Chapter Three - The Asian Contribution

In this chapter we were able to break away from the western alphabetic evolution and take a look at the evolution of Easter attempts at written language. The chapter began by discuss the various other contributions that the ancient Chinese gave to us: Gunpowder, calligraphy, and most importantly Paper and printing! The duplication of words and images, made possible the wide communication of thought, it was an excellent method, used later on by the Europeans, for spreading their language, culture, religion, and law throughout the world. Ts'ai Lun supposedly is considered the god of papermakers when he reported his findings in 105AD.

The first written Chinese came from Tsang Chieh around 1800BC. Inspired by claw marks from birds and footprints on animals he created a more abstract designs that were more pictograph basied. Simple nouse were developed first, and the written language slowly matured and even became enriched enough to include abstract ideas such as feelings, actions, colors, sizes and types. Chinese character then became logograms, or a sign that represents an entire word. Therefore there is no direct relationship between the spoken and written Chinese languages. So learning the total forty-four thousand characters was a huge feat, and you became very respected in the community if you achived such a thing! The earliest known Chinese (1800 to 1200BC) writing was called chiaku-wen, or "bone-and-shell" script because most of these pictographs can be found on tortoise shells and large animals' flat shoulder bones. This style of writing was more religious than anything and used in the art of divination in an attempt to foretell the future and communicate with the gods.

The next step in Chinese calligraphy was called chin-wen, or "bronze" script, once again named so because of the matreal it was written on. Bronze objects of musical insturments, weapons, mirrors, coins, seals, and even food and water bowls. Once again this was for religious reasons. However these characters were mre regular than in the bone-and-shell inscriptions.

The third style of Chinese calligraphy was created by the Prime minister Li Ssu (280 to 208 BC) and created a style known as hsiao chuan, or "small-seal" style. The lines in this style are more even and thicker, with more curves and cirlces in a graceful flowing style the most abstract of any of the earlier styles. Each character is balanced and fills the 'imaginary square.'

Finally there is the modern style of chinese called chen-shu (or kai-shu or 'regular') which has been in use for over nearly two thousand years. Considered the highest art form in China because of the controll the calligrapher has over each part of the image, and how the negative and positive space plays a factor in the formation of the word. This final form was the first t obe created using ink on paper (or silk) using a brush. Traditional caligraphy still plays an important role in religion and helping one conect to the Tao.

Eventually each calliraphic character was cut into a wooden block and printing became possible. Around 1045AD the Chinese alchemist Pi Sheng extended this process by developing the concept of movable type, a process that never fully became apart of Asia. I find this extreamly intresting, because most people claim that Gutenburg was the first to really have created this process. Because Chinese writing is not alphavetical, types were organized according to rhymes. It's extreamly intresting that the first movable type was invented in cultures whose written language systems were ideographs, so over fourty four thousand characters were required to create sentances.

Slowly all of these Chinese invoations slowly spread across into Europe arriving just in time for the European Renaissance.