai, Shanxi

A Tang sancai-glazed carved relief showing horseback riders playing polo

A late Tang or early Five Dynasties era silk painting on a banner depicting Guanyin and a female attendant in silk robes, from the Dunhuang caves, now in the British Museum

Palace ladies in a garden from a mural of Prince Li Xian's tomb in the Qianling Mausoleum, where Wu Zetian was also buried in 706

Tang era gilt-gold bowl with lotus and animal motifs

A Tang sancai-glazed lobed dish with incised decorations, 8th century

Tomb figure of a lady attendant, 7th- to 8th-century; during the Tang era, female hosts prepared feasts, tea parties, and played drinking games with their guests.

A rounded "offering plate" with design in "three colors" (sancai) glaze, 8th-century

A square bronze mirror with a phoenix motif of gold and silver inlaid with lacquer, 8th-century

The Diamond Sutra, printed in 868, is the world's first widely printed book to include a specific date of printing.

The Dunhuang map, a star map showing the North Polar region. c. 700. The whole set of star maps contains over 1,300 stars.

"Great Tang" (Dà Táng) in seal characters.

A Tang Dynasty sancai statuette of Sogdian musicians riding on a Bactrian camel, 723 AD, Xi'an.

She even introduced numerous revised written characters to the written language, which reverted to the originals after her death.

Kyūjitai

2 links

Kyūjitai (舊字體/旧字体) are the traditional forms of kanji, Chinese written characters used in Japanese.

Temple of Confucius of Jiangyin, Wuxi, Jiangsu. This is a wénmiào (文庙), that is to say a temple where Confucius is worshipped as Wéndì, "God of Culture" (文帝).

Confucianism

9 links

System of thought and behavior originating in ancient China.

Confucius in a fresco from a Western Han tomb in Dongping, Shandong

Zhou dynasty oracular version of the grapheme for Tiān, representing a man with a head informed by the north celestial pole

Like other symbols such as the sauwastika, wàn 卍 ("all things") in Chinese, the Mesopotamian 𒀭 Dingir/An ("Heaven"), and also the Chinese 巫 wū ("shaman"; in Shang script represented by the cross potent ☩), Tiān refers to the northern celestial pole (北極 Běijí), the pivot and the vault of the sky with its spinning constellations. Here is an approximate representation of the Tiānmén 天門 ("Gate of Heaven") or Tiānshū 天樞 ("Pivot of Heaven") as the precessional north celestial pole, with α Ursae Minoris as the pole star, with the spinning Chariot constellations in the four phases of time. According to Reza Assasi's theories, the wan may not only be centred in the current precessional pole at α Ursae Minoris, but also very near to the north ecliptic pole if Draco (Tiānlóng 天龙) is conceived as one of its two beams.

Worship at the Great Temple of Lord Zhang Hui (张挥公大殿 Zhāng Huī gōng dàdiàn), the cathedral ancestral shrine of the Zhang lineage corporation, at their ancestral home in Qinghe, Hebei

Ancestral temple of the Zeng lineage and Houxian village cultural centre, Cangnan, Zhejiang

Temple of Confucius in Dujiangyan, Chengdu, Sichuan

Fourteenth of The Twenty-four Filial Exemplars

Priest paying homage to Confucius's tablet, c. 1900

The dragon is one of the oldest symbols of Chinese religious culture. It symbolises the supreme godhead, Di or Tian, at the north ecliptic pole, around which it coils itself as the homonymous constellation. It is a symbol of the "protean" supreme power which has in itself both yin and yang.

Birthplaces of notable Chinese philosophers of the Hundred Schools of Thought in Zhou dynasty. Confucians are marked by triangles in dark red.

A Temple of the God of Culture (文庙 wénmiào) in Liuzhou, Guangxi, where Confucius is worshiped as Wéndì (文帝), "God of Culture"

Temple of the Filial Blessing (孝佑宫 Xiàoyòugōng), an ancestral temple of a lineage church, in Wenzhou, Zhejiang

Life and Works of Confucius, by Prospero Intorcetta, 1687

John C. Didier and David Pankenier relate the shapes of both the ancient Chinese characters for Di and Tian to the patterns of stars in the northern skies, either drawn, in Didier's theory by connecting the constellations bracketing the north celestial pole as a square, or in Pankenier's theory by connecting some of the stars which form the constellations of the Big Dipper and broader Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor (Little Dipper).

History of China

6 links

The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c.

The Warring States. Qin is shown in pink

Map showing the expansion of Han dynasty in the 2nd century BC

Three Kingdoms in 262, on the eve of the conquest of Shu, Wei, and Wu

Li Hongzhang, a Chinese politician, general and diplomat of the late Qing dynasty.

The national flag of the Great Qing from 1862 to 1889. (Triangular version)

The national flag of the Great Qing from 1889 to 1912.

Nanjing Road during Xinhai Revolution, 1911

Beijing college students rallied during the May Fourth Movement, dissatisfied with Article 156 of the Treaty of Versailles for China (Shandong Problem).

The flag of the Republic of China from 1912 to 1928.

The flag of the Republic of China from 1928 to now.

The People's Liberation Army enters Beijing in the Pingjin Campaign

Chairman Mao Zedong proclaiming the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

People's Republic of China 10th Anniversary Parade in Beijing

The flag of the People's Republic of China since 1949.

With the profound and lasting impacts of this period of Chinese history, the dynasty name "Han" had been taken as the name of the Chinese people, now the dominant ethnic group in modern China, and had been commonly used to refer to Chinese language and written characters.

Differences for the same Unicode character (U+8FD4) in regional versions of Source Han Sans

Han unification

4 links

The Latin lowercase "a" has widely differing glyphs that all represent concrete instances of the same abstract grapheme. Although a native reader of any language using the Latin script recognizes these two glyphs as the same grapheme, to others they might appear to be completely unrelated.

Han unification is an effort by the authors of Unicode and the Universal Character Set to map multiple character sets of the Han characters of the so-called CJK languages into a single set of unified characters.

Cao Wei

3 links

Celadon standing figures, Haidian Museum, Cao Wei Dynasty.

Wei (Hanzi: 魏; pinyin: Wèi < Middle Chinese: *ŋjweiC < Eastern Han Chinese: *ŋuiC ) (220–266), known as Cao Wei or Former Wei in historiography, was one of the three major states that competed for supremacy over China in the Three Kingdoms period (220–280).

Oracle bone

3 links

Oracle bones are pieces of ox scapula and turtle plastron, which were used for pyromancy – a form of divination – in ancient China, mainly during the late Shang dynasty.