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Learn Chinese Writing Styles
While learning Chinese, you cannot neglect writing characters. There are numerous styles, or scripts, in which Chinese characters can be written, deriving from various calligraphic and historical models. Most of these originated in China and are now common, with minor variations, in all countries where Chinese characters are used.
To learn Chinese well, it is necessary to know the history of Chinese character development. The Shang Dynasty oracle bone script and the Zhou Dynasty scripts found on Chinese bronze inscriptions are no longer used; the oldest script that is still in use today is the Seal Script (篆書(书), zhuàn shū). It evolved organically out of the Spring and Autumn period Zhou script, and was adopted in a standardized form under the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. The seal script, as the name suggests, is now used only in artistic seals. Few people are still able to read it effortlessly today, although the art of carving a traditional seal in the script remains alive; some calligraphers also work in this style.
Scripts that are still used regularly are the "Clerical Script" (隸書(隶书),lìshū) of the Qin Dynasty to the Han Dynasty, the Weibei (魏碑, wèibēi), the "Regular Script" (楷書(书), kǎishū), which is used mostly for printing, and the "Semi-cursive Script" (行書(书), xíngshū), used mostly for handwriting.
Your Chinese teachers may have mentioned the cursive script (草书, cǎoshū, literally "grass script") which is used informally. The basic character shapes are suggested, rather than explicitly realized, and the abbreviations are sometimes extreme. Despite being cursive to the point where individual strokes are no longer differentiable and the characters often illegible to the untrained eye, this script (also known as draft) is highly revered for the beauty and freedom that it embodies. Some of the simplified Chinese characters adopted by the People's Republic of China, and some of the simplified characters used in Japan, are derived from the cursive script. The Japanese hiragana script is also derived from this script.
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