 Every character in every language used to have its own different form. The origin of these characters will vary depending on the language, but many of the characters evolved from their natural forms and that means something. For example, letter ‘A' was evolved from the Phoenician alphabet ‘aleph' which means an ox, and before it became Phoenician it was the pictograph that represented a symbol of an ox.  For me to research every character form would take ages; therefore, I figured I would introduce a few basic examples of characters that I know from my native language, Japanese. Japanese characters were created after Chinese characters. Thus, I should be explaining Chinese character evolution, but unfortunately I only know what I learned in school back in Japan.
 The above illustration is an evolution of the character for ‘person'. It shows how a human figure changed into a character.  This is an evolution of a character for ‘tree'. It is quite obvious how the tree branches stretch out to both sides.  This is another evolution of the character for ‘fire'. It still remains the indication of where fire and firewood may be. These are all examples of character evolution. Not every character had forms, and some characters still retain their ancient styles. There are so many characters existing in Chinese and Japanese that nobody will ever be able to learn and write every character. And that is no different than trying to learn every word that exists in English. ...and every time I learn, I evolve, too. Kumiko Kagita March 2000 e-mail: kumispider@mybc.com |