Chinese characters have evolved through seven major stages over thousands of years. The journey began in the Neolithic period with simple carved symbols found on pottery and stone artifacts. These primitive symbols, like those from Jiahu and Banpo sites, showed early attempts at symbolic communication and laid the foundation for the sophisticated writing system that would develop over millennia.
Oracle bone script, discovered on turtle shells and animal bones from the Shang Dynasty, represents the first mature Chinese writing system. These characters retained strong pictographic features, directly depicting objects like the sun, mountains, water, and trees. The script had irregular structures with many variant forms of the same character, and was primarily used by royal courts for divination practices, earning it the name 'divination inscriptions'.
Bronze inscriptions evolved from oracle bone script during the Zhou Dynasty. Cast on ritual bronze vessels like bells and tripods, these characters became more robust, rounded, and uniform compared to their oracle bone predecessors. The casting process influenced character design, making strokes thicker and more consistent. These inscriptions typically recorded important events such as sacrifices, wars, royal ceremonies, and land grants.
The Qin Dynasty marked a revolutionary moment in Chinese writing history. Emperor Qin Shi Huang implemented the 'Shu Tong Wen' policy, meaning 'unified writing system,' with Prime Minister Li Si leading the standardization effort. This created Small Seal Script, which unified the diverse regional scripts into one standard form. The characters became elongated with smooth, rounded strokes and highly symmetrical structures, establishing the foundation for square-shaped Chinese characters.
The clerical transformation, known as 'Li Bian,' represents the most crucial turning point in Chinese character history. This revolutionary change from Qin to Han dynasties converted the curved, flowing lines of seal script into straight, angular strokes. The transformation established the five basic stroke types: horizontal, vertical, left-falling, right-falling, and dot. This change marked the complete transition from pictographic drawings to abstract symbolic writing, dramatically improving writing efficiency and laying the foundation for all subsequent character forms.