Chinese family of scripts

The Chinese family of scripts is a family of logographic, syllabic scripts, and semi-syllabic in or was in use in East Asia descended from the Oracle Bone Script. Examples of them include Seal script, Clerical script, Standard Script, Semi-cursive script, Grass script, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Zhuyin, Kanji, the different Kana, Hanja, Hán t?, Ch? N?m, Khitan script, Jurchen script, and Tangut script. Many of them are obsolete for writing their own languages like Hanja, Hán t?, Ch? N?m, Khitan script, Jurchen script, and Tangut script, which are Korean, Vietnamese, Khitan, Jurchen, and Tangut. Others still in use are Kanji, Kana, Zhuyin, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese. Most of them are logographic, though Kana is syllabic, and Zhuyin a semi-syllabary.

History

Precursors

The scripts in this family are all descended from the Chinese Oracle Bone Script, which may have had in origin in the Neolithic signs in China. The Jiahu Script is an example of these Neolothic signs and may hav been proto writing, and the ancestor of Oracle Bone script, and due to the maturity of the Oracle Bone Script it must have been developed earlier.
It is certain that Shāng-lineage writing underwent a period of development before the oracle bone script, because of its mature nature; however, no significant quantity of clearly identifiable writing from before or during the early to middle Shāng culture period has been discovered. The few which have been found on pottery, jade or bone at a variety of culture sites in China are very controversial, and there is no ''consensus'' that any of them are directly related to the Shāng oracle bone script.





The most prominent among these scripts today is Simplified Chinese, used to write Mandarin. The only other country besides the two Chinese republics that uses Chinese characters is Japan, which also uses Kana which is descended from Chinese characters and part of this family.

List of Scripts by Type

Logographic: Oracle Bone Script, Seal script, Clerical script, Standard Script, Semi-cursive script, Grass script, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Khitan script, Jurchen script, Tangut script, Hanja, Ch? N?m and Kanji.

Syllabary: Kana, Hiragana, Katakana.

Semi-syllabary: Zhuyin