Chinese characters are one of the four oldest writing systems in the world (Chinese characters, hieroglyphs in ancient Egypt, cuneiform script used by Sumerian and Mayan script), among which only Chinese characters are still currently in use.
It is said in a legend that, the origin of Chinese characters is the creation of characters by Cangjie. Cangjie, a historiographer of Huangdi (The Yellow Emperor), created characters with reference to the shapes of the Sun, the Moon and the footprints of birds and animals, making “corn appeared in rain and ghosts cried in the night” (“Huai Nan Zi”). From the perspective of history, the complicated system of Chinese character was not possible to be invented by one person. Cangjie should have made a huge contribution in the collection, coordination and unification of Chinese characters, as mentioned in “Xunzi – Mistake-correcting” that Cangjie is the only one whose has a niche in the temple of fame among all character-lovers.
Functionalities of Chinese characters
Chinese characters are by far the longest continuously used characters in the world, and are also the only presently inherited writing system since prehistorical times, during which there have been certain extent of the self-creation of Chinese characters in East Asian countries. Comparatively, ancient Egyptian, ancient Babylonian and ancient Indian characters have long been lost in antiquity. With a view to this, scholars suggested that Chinese characters are key to the long-term unification of Southern and Northern China. Some scholars also listed Chinese characters as the fifth biggest invention of China.
Among all the historic Chinese dynasties, Chinese characters were the main official characters and they are now standardized as the official characters of China. Chinese characters were already developed to a highly complete level in the ancient times. Not only in China, they had long been the sole international language used for interaction in East Asia. Before 20th century, Chinese characters were the official standardized written characters in Japan, Korean Peninsula, Vietnam and some other countries.