Research on the Graphical System of Eastern Five States' Characters in the Warring States Period

Author: Zhao Xueqing
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-10-01
Features: The Warring States period script inherits the bronze inscriptions of the Western Zhou and Eastern Zhou dynasties and leads into the Small Seal and Clerical scripts, marking an important stage in the history of Chinese character development. This book selects the scripts of the Warring States period from the states of Qi, Yan, Han, Zhao, and Wei as the research subjects, describing the true appearance of the Warring States script and conducting chronological studies, thereby providing a basis for the research of Chinese character development history. The scripts of the five eastern states during the Warring States period are an important component of the history of Chinese character development. Through the study of these script materials, the author finds that they are systematic in their formation. This system is closely related to the systems of other stages of Chinese character development. The formation system of the scripts of the five eastern states during the Warring States period can be viewed from three aspects: first, their basic components and the proportion of characters they form are already quite refined compared to oracle bone script and bronze inscriptions; second, from the perspective of character formation patterns, the proportion of phonetic characters has increased significantly; third, from the perspective of the hierarchical structure of Chinese characters, hierarchical structures dominate, while planar structures are rare. These indicate that the formation system of the scripts of the five eastern states during the Warring States period has matured.