ORIGINThe common agreement is that writing in China evolved from earlier non-linguistic symbolic systems. During the Late Neolithic period, at the later half of the 3rd millenum BCE, many symbols or pictograms started to be incised on pottery, and jades. These symbols are thought to be family or clan emblems that identify the ownership or provenance of the pottery or jades.
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EARLY WRITING
Whatever the mysterious initial phase of Chinese writing was, its appearance during the Shang dynasty already exhibited sign of a very complex system. The earliest form of Chinese writing is called the oracle bone script, used from 1500 to 1000 BCE. This script was etched onto turtle shells and animals bones, which were then heated until cracks would appear. By interpretating the pattern of the cracks, Shang court officials would make divinations of future events, hence giving the name "oracle bones" to these animal bones.
THE STAGES
Given its immense time depth, the Chinese writing system is far from static. After, the early evolution during the Shang dynasty, the script continued to evolve. Visually it became increasingly more linear, more stylized, and less resembling of the natural objects. It also grew in complexity, as the innovations of semantic determinatives and phonetic complements continued to be applied to form new words.