英语翻译列出从古到今中国语言汉字的演变

英语翻译列出从古到今中国语言汉字的演变
英语翻译
列出从古到今中国语言汉字的演变

英语翻译列出从古到今中国语言汉字的演变
Evolution of Chinese characters
Hieroglyphics (5000 B.C.)
Pictures of nature are found on ceramics dating from this period.For example:river is three wavy lines,horse has mane and four legs,etc.These pictures would later be a basis for the construction of more complex ideas.In fact,many modern characters still resemble their ancestral forms,thereby connecting China's present to its past.
Preclassical (1500 to 500 B.C.) Oracle bone divination introduced.Tortoise shells and oxen shoulder blades are
engraved with important questions and their possible answers.Bones then heated by fire,and predictions made based on crack patterns.Divination process elevates Chinese characters and calligraphy to sacred status.Any paper with writing on it was not thrown away,but burned in a “Pagoda of Compassionating the Characters.”
Classical (Bronze Age to Han Dynasty)
Transition from pictures to stylized symbols.Introduction of radicals to categorize words by
pronunciation and/or meaning.Monosyllabic language becomes polysyllabic.
Postclassical (200 AD to present)
There are six kinds of characters:
1.Pictographs:horse mă 马,shoot shè 射
2.Symbols:up shàng上,down xià 下
3.Sound-loans:scorpion → ten-thousand wán万
4.Meaning-sound:
鱼 (fish,yǚ) + 包 (to wrap,bāo) = 鲍 (salted fish,bào)
言 (words,yán) + 青 (green/blue,qīng) = 请 (invite,qĭng)
5.Meaning-meaning:
羊 (sheep,yáng) + 大 (big,dà) = 美 (beautiful mĕi)
禾 (grain,hé) + 火 (fire,huò) = 秋 (autumn,qiū)
6.Reclarified:
廷 (tíng,front yard) → 庭(tíng,king’s front yard)
RECENT EVOLUTIONS:
Simplification:There are about thirteen very different Chinese dialects.If a speaker of one dialect were to write a sentence,a speaker of any other dialect will immediately understand it.Yet if the two tried to communicate orally,they wouldn't understand a thing!(So the Chinese writing system actually allows you to communicate simultaneously in 13 different languages!) To eliminate such illiteracy,a reform movement arose during the early 20th century,resulting in simplified characters,Pinyin,and the adoption of the Beijing dialect as a pronunciation standard.