Characters are the marrow of Chinese people.From the legend about Cangjie creating characters to the founding of inscriptions on bones one hundred years ago,experts devoted themselves to the study of Chinese characters.
According to antique books,there are some records about Cangjie and characters.It is said that Cangjie was an ordinary officer during HuangDi Period.HuangDi arranged Cangjie to manage the number of animals and food.And Cangjie was a smart man,he did well in his work.However,with the increase of number,it was difficult to remember without any assistant tools,such as characters,pen or paper.Later Cangjie had a good idea.He knotted with colourful ropes to show different numbers.It’s easy to show added number with knots,but difficult in unfastening knots if some number decreased.And Cangjie got another idea.He used seashells hanging in the rings to instead of the numbers.At frist it was an effective way,lasted for some years.
Therefore HuangDi arranged more work for Cangjie.He must memorize a great number of things.So it became a difficult problem again.One day,Cangjie joined in a collective hunting.When he reached a three-road junction,he saw three old men arguing which road should they choose.Their respective reasons were the footprints of animals on the ground.Suddenly,Cangjie asked himself that why did he creat notations to show different things.HuangDi was quite happy to learn about his view.He asked Cangjie to teach other tribes this means.Gradually those symbols were used by many people.Then characters originated.
And in modern scholars’ opinions,systematic Chinese characters weren’t created by just one person.Maybe Cangjie was the collector or publisher.In recent years,Chinese archaeologists have published materials about the origon of Chinese characters.Those data include marks which painted or carved on the potteries,bones,jade and stones.They provide us with the new bases in explaining the origon.
The system of Chinese characters formed in Central Plains formally,and it matured in Shang Dynasty.Just from the wirtten words of YinShang Dynasty we got at present,there are lots of carriers of words data.They are the earliest words that found in China.
