字形

Chinese characters are the longest continuously used writing system to date, with a history of more than six thousand years. They are also the only surviving writing system among the major ancient writing systems. Throughout Chinese history, Chinese characters have been the main official writing system. In ancient times, Chinese characters also served as the sole international communication language in East Asia. Before the 20th century, they were the official written standard in countries such as Japan, the Korean Peninsula, and Vietnam.

From the ancient legend of Cangjie creating characters to the discovery of oracle bone inscriptions more than 100 years ago, Chinese scholars throughout history have been dedicated to uncovering the mystery of the origin of Chinese characters. Chinese culture has a long history, and Chinese characters are our precious treasures. "The Forms of Chinese Characters" presents 74,344 Chinese character forms in the form of pictures. According to the chronological order and the latest national standard Chinese character table, the evolution of 6,059 Chinese characters is given, along with the pinyin, strokes, radicals, etc. of each Chinese character.

In "The Forms of Chinese Characters", the evolution history of Chinese characters will be presented in the order of the following timeline:

1. Oracle bone inscriptions

2. Bronze inscriptions (also called bell and tripod inscriptions), covering the Shang, Western Zhou, Spring and Autumn, and Warring States periods

3. Bamboo and silk manuscripts

4. Bamboo and wooden slips

5. "Shuowen Jiezi"

6. "Liushutong"

## Oracle bone inscriptions
Oracle bone inscriptions, also known as inscribed shell and bone characters, oracle bone divination records, or tortoise shell and animal bone inscriptions, are the earliest known systematic writing form in China and one of the four ancient writing systems in the world. They possess methods of creating characters such as pictographs, indicatives, associatives, phonetics, transferences, and borrowings, indicating that they have entered the mature stage. Oracle bone inscriptions from the Yin Ruins are records of divinations in the Yin Dynasty. Ancient Chinese oracle bone divination had a long history, and the Yin Ruins period was the most prosperous time for divination. Kings and nobles in the Shang Dynasty almost divined on every matter, and divination became an important part of social life in the Shang Dynasty. The tribute, storage, treatment, drilling, and divination methods, procedures, and grammar and examples of oracle bone inscriptions formed a strict and systematic system. According to oracle bone inscriptions, there were already specialized diviners and recorders in the Yin Dynasty, and there were about a hundred diviners mentioned in oracle bone inscriptions. The content of divination included sacrifices, celestial phenomena, harvests, military expeditions, royal affairs, and even the king's hunting, illness, dreams, and giving birth. After the Shang Dynasty, oracle bone divination gradually lost its prominent position. The discovery of oracle bone inscriptions from the Yin Ruins witnessed the vanished divination system in the Shang Dynasty and provided important materials for studying the history of Chinese culture. Currently, about 150,000 oracle bones and more than 4,500 individual characters have been discovered in the Yin Ruins. From the approximately 1,500 identified individual characters in oracle bone inscriptions, oracle bone inscriptions already possess the basic form of modern Chinese character structure. Although their script styles have undergone evolutions such as bronze inscriptions, seal scripts, official scripts, and regular scripts, the characters with the characteristics of form, sound, and meaning and the basic grammar have been retained, becoming the square characters still used by one-fifth of the world's population today. They have had an important impact on the Chinese way of thinking and aesthetics and laid the foundation for the emergence and development of Chinese calligraphy art. Oracle bone inscriptions have thus become the only surviving writing system among the four ancient writing systems in the world. Chinese characters evolved from oracle bone inscriptions and played an important role in spreading Chinese culture and facilitating the formation and consolidation of a unified Chinese country.

## Bronze inscriptions
Bronze inscriptions are a type of calligraphy name in ancient China, referring to the inscriptions cast on Yin and Zhou bronze vessels, also called bell and tripod inscriptions. The Shang and Zhou dynasties were the bronze ages. Among the ritual vessels of bronze, the ding was representative, and among the musical instruments, the bell was representative. "Bell and tripod" was a synonym for bronze vessels. China entered the bronze age in the Xia Dynasty, and the smelting of copper and the manufacturing technology of copper vessels were very developed. Since the Zhou Dynasty called copper "jin", the